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Time for a 2.4 release? #276
Description
Describe the feature request
With #275, pyshp no longer supports end-of-life python versions. That probably warrants a 2.4 release. It doesn't change the API, so going to 3.0 is probably not needed.
Contributions
- I am interested in implementing the described feature request and submit as a PR.
Activity
schwehr commentedon Sep 1, 2024
From email discussions:
Maybe something like this. By making a branch with continued python 2 support, the project could probably avoid a wait period.
If anyone needs support for older python versions, then make a branch at the last release of pyshp with that version and let work on that branch progress as needed. So if changes need to happen for python 2 in the future, work on the pyshp 2 branch and do a 2.4.1 or 2.5 release etc.
JamesParrott commentedon Sep 8, 2024
Following those same email discussions, and on reflection, I've changed my mind and now support dropping Python <=3.7 for the following reasons:
i) to encourage new contributors who may only be familiar with modern Pythons, for the long term health of PyShp.
ii) older pips will still install Python 2 compatible versions from PyPi until they're yanked (this only ceases development on
Python 2 and <= 3.7 compatible PyShp versions. It doesn't break them).
iii) Emphasise to PyShp users (especially those processing arbitrary shapefiles), that security fixes for unsupported Python versions are not guaranteed. The standard advice to PyShp users for whom security is important, is to upgrade.
Python 3.8's end of life is three weeks tomorrow. So if this is accepted, by the time this hits the main PyShp branch, Python 3.8 could be dropped too by the same reasoning, so work might as well focus on Python >= 3.9.
I'll allow a month or two to gather objections, both from users and my co-maintainers. In the meantime, I invite anyone else who wants to work on Python 3 only code, to submit PRs targeting the 3.0 branch:
https://github.com/GeospatialPython/pyshp/tree/3.0-dev-drop-Pythons-below-3.9
JamesParrott commentedon Sep 14, 2024
I've started a discussion on dropping older Python versions, and will reach out to PyShp's contributors, inviting them to comment.