Quoth Konrad Hinsen, on 10 March 1999:
Keep in mind that our target group includes users who don't care about Python. They may simply want to use an application written in Python. Most people I know (computational scientists) use Unix systems that were set up two to four years ago and then never updated. I am sure there are still many systems with Python 1.4 out there.
Absolutely. For example, my old job was at a scientific lab with a lot of interest in scripting. We used MATLAB, relied heavily on Perl, and dabbled (once, long ago) in Python. If I login there today: % python Python 1.0.3 (Aug 14 1994) Copyright 1991-1994 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
Blast from the past, anyone? ;-)
So my vote is for supporting at least 1.5, and if possible even 1.4.
Seems to me that the three most important language/library features in 1.5 were: * packages * re and r'' * class-based exceptions Of course, those are the three that I use a lot, so I may be biased. And Distutils relies on all of them. I could probably hack it so that re and class-based exceptions are only used under 1.5, but I'm not sure if I could sweep the heavily "packagized" nature of the Distutils under the rug. Would we have to resurrect use of the 'ni' module in the 1.4 case? Would that be painful? I think for the initial versions, I'll strive for compatibility with 1.5, 1.5.1, and 1.5.2. Switching the exception model and how the Distutils are organized on a high-level (1.5-style packages vs. 'ni') should be doable without extensive, low-level changes to the code. That leaves regular expressions; I'll try to minimize their use with a view to making them completely optional. (Eg. if version is 1.4, don't even do this regex-based sanity check. If a regex is required to parse some string, then I'll have to figure out how to do it otherwise. So far that's what I've done.) Any other language features I should be wary of avoiding? I am willing to consider supporting 1.4 if it won't be too much trouble, but not in the initial phases -- we should probably worry about that when it comes time to make a public release in a few months. Greg -- Greg Ward - software developer gward@cnri.reston.va.us Corporation for National Research Initiatives 1895 Preston White Drive voice: +1-703-620-8990 x287 Reston, Virginia, USA 20191-5434 fax: +1-703-620-0913