RFC: Remove old Python versions

[Chih-Hsuan Yen]

G Alexander <artist.impressionist at gmail.com> 於 2018年10月27日 週六 下午5:09寫道：
>
> I run my system, stable, lean and mean.  You have to modify the python.tcl file and strip out all of the references in the portfiles.  I created a simple and fast bash script that replaces all of the python.version 2. blah blah to python.version 3.7  I did similar with php, perl.  see my bitbucket or github repo
>

Hi,

Could you describe more about your suggestions? I didn't find
python.tcl in MacPorts repos. And I can't find your repos. Could you
paste links?

And please use "reply all" so everyone on the mailing list can see your replies.

Cheers,

Chih

> > On Oct 27, 2018, at 04:38, Chih-Hsuan Yen <yan12125 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Chih-Hsuan Yen <yan12125 at gmail.com> 於 2018年10月24日 週三 上午11:12寫道：
> >>
> >>
> >> Fred Wright <fw at fwright.net> 於 2018年10月22日 週一 上午3:27寫道：
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2018, Chih-Hsuan Yen wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I'd like to remove old Python version - python{24,25,31,32,33}. I see no
> >>>> ports depend on python{31,32,33} and no one maintains them, but those
> >>>> ports are still kept for while. Is there a reason for not deleting them?
> >>>
> >>> Some of us like to test Python code against as many versions as possible.
> >>> It's bad enough to have to maintain locally patched versions of a few
> >>> Python-related ports just to expand the version lists, without having the
> >>> Python versions themselves disappear.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Thanks for pointing out a valid reason for keeping old Python versions. I know some projects still supporting as old as Python 3.2 or 2.6. Are there examples for Python 2.5 and 3.1?
> >>
> >>> My own philosophy is never to drop anything without a sound technical
> >>> reason, rather than just being "too old".  If the same zeal for
> >>> eliminating Python versions were applied to OS versions, MacPorts wouldn't
> >>> run on anything older than 10.12.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Well, upgrading from old Python versions is much easier than upgrading from old OS X versions. Due to Apple policies, new OS X versions do not work on old machines, and buying a new machine is apparently not an option for some people. In contrast, upgrading from Python 2.5 to 2.7 or 3.1 to 3.4+ takes almost no cost as CPython developers keep backward compatibility as best as they can do.
> >>
> >> Regarding "technical reasons" - there's one: old Python version does not build with OpenSSL 1.1, thus a blocker for upgrading the openssl port, and I don't think backporting fixes for openssl 1.1 is feasible as hundreds of lines should be patched.
> >>
> >>> Checking port dependents is inadequate, since it doesn't cover
> >>> "dependents" based on user interest.  If one were to remove all ports
> >>> without dependents, and iterate, there would be no ports at all. :-)
> >>>
> >>
> >> Of course I won't even consider ports with maintainers - there's at least one user :) I wrote this letter as those old Python versions are marked as nomaintainer (except python24, which the maintainer confirms he no longer needs it), so I wonder if there are still users for them.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Chih-Hsuan Yen
> >>
> >>> Fred Wright
> >
> > I removed Python 2.5 and Python 3.1 in
> > https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/160f340665b9d97c1065fcb2aecb5b504a7b3cb4.
> > Python 3.2 and 3.3 are kept for now until most Python libraries drop
> > support for them. See https://hugovk.github.io/drop-python/ for
> > statistical data.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Chih-Hsuan Yen
>