Python 2.4

[Dan Ports]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 12:37:46AM -0500, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> In what way are we still "on" python 2.4? Ports that use python should offer variants, and should default to 2.7.

My take is that the py24-* ports are typically just hanging around not
being used but not usually not hurting anything either, especially if
we're using the unified python portgroup. So is it worth keeping them
around?

There are a couple specific things that are inconvenient about python
2.4 ports, but they are fairly minor:

 - py-foo typically installs a python2.4 port (but not always). This is
   an unfortunate historical artifact; someone typing `port install
   py-foo` probably would not expect or want this.

 - py24- and py25- ports install into a different directory structure.
   This usually isn't a problem, but occasionally complicates things.
   (IIRC, python.link_binaries behaves differently?)

IMO, the more serious problems just relate to having more than one
version of Python around:

 - it's bad enough if MacPorts decides it needs to install a new
   version of Python for some reason. It's terrible if MacPorts decides
   to install an old version of Python for no reason other than that
   nobody updated some port's default dependency from py26-foo to
   py27-foo. I think we're mostly doing OK with this, but there are some
   ports that probably ought to be updated.

 - increasingly, as we update Python modules, we're finding that
   they've dropped support for python24 or other older versions. I've
   noticd this a couple times. So what do we do then? Drop the py24-
   subport entirely? Keep it around with an older version? The latter
   makes maintaining the port non-trivially more complicated,
   particularly if there are patchfiles or other version-specific code.

 - it just adds more configurations that we ostensibly support but that
   no one really tests

We probably ought to take a good look at ports depending on python
2.4/2.5/2.6 and see if there's a good reason they're not using 2.7.
Beyond that, I'm not sure. I wouldn't be opposed to dropping support
for python24/python25 (and some of the older perl versions?) just to
simplify things, but could be convinced otherwise if there's good
reason to keep them around.

Dan

-- 
Dan R. K. Ports              MIT CSAIL                http://drkp.net/