[soton] [activity-2014-10-29] Tools improvements

[Tom Leese]

Hi all,

In tandem with the vault reshuffle happening tomorrow, I will be running a doing
where we shall look at improving the SR tools infrastructure. Aims for this
doing include:

- Porting to Python 3
- Removal of old, no longer needed scripts
- Switch to using setuptools/pip
- Creating some new tools which may be of use: inventory label generation?

It will take place in Seminar Room 1 in the Zepler Building at 5pm as per
normal and we'll probably be going to pub around 8pm.

Tom

[Sam Phippen]

On 28 Oct 2014, at 22:19, Tom Leese <in...@tomleese.me.uk> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> In tandem with the vault reshuffle happening tomorrow, I will be running a doing
> where we shall look at improving the SR tools infrastructure. Aims for this
> doing include:
>
> - Porting to Python 3

I do not think we should force people to upgrade their python for the SR tools.
I would describe myself as mostly against this idea for the moment. If we can
make the tools both 2 and 3 compatible I will be fine with this.

Thanks
—
Sam Phippen

[Tom Leese]

Hi Sam,

On Tuesday 28 October 2014 22:36:11 Sam Phippen wrote:
> If we can make the tools both 2 and 3 compatible I will be fine with this.

I'm happy with this as a starting point.

I am of the opinion though that SR, as a whole, needs to move forward with
supporting Python 3. It has some really nice features, and more and more Linux
distributions are shipping '/usr/bin/python' as Python 3.

Tom

[Alistair Lynn]

Hi Sam-

> I do not think we should force people to upgrade their python for the SR tools.

I'm not sure I agree. We already require people to install various
dependencies for the SR tools (PyYAML, sympy, that sort of thing)—it's
not really worse to add python3 to that list in my opinion.

Alistair

[Murray Colpman]

On 28/10/14 22:36, Sam Phippen wrote:
> I do not think we should force people to upgrade their python for the SR tools.
> I would describe myself as mostly against this idea for the moment. If we can
> make the tools both 2 and 3 compatible I will be fine with this.

This is being done, but I'm curious about your objection. Given that
most systems come with python3 by now, and that it is supported and,
indeed, recommended to have both python2 and python3 installed as
different binaries and running at the same time with no problems; what
exactly is the problem with requiring Python 3 to be installed, as
opposed to, say, PyYAML (as Alistair has already noted)?

Murray.

[Steven Haywood]

To be honest, just shoot for 2/3 compatibility and avoid the argument
entirely. "from __future__ import <whatever>" works just fine in 2.7+
anyhow.

Steven