[GRASS-dev] Min. req. of programming language standard support, GRASS GIS 8

[Markus Metz]

On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 4:07 PM Moritz Lennert <mlennert at club.worldonline.be>
wrote:
>
>
>
> Am 7. Februar 2021 05:01:38 MEZ schrieb "Anna Petrášová" <
kratochanna at gmail.com>:
> >On Wed, Feb 3, 2021 at 2:47 PM Anna Petrášová <kratochanna at gmail.com>
wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2021 at 11:20 AM Nicklas Larsson <n_larsson at yahoo.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Friday, 29 January 2021, 18:50:34 CET, Anna Petrášová <
> >>> kratochanna at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 4:28 AM Nicklas Larsson via grass-dev <
> >>> grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
> >>> > Dear Devs!
> >>> >
> >>> > As a relatively new member of the GRASS GIS dev community, I have
had
> >>> to search for information on mailing lists, old trac comments etc.
> >>> regarding coding practice and in particular minimum programming
language
> >>> standard support. Ending up in not entirely conclusive understanding.
Up
> >>> until now, I have been mostly involved in Python development and I’m
still
> >>> not absolutely certain, although I assume 3.5 is minimum version. And
I’m
> >>> not alone, see e.g. [1].
> >>> >
> >>> > Now, I’ve encountered a similar dilemma with C standard support,
> >>> attempting to address compiler warnings [2], in particular with the PR
> >>> #1256 [3].
> >>> >
> >>> > I would be great if there were a (one) place where the min support
of
> >>> Python version, C (C89, C99, C11, C17…) and C++ (C++03, C++11, C++14
…)
> >>> standard is stated -- loud and clear. Obviously, there has to be a
> >>> consensus in the community on these matters for that to happen. Such a
> >>> statement will also have to be revised now and then. (A related
question is
> >>> also whether or not to support 32 bit, which I know have been raised
> >>> recently).
> >>> >
> >>> > I’d appreciate your opinion is on this issue!
> >>> > Let me put up a a suggestion for min. req. for coming GRASS GIS 8
as a
> >>> starting point of discussion:
> >>> > - Python 3.7
> >>> > - C11
> >>> > - C++11
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > Best regards,
> >>> > Nicklas
> >>> >
> >>>
> >>> Regarding Python, not sure if we shouldn't set 3.6 as minimum for G8,
it
> >>> is still used e.g. in Ubuntu 18. Any reason to set 3.7 as minimum,
some
> >>> specific features we would want to use?
> >>>
> >>> Anna
> >>>
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > [1] https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/issues/1241
> >>> > [2] https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/issues/1247
> >>> > [3] https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/pull/1256
> >>> >
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > grass-dev mailing list
> >>> > grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> >>> > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Well, I don’t have a very strong opinion regarding 3.7, but personally
> >>> I’d say 3.6 is an absolute minimum. I presume, for example, most of us
> >>> would prefer to use f-strings for string formatting.
> >>>
> >>
> >> yes, f-strings are nice although they have limitations for using with
> >> translatable strings (Vashek can expand on that)
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On the other hand, 3.6 will reach end-of-support at the end of this
year
> >>> right after its 5th birthday party and the support for data classes
in 3.7
> >>> may potentially offer intriguing applications in G8.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I noticed the data classes as well. Given 3.6 is reaching
end-of-support
> >> soon, I agree with 3.7 for G8. I assume grass would be compatible with
3.6
> >> for a while anyway.
> >>
> >>
> >>> Ubuntu 18 has Python 3.6 and Debian 9 has Python 3.5! What will make
the
> >>> lowest common denominator? Debian 10 and Ubuntu 20 actually supports
Python
> >>> 3.7 and 3.8 respectively. Forgive me if I’m ignorant, but isn’t it
possible
> >>> to upgrade Python version on Ubuntu? Or is it just a pain with package
> >>> dependencies? Relying on default Python has never/rarely been a
luxury for
> >>> other platforms.
> >>>
> >>> That being said, I think the most important part of this is that the
> >>> community make a clear decision on min. supported Python version.
> >>>
> >>
> >This GDAL's RFC [1] is helpful in summarizing the issue with Python.
> >Looking more into this, I suggest to go have a longer term strategy for
> >dropping support for Python versions, which would be relatively simple.
> >Basically we would keep the lowest Python version that wouldn't reach end
> >of life at the time of a major release of GRASS. E.g. when we release G8
> >this year, 3.6 will be minimum maintained version. Since 3.6 ends Dec
2021,
> >we could drop 3.6 support next year. I am not saying we need to be strict
> >about that, but might be helpful as a guidance, and it is independent on
> >distributions (which is probably both advantage and disadvantage). I am
> >unsure how this decision impacts packaging of grass, i.e. once we set 3.7
> >as minimum, would maintainers need to make that Python a dependency of
> >GRASS? Anyway, to summarize, I am for Python 3.6 at this point, but we
need
> >to reevaluate that with each new major GRASS version. I think this is
> >conservative enough and perhaps more in line with the C standards
> >discussion.
> >
>
> +1
>
> Moritz

+1

Markus M
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