[Biopython] Dropping Python 3.5 support?
Peter Cock <[email protected]> Mon, 18 Nov 2019 13:29:43 +0000
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.python.bio.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <CAKVJ-_5ttq1xYSPXWePjD3CPTWa7DXvHNa8DBBp4w_0fasttOA@mail.gmail.com> |
Dear Biopythoneers, We have already announced that we are dropping Python 2.7 support in early 2020, which will leave us supporting Python 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8. Both Python 3.5 and 3.6 are no longer getting bug fixes, only security fixes though to September 2020 and December 2021 respectively (based on a five year life cycle): https://devguide.python.org/#status-of-python-branches As usual, the motivation is both reducing the number of combinations we must test on, and being able to take advantage of language improvements. In this case we would be able to assume sorted dictionaries (a language feature guaranteed in Python 3.7 onwards, but actually implemented in C Python 3.6 and PyPy so effectively available in Python 3.6 onwards). In similar past discussion the only real obstacle to dropping support for older Python versions has been when a widely used Linux system had it as the default system Python - although nowadays with conda etc it is very easy to ignore that in favour of a user-specific Python setup. Are any of our mailing list subscribers still using Python 3.5? If so, would having to update be a major hurdle? To start the conversation going, I would like to suggest we drop Python 3.5 support at the same time that we drop Python 2.7 (after our first release in 2020). Peter _______________________________________________ Biopython mailing list - [email protected] https://mailman.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/biopython