[Biopython] Dropping Python 3.5 support?

Michiel de Hoon mjldehoon at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 18 14:59:54 UTC 2019


 >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).

Let's drop Python 2.7 already in our first release in 2020, so that all releases from 2020 are Python3 only.
Best,-Michiel


    On Monday, November 18, 2019, 10:33:55 PM GMT+9, Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:  
 
 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
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