From: Eric S. Raymond Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:56:19 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Third try at documenting command integration requirements. Message-ID: <20121127175618.GA11845@thyrsus.com> In-Reply-To: <50B4A8E1.7050801@alum.mit.edu> Michael Haggerty : > OK, now let's discuss *which* minimum Python version that git should > support in the hypothetical new world... By all means! > It would be a shame to leave RHEL 5 users behind if Python is used to > implement important git functionality. Python 2.4 is missing some of > Python's shiny new features, but still quite OK. What features would > you miss the most if we were to target Python 2.4 instead of 2.6? Off the top of my head...the 'with' statement, the conditional expression, and built-in JSON support. Other developers would be likely to kick about the string format() method; personally I'm cheerfully old-school about that. I agree that 2.4 is still quite OK. I'm a little concerned that dropping that far back might store up some transition problems for the day we decide to make the jump to Python 3. On the other hand, I think gating features on RHEL5 might be excessively cautious. According to [1], RHEL will red-zone within 30 days if it hasn't done so already ([1] says "Q4"). And RHEL6 (with Python 2.6) has been shipping for two years. Policy suggestion: we aim to stay friendly for every version of RHEL that is still in Support 1. I doubt anyone will code anything critical in Python before Dec 31st - I'm certainly not planning to! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux RHEL5 is going -- Eric S. Raymond