Re: [GRASS-dev] Min. req. of programming language standard support, GRASS GIS 8

[Nicklas Larsson via grass-dev]

On Friday, 29 January 2021, 18:50:34 CET, Anna Petrášová 
<kratocha...@gmail.com> wrote: 







On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 4:28 AM Nicklas Larsson via grass-dev 
<grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
> Dear Devs!
> 
> As a relatively new member of the GRASS GIS dev community, I have had to 
> search for information on mailing lists, old trac comments etc. regarding 
> coding practice and in particular minimum programming language standard 
> support. Ending up in not entirely conclusive understanding. Up until now, I 
> have been mostly involved in Python development and I’m still not absolutely 
> certain, although I assume 3.5 is minimum version. And I’m not alone, see 
> e.g. [1].
> 
> Now, I’ve encountered a similar dilemma with C standard support, attempting 
> to address compiler warnings [2], in particular with the PR #1256 [3].
> 
> I would be great if there were a (one) place where the min support of Python 
> version, C (C89, C99, C11, C17…) and C++ (C++03, C++11, C++14 …) standard is 
> stated -- loud and clear. Obviously, there has to be a consensus in the 
> community on these matters for that to happen. Such a statement will also 
> have to be revised now and then. (A related question is also whether or not 
> to support 32 bit, which I know have been raised recently).
> 
> I’d appreciate your opinion is on this issue!
> Let me put up a a suggestion for min. req. for coming GRASS GIS 8 as a 
> starting point of discussion:
> - Python 3.7
> - C11
> - C++11
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Nicklas
> 

Regarding Python, not sure if we shouldn't set 3.6 as minimum for G8, it is 
still used e.g. in Ubuntu 18. Any reason to set 3.7 as minimum, some specific 
features we would want to use?

Anna

>  
> 
> [1] https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/issues/1241
> [2] https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/issues/1247
> [3] https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/pull/1256
> 
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Well, I don’t have a very strong opinion regarding 3.7, but personally I’d say 
3.6 is an absolute minimum. I presume, for example, most of us would prefer to 
use f-strings for string formatting.


On the other hand, 3.6 will reach end-of-support at the end of this year right 
after its 5th birthday party and the support for data classes in 3.7 may 
potentially offer intriguing applications in G8.

Ubuntu 18 has Python 3.6 and Debian 9 has Python 3.5! What will make the lowest 
common denominator? Debian 10 and Ubuntu 20 actually supports Python 3.7 and 
3.8 respectively. Forgive me if I’m ignorant, but isn’t it possible to upgrade 
Python version on Ubuntu? Or is it just a pain with package dependencies? 
Relying on default Python has never/rarely been a luxury for other platforms.

That being said, I think the most important part of this is that the community 
make a clear decision on min. supported Python version.


Best,
Nicklas
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