python24-26 policy

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Dec 8, 2012, at 17:53, Joshua Root wrote:
> On 2012-12-9 10:31 , Aljaž Srebrnič wrote:
>> I'd like to know what's the policy with maintaining py2[4-6]- ports…
>> Shouldn't we gradually drop support for older python versions?
> 
> With the unified portgroup there's almost no extra effort involved in
> having them. I don't think there's any reason to drop them until
> upstream does.

Users unfamiliar with the intricacies of the python ports in MacPorts may (and do) install "py-foo" and receive "py24-foo", and either assume that's the best we have to offer, or just run into problems because python 2.4 is old. We should be encouraging the use of python 2.7. Removing the python 24 subports from unified ports would facilitate that.

py24 and py25 are different from the other pythons in that they are not framework builds. This difference unnecessarily complicates some ports and is confusing for port authors.

If all the python modules were using the unified portgroup and had been doing so for awhile, we could just remove the py24 default in the portgroup, which was only there to help users upgrade from the pre-unified ports. But we still have many ports that are not unified.