[GRASS-dev] problem compiling grass7

[Michael Barton]

On Oct 13, 2008, at 4:45 PM, Hamish wrote:

>>> 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.

My main concern is for future flexibility. Once GRASS 7 is actually  
released, it will be a lot harder to switch from 2.4 to 2.5. This  
means that if there are features in 2.5 that are useful, we won't be  
able to access them. It seems easier to try to keep as up-to-date as  
possible during development of this new version of GRASS so that we  
won't be numerous versions behind in dependencies like Python after it  
is released. It's not a guarantee, but most likely the things that  
were stable in 2.4 will still be stable in 2.5.2. FWIW, 2.6 is a  
stable version, not a development version.

Michael