dropping Python 2.5 support?

[Oliver Beckstein]

Hi everyone,

We were discussing on the developers list if we should drop support for Python 2.5 from MDAnalysis. Python 2.5 is several years out of date. Significant improvements have been made both to the Python language core (e.g. with statements by default) and the standard library (e.g. collections) that, when used, result in cleaner code.

The opinion so far appears to be in favour of dropping support for an upcoming 0.8 release (see end of this email).

We would like to know if the user community has any opinions on this matter. What we would especially like to know:

- Are you using MDAnalysis on machines that only have Python 2.5?
- Would dropping support for Python 2.5 make work for you difficult and if so, why?

If you are basically fine without Python 2.5 then there's no need to say anything. If this is a problem for you then now is the time to influence the direction of development.

Thank you for your feedback!

Oliver


P.S.: To summarize the discussion so far (which started with https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mdnalysis-devel/Kd_m5_d816g/ZV96FyOkagoJ ):

1) Dropping Python 2.5 support is not likely to inconvenience many users.
- MDAnalysis is believed to be typically used on local workstations with recent version of numpy/scipy/matplotlib and (due to matplotlib) with Python >= 2.6
- If MDAnalysis is used in different functionality (e,g. as part of a control/monitor simulation framework) on a cluster then one typically has to build one's own Python software stack as per-installed Python software is generally outdated/incomplete.

2) Dropping support 2.5 will ease a future migration to python 3.0: python 2.6 and higher incorporate feature and syntax from python 3.0. (See: http://docs.python.org/2/whatsnew/2.6.html)

3) An upcoming 0.8 release would be the ideal time to drop support.

4) Dropping support will allow some code-cleanup and getting rid of some legacy code constructs, overall (hopefully) resulting in cleaner and more robust code.




--
Oliver Beckstein * orbe...@gmx.net
skype: orbeckst * orbe...@gmail.com

[Philip Fowler]

Hi all,

As a proxy for a quick poll I looked at the status of all the machines (mixture of Ubuntu and Mac workstations and some Mac laptops) we installed MDAnalysis on for the Software Carpentry workshop I ran last October and none have python 2.5. Only 1 out 35 was running python 2.5. 12 were running python 2.6 and the rest python 2.7.

--Phil

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