Re: External Deps: Minimal Python dependency

["Alberto Ruiz" <aruiz gnome org>]

2008/7/23 Curtis Hovey <sinzui is verizon net>:
> On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 16:55 +0100, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
>> 2008/7/23 Sebastian Pölsterl <marduk k-d-w org>:
>> > Vincent Untz schrieb:
>> >>
>> >> Le mardi 22 juillet 2008, à 17:56 +0200, Sebastian Pölsterl a écrit :
>> >>>
>> >>> Hi!
>> >>>
>> >>> As mentioned in [1] sqlite is a blessed external dependency now. I want
>> >>>  to use sqlite for Deskbar-Applet, too. Because, Python 2.5 has a  built-in
>> >>> sqlite module I suggest increasing the minimal version to 2.5  from
>> >>> currently 2.4.3 . Of course, Python 2.5 has more benefits [2].
>> >>>
>> >>> [1]:
>> >>>  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2008-July/msg00090.html
>> >>> [2]: http://docs.python.org/whatsnew/whatsnew25.html
>> >>
>> >> (heh, I should read ddl before replying to mails)
>> >>
>> >> So, I took a quick look at the second link. That's all cool, but can we
>> >> get an overview of what is really useful in there for us?
>> >>
>> >> Vincent
>> >>
>> > * Various speed improvements regarding re module, sets, unicode operations
>> > (substring, split, en-/decode) and handling exceptions [1].
>> > * New ElementTree package for processing XML. It's easy to understand and
>> > fast.
>> > * New hashlib package which supports previously unsupported SHA-224,
>> > SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512.
>> > * New ctypes package which lets you load libraries and calling functions in
>> > them.
>> > * The 'with' statement. Which makes it very easy to use locks or read/write
>> > a file, because it makes sure everything is cleaned up correctly (e.g. when
>> > an error appeared).
>>
>> How many of these features are critical for the GNOME modules written
>> in python? We all like new stuff, but _at the moment_ python 2.5 is
>> not mainstream everywhere, so -1 for me as long as new features can be
>> added using external modules for 2.4.
>
> We are talking about making the next version of GNOME with the current
> *and supported* version of Python[1]. I'm not sure running the latest
> version on GNOME on an older release is a priority. The GNOME release is
> distros that are upgrading their packages; the distro can update both
> Python and GNOME. Users that are installing the latest gnome on an older
> release are capable of installing the latest Python.

There's people who backport GNOME to stable distros, there's Debian
etch, there's Solaris 10 (through Solaris Express and OpenSolaris).
Such move will make package maintainers life definitively harder for
no critical reasons.

>
> [1] Python 2.6 is in alpha now, it is scheduled for release in October.
> Python 2.4 is *not* supported. The Python release manager for 2.6 could
> not even get backported security fixes for 2.4 released. Distro are are
> patching Python 2.4 themselves to address security concerns.

I think that what distributions are delivering is more relevant for us
than the python development schedule since it is what people are gonna
use at the end of the day.

-- 
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz