python24-26 policy

[Aljaž Srebrnič]

On 09/dic/2012, at 16:09, Rainer Müller <raimue at macports.org> wrote:

> On 2012-12-09 05:12, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> On Dec 8, 2012, at 17:53, Joshua Root wrote:
>>> 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.
> 
> +1
> 
> Fewer versions reduce confusion for users.

I like the idea of reducing ports, too.

> 
> This is especially a problem as other ports implement a different way to
> select the version for modules/libraries. For python, the default for
> py-foo is always py24-foo. For perl, requesting p5-foo installs the
> p5.XY-foo depending on the +perl5.XY variant of the perl5 port. With
> ruby, rb-foo refers to ruby 1.8 and rb19-foo to ruby 1.9, while no
> rb18-foo exists at all.
> 
> I am not saying that the ways perl or ruby handle this are any better,
> but it's confusing that this there is not one unique way to handle all this.

we should just discuss and decide what's the better option for this. It _is_
quite confusing!

> 
>> 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.
> 
> While we have some ports that still depend on py-*, these are mostly
> other non-unified python modules targeting python24. There are also
> dependencies on ports that provide support for features merged into
> later versions of python (for example py-bsddb, py-ctypes), these would
> no longer be necessary when getting rid of python24.

I'd like to start gradually removing at least py24-* ports from the repo. I
highly doubt there's any demand for older versions, and even if there is
some demand, those users should create their repository, checking out
the older ports from svn.

> 
> Rainer
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--
Aljaž Srebrnič a.k.a g5pw
My public key:  http://bit.ly/g5pw_pubkey