Giovanni Bajo píše v Čt 30. 08. 2012 v 23:13 +0200:
> Hi Matysek,
> 
> why are you dropping Python 2.3 support? it's not in the way that much, and 
> it seems totally gratuitous to me. Why should we remove working 
> functionalities just for the sake of it?


Technically speaking, it's possible to still support Python 2.3 but in
fact it's getting harder to ensure PyInstaller will still work with
python 2.3:

- continuous integration server is a real help in ensuring stability of
development code, however there is only python 2.4+.

- I care about stability of development branch. If you want to avoid
situations where the code compatibility for older python releases would
be restored in bugfix releases then it's easier to drop python 2.3. This
situation already happened with some older releases. Bug reports are
mostly windows/osx. If anyone needs some bugfixes he could start
maintain any released version.

- subprocess module is used in some test code and without that you would
have to has some compatibility code directly in tests and you would have
to be exposed to command formatting issues for windows command prompt.
Since tests should be standalone and should not use any 

- With python 2.4+ we are open to new language features like @decorators
or generators. With generators the PyInstaller performance could be
improved.

- Without 2.3 we can drop more old code - like code using os.system() or
reference counting emulation in bootloader code. I could probably find
something more.

- I doubt anyone on Windows uses Python 2.3 or I haven't heard about
anyone for really long time. Bug reports are mostly Python 2.6/2.7 on
windows. On osx we never supported Python 2.3 since proper osx support
was added recently - it's python 2.5+. Where it could make sense to
support python 2.3 is Linux. But on Linux PyInstaller is fairly stable
and people could still use any older version there.

- Another point are code merge requests. If you are merging new code you
have to ensure it is compatible with Python 2.3. With python 2.4 it is
less work since continuous integration server will tell you next day if
it works with python 2.4 or not.

- My thinking is: "Improve code and drop old code as much as you can
before moving to Python 3 support." Some PyInstaller code has not been
touched for ages.

- My intention is not to drop python 2 support completely. I think we'll
stick with python 2.4+ support for a long time.

- Personally, I would rather spend more time on Python 3 than on
ensuring python 2.3 compatibility.


On the other hand, is there any good reason and men power to still
maintain compatibility with Python 2.3?

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