[Matplotlib-devel] supported python versions

Thu Oct 8 18:57:44 EDT 2015

Clarity is nine-tenths of grace :-)
On Oct 8, 2015 1:13 PM, "Thomas Caswell" <tcaswell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sigh, all of my attempts to do this gracefully are failing :(
>
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 3:57 PM Nathaniel Smith <njs at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> FWIW (which may not be much, none of this probably matters terribly :-)),
>> if I saw py26 wheels on pypi or "Python :: 2 :: 2.6" in the trove
>> classifiers, then I'd assume without thinking about it that this meant that
>> 2.6 was supported.
>> On Oct 8, 2015 12:53, "Thomas Caswell" <tcaswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I did not include D because, baring someone making a hard commitment to
>>> maintain a 2.6 compatible 2.0.x bug-fix branches, it is not an option.
>>>
>>> One of the major planned features for 2.1 is serialization which is
>>> being built on top of traitlets, which does not support py2.6.  I have an
>>> open PR to drop [1] travis testing for 2.6/3.3 and master will lose 2.6
>>> support (probably) within the month.
>>>
>>> After a bit more thinking, I think the right way to communicate the
>>> distinction between 'works' and 'supported' is to only list the supported
>>> versions (as in, we are committing to fixing it if mpl breaks on this
>>> version of python) the website, but code the pypi packages for all versions
>>> where it will run.  Dropping support for old version of python will be
>>> noted there and in the release notes, but not mentioned anywhere else.
>>>
>>> So where I currently sit:
>>>
>>>  - 1.5 onward; supports 2.7, 3.4, 3.5
>>>  - individual releases will be coded for what versions of python they
>>> _run_ on
>>>
>>> And again, if 2.6 support is critical to anyone, let us know and we will
>>> see what we can do.
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>>> [1] https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/5215
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 9:29 AM Benjamin Root <ben.v.root at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am for either C or D. It makes zero sense to me to drop 2.6/3.3 on a
>>>> bugfix release, which is why I thought that v2.0.1 was a typo earlier.
>>>>
>>>> Ben Root
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 7:58 AM, Thomas Robitaille <
>>>> thomas.robitaille at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> If Python 2.6 and 3.3 support is completely dropped in Matplotlib 1.5
>>>>> and 2.0, I don't think you will hear (m)any complaints from users. When
>>>>> I did a survey earlier this year, only 2% of users were on Python 2.6
>>>>> and 1% on 3.3:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://astrofrog.github.io/blog/2015/05/09/2015-survey-results/
>>>>>
>>>>> From an external point of view (since I am not a Matplotlib core dev),
>>>>> I personally think option C makes more sense, i.e. still officially
>>>>> supporting 2.6 and 3.3 in 1.5 (all the hard work is done) and then
>>>>> dropping support in 2.0.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Tom
>>>>>
>>>>> Daniele Nicolodi wrote:
>>>>> > On 27/09/15 21:49, Thomas Caswell wrote:
>>>>> >> We already have this 'know to work with' vs 'supported' distinction,
>>>>> >> this is the current state of python 3.2 support.  We don't test on
>>>>> it,
>>>>> >> my response to 3.2 specific bugs is 'upgrade', but if we get
>>>>> reasonable,
>>>>> >> non-destructive patches they will get merged (which we have done,
>>>>> around
>>>>> >> the 1.4 release, after we dropped 3.2, we merged some patches
>>>>> >> from Christoph Gohlke which fixed 3.2 on windows).
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> The reality is that we should have had this discussion 6-12 months
>>>>> ago
>>>>> >> (sorry OceanWolf), instead of on the cusp of a release, and
>>>>> currently
>>>>> >> master (and hence both the 1.5.0 and 2.0 releases) _will_ work with
>>>>> >> py2.6 and py3.3 because we are currently testing on them.  There is
>>>>> >> consensus in the core developers that we will not support py2.6/3.3
>>>>> >> going forward so the question is what to do about the upcoming
>>>>> >> releases.
>>>>> > I agree that this discussion would have been better when the 1.5 and
>>>>> 2.0
>>>>> > releases were planned, but I don't see much of a problem in defining
>>>>> > things now, as not disruptive changes have been made to the codebase.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I agree that dropping support for python 2.6 and 3.3 is the way to
>>>>> go.
>>>>> > What I'm objecting is the "labeling" you are suggesting both in the
>>>>> > sense of the "supported" vs "known to work with" terminology and with
>>>>> > release numbers.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > As Nathaniel pointed out it does not make much sense to drop support
>>>>> for
>>>>> > python 2.6 and 3.3 in a micro/patch level release. I think it makes
>>>>> much
>>>>> > more sense to plan to have a 2.1 release after 2.0 in which new
>>>>> features
>>>>> > could be added and old python versions support removed. Then 2.0
>>>>> becomes
>>>>> > a bugfix only branch. I haven't looked at the code, but I believe
>>>>> that
>>>>> > the only difference between 1.5 and 2.0 are the style defaults, so,
>>>>> if
>>>>> > there is demand, I don't see a problem to also backport bugfixes to
>>>>> the
>>>>> > 1.5 branch and release 1.5 series bugfixes.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >>  The options are:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>  - do not document at all that as far as we know 1.5/2.0 will work
>>>>> on on
>>>>> >> py2.6
>>>>> >>  - document that as far as we know mpl does work on py2.6, but are
>>>>> >> making no commitment to make sure that stays true.
>>>>> > There is another option:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >  - keep supporting python 2.6 and 3.3 on 1.5 and 2.0 and drop
>>>>> support on
>>>>> > 2.1 where new development that can benefit from new python features
>>>>> > should happen
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> Danielle: If you are volunteering to maintain 1.5.x/2.0.x branches
>>>>> which
>>>>> >> back ports bug fixes in a 2.6 compatibly that would be great,
>>>>> otherwise
>>>>> >> given the limited resources the project currently has, that is not
>>>>> >> something we can.
>>>>> > I can try to contribute a bit, but, as I was trying to explain above,
>>>>> > I'm not opposing to drop support for old python releases, but merely
>>>>> to
>>>>> > the labeling and wording.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> I have already linked to this article is this thread, but once more
>>>>> for
>>>>> >> good measure:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2015/04/stop-supporting-python26.html
>>>>> > As the work to make 1.5 and 2.0 releases work with python 2.6 and 3.3
>>>>> > has already been done, I don't think this article is much relevant to
>>>>> > the discussion. I'm all in favor of not keeping python 2.6 support,
>>>>> and
>>>>> > I don't think that anyone that uses python 3 is stuck with an old
>>>>> python
>>>>> > 3.3. But given that we already have the support for those release,
>>>>> > please keep it and drop it in a future release.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Cheer,
>>>>> > Daniele
>>>>> >
>>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>>> > Matplotlib-devel mailing list
>>>>> > Matplotlib-devel at python.org
>>>>> > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Matplotlib-devel mailing list
>>>>> Matplotlib-devel at python.org
>>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Matplotlib-devel mailing list
>>>> Matplotlib-devel at python.org
>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Matplotlib-devel mailing list
>>> Matplotlib-devel at python.org
>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
>>>
>>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/matplotlib-devel/attachments/20151008/90069205/attachment-0001.html>