On 02/26/2011 04:51 AM, Darren Dale wrote: > On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Pauli Virtanen<p...@iki.fi> wrote: >> On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:29:55 -0500, Michael Droettboom wrote: >> [clip] >>> Yes. The minimum version for this Python 3.x compatibility work is >>> Python 2.6. Anything earlier is just insane ;) >> >> Out of curiosity: did you consider using a single source tree for Python >> 2.x and 3.x, rather than a separate branch; providing Python 3 support by >> running 2to3 on build stage and #ifdef's + compatibility headers in C >> code? >> >> This approach allowed Numpy to support Pythons down to 2.4 with little >> extra work, and requires manual Python 3 specific fixes only when >> something breaks (which does not seem to occur often in practice). > > At some point, it will make sense to discontinue support for > <=python-2.5 (maybe even 2.6). I have used numpy's 2to3 for my > quantities project (admittedly a *much* smaller project with *much* > smaller exposure), but recently dropped backwards compatibility and > now 2.6-3.2 are supported in a single branch without use of 2to3. I > prefer this approach, it seems to be working out without too much > trouble so far. > > Darren >
Supporting earlier versions is nice--I work with many machines running 2.5, and keep mpl up to date on several of them, but thankfully I have nothing still stuck on 2.4--but for mpl, now that we have a pretty good 1.x version, I don't think it would be too hard on users if we made a last release supporting earlier pythons and then dropped support for them in subsequent releases. It would not mean people with earlier pythons couldn't run mpl, it would just mean they would get no new improvements, and no new bug fixes unless someone stepped forward to maintain the old branch. Dropping 2.6 any time soon would be too drastic for my liking, though. It would require that any development work done on recent ubuntu systems, for example, would require first installing a non-default version of python. So, I hope the py3k work can result in a 2.6-and-up codebase--is that the present goal? Those of us developing on 2.6 will need to learn exactly how to avoid breaking 3.1 compatibility. Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Software Download: Index, Search & Analyze Logs and other IT data in Real-Time with Splunk. Collect, index and harness all the fast moving IT data generated by your applications, servers and devices whether physical, virtual or in the cloud. Deliver compliance at lower cost and gain new business insights. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
