[GRASS-dev] problem compiling grass7

[Hamish]

> > I am using python 2.4. Are we going to require python >= 2.5?

Michael: 
> I would strongly suggest it now. Tracking the release schedule of an  
> actively developed language like Python is always a moving target, but  
> as long as GRASS 7 is in development, I think we should try to do so  
> within reason--because it will be much harder to do so once we have a  
> stable GRASS 7.

I am not against requiring py2.5 for grass7, but if it costs us very
little to stay backwards compatible with 2.4, then why not make the effort?
Are the differences that great? Are we missing out on some huge advantage?
Just because we may run the latest OSs, many others may not have upgraded
in the last year, nor want to or are able to.

> Python 2.6 is the current stable release and Python 3 is in beta. So I  
> think we are still being amply conservative by requiring >= 2.5.

for stability reasons, some of us like to run overly conservative systems.
(cough debian cough)

To make a dangerous over-generalization, the older feature set inherited
from py2.4 will be much better tested and bug free than the latest gee-wiz
fancy py2.6 features. And 2.4 is (just) <2 years old. It's not like arguing
to support Tcl/Tk 8.0.


Hamish