[Cython] Should we drop support for CPython 2.3? (and maybe even 2.4?)

[Dan Stromberg]

We probably all want to use newer Python features.

I believe CentOS just recently released an OS that includes a recent Python
that wouldn't be hit by this; it'll probably be a while before CentOS and
RHEL people don't desire 2.4 support.

But in my own use, I target 2.5 and up - if a system only has 2.4 or 2.3, I
compile a newer interpreter.

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> quick question before raising a poll on the users mailing list.
>
> Would anyone mind dropping support for CPython 2.3?
>
> 1) it's long out of maintenance, even the last security release dates back
> to early 2008
>
> 2) there have been seven main releases of CPython since then, four of which
> were in the 2.x line, starting with 2.4 in late 2004 - even 2.5 was released
> five years ago
>
> 3) it produces weird and annoying errors in Jenkins, or rather none at all
> most of the time, since the test suite does not run the doctests on 2.3
> anyway
>
> 4) the new code that was written by Vitja and Mark would be (or would have
> been) cleaner with decorators and other 'recent' Python features
>
> There are two sides to this: dropping support for running Cython in 2.3 and
> dropping support for compiling the generated code in 2.3. The first is the
> more interesting one. It's not strictly required to do both, we could
> continue to support it at the C level, but given how badly tested Cython is
> on that version anyway, I think stating that the generated code is 2.3
> compatible is already hand waving today. So we may even just let the C code
> support fade out silently until someone actually notices.
>
> Actually, even 2.4 is a candidate for dropping support for running Cython
> on it. The last release dates back to December 2008, and its lack of 64 bit
> support makes it severly less attractive than even 2.5, which is also going
> out of security-fix maintenance now.
>
> Comments?
>
> Stefan
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