Re: Supporting upstream supported Python versions

[zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Tue, 17 May 2022 at 00:38, jgart <jgart@dismail.de> wrote:

> What is the opinion on supporting current upstream supported versions
> of python?
>
> The master branch only has 3.9 but I'd like to have substitutes available
> for 3.7, 3.8 and 3.10:

By substitutes, do you mean python@x.y?  Or all python-* packages
compiled with python@x.y instead of python@3.9?


> Could we make all upstream supported versions of python available in
> master?

From my point of view, we can support several version of the CPython VM,
say python@3.10 (python-next), python@3.9 (current default), and various
older CPython interpreters as python@3.8, 3.7, say.

But only the substitutes for python-* packages compiled with the current
default (here python@3.9).  Somehow, we do not have the manpower (I do
not know about he build farm) for maintaining more.  For instance, give
a look at:

     <https://ci.guix.gnu.org/eval/304888/dashboard>

and type “python-”; well, it’s not so bad but it is not all green
though.  Somehow, we have the experience of maintaining 2 versions
(CPython@3 and CPython@2 ;-)) and it is a piece of work to maintain, so
it would be really similar when multiplying the number of CPython@3.x.

Note, however, it is easy to apply ’package-with-explicit-python’ from
’(guix build-system python).


Well, IMHO, supporting several version of CPython is good idea. :-)

Cheers,
simon