IREE Python Bindings will soon drop support for Python 3.6

[Geoffrey Martin-Noble]

Using IREE Python bindings will soon require a Python version >=3.7. If you don't have concerns about this or care about the exact details, you can stop reading now.

We generally aim to support non-eol Python versions (https://endoflife.date/python), but we've decided to drop Python 3.6 support now, earlier than its eol at the end of the year. TensorFlow dropped support at head and with its 2.7 release (https://groups.google.com/a/tensorflow.org/g/announce/c/9wOc3XBDaZs) and our TensorFlow integration generally needs to stay close to tip-of-tree for compatibility with our internal source builds and compiler integrations. We've therefore decided to follow suit. Note that there are non-eol OS distributions (notably Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Debian 9) that come with Python <3.7 and users on those systems may need to manually install a later version. As before, we recommend doing any Python work within a virtual environment (e.g. with the venv module).

https://github.com/google/iree/pull/6611 switches CI systems to use Python 3.7 and updates documentation to note that as the minimum required version. This won't immediately create incompatibility with Python 3.6, but it will no longer be tested. With an upgrade of the TF pip package to the 2.7 release, TF may have started using Python 3.7 features. We also intend to make use of Python 3.7 features once we've made the switch.

Tracking issues:

- Python upgrade: https://github.com/google/iree/issues/6589

- TensorFlow upgrade: https://github.com/google/iree/issues/6595

- Making use of Python 3.7 features: https://github.com/google/iree/issues/4131

I intend to submit the upgrade PR next week (sorry for the short notice, but it is an unstable project :-P).

Please let me know if you have any concerns.

Best,

Geoffrey

[Geoffrey Martin-Noble]

The Python upgrade has just been merged.