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One of the most conservative distributions is Debian.<br>
<br>
The python_defaults package has moved to 2.7.3 in Sid and
2.7.3~rc2-1 in Wheezy (Debian 7.0 now on its 4th beta and soon to be
release candidate status). <br>
<br>
I personally run Sid/Unstable in order to get general release builds
of LLVM/Clang > 2.9, never mind 3.2. <br>
<br>
It seems reasonable to target 2.7.3 as the oldest python release.<br>
<br>
- Marc J. Driftmeyer<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/01/2012 12:57 PM, Gregory Szorc
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAKQoGan4iZBHNY5_x4-iCVexPoBQAN6jSZssuG954aOYXk6ogA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">I'd like to continue the discussion about minimum
Python versions from the "Use multiprocessing instead of
threading" thread in its own thread because I feel it warrants
additional discussion.<br>
<br>
In that thread, we were discussing maintaining support for Python
2.4 and 2.5. The latest response is:<br>
<br>
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 1:40 PM, Daniel Dunbar <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:daniel@zuster.org"
target="_blank">daniel@zuster.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
My official opinion on Python version support is to maintain old
compatibility, unless it is causing large problems with the
code.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I would like to offer a counter opinion.<br>
<br>
I believe LLVM should drop support for Python 2.4 and 2.5 for 2
main reasons:<br>
<br>
1) Python 2.4 and 2.5 are end-of-lifed<br>
2) Python 3 is coming<br>
<br>
IMO, #1 should be reason enough. Let me explain #2.<br>
<br>
All the Python in the tree will need to eventually support Python
3. "Modern" Linux distributions like Ubuntu are already shipping
Python 3 as /usr/bin/python (while still offering 2.7 because the
overwhelming amount of Python in the wild doesn't yet work on
Python 3).<br>
<br>
The road to Python 3 for LLVM will likely come via Python code
that works under both 2.x and 3.x (I'm assuming nobody wants a
flag day). From my personal experience, I can unequivocally say
that writing Python that works on both major versions is much
easier the closer the Python 2 release is to 3. In other words,
It's much easier to dually support Python 2.7 and 3.x than it is
2.5 and 3.x. I feel the level of pain is pretty bad until you get
to Python 2.6. Even then, there are dozens of small bugs in Python
2.6 and even earlier releases of Python 2.7 until 2.7.3 that make
dual support difficult (especially in the area of Unicode
handling).<br>
<br>
For these reasons, I urge LLVM to drop support for Python older
than 2.6. I would encourage requiring 2.7 (preferably the latest
available release - 2.7.3 at this time) at the earliest
convenience, but I'm not explicitly asking for it. While continued
support for older Pythons is a noble goal and may continue to
support people clinging to ancient Python releases, this will only
make the path forward more difficult, as it puts an additional
burden on those maintaining Python in the tree.<br>
<br>
FWIW, I've been pushing this same argument at Mozilla for the
Firefox tree [1], where so far it has been winning. We dropped
Python 2.5 about 6 weeks ago and IIRC the only issue was we forgot
to update one set of builders before we made the change. We have
loosely agreed that we want to move everything to Python 2.7 (then
2.7/3.x and then eventually 3.x) and will be discussing this
change in the days ahead. While I'm sure LLVM supports some more
esoteric platforms than Firefox, I believe the data point is still
relevant and LLVM could make a similar transition without a major
headache.<br>
<br>
[1] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.dev.platform/djN02O03APc/discussion">https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.dev.platform/djN02O03APc/discussion</a><br>
<br>
Gregory<br>
<br>
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<br>
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Marc J. Driftmeyer<br>
Email :: <a href="mailto:mjd@reanimality.com">mjd@reanimality.com</a><br>
Web :: <a href="http://www.reanimality.com">http://www.reanimality.com</a><br>
Cell :: (509) 435-5212
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