Re: More recent Python version

[David Kastrup]

Andrew Bernard <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Phil,
>
> Many benefits. I just rewrote my recent flatten-ly tool in Python,
> more as an exercise than anything else. (Thinking vaguely that some
> people may find it more maintainable than Scheme. A foolish
> notion!). I used Python 2.7, oblivious of the fact that lilypond
> requires 2.4.5. So many things that one takes for granted in 2.7 are
> missing in 2.4.5 that I abandoned any notion of publishing a Python
> version, as I am not prepared to go back to a much less functional
> Python and rewrite half the program.
>
> 2.4.5 is very old now, and as with any system, there have been
> enormous strides forward in terms of bug fixes and
> improvements. Python 3 is also out, of course, and this is yet better,
> although the 2 series still has a strong following.
>
> While accepting the dictum that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, this
> also has to be balanced with the idea that it eventually becomes
> necessary to trade in your car for a new one before it falls to
> bits. Since lilypond is under active development, apart from the issue
> of lack of human resources, it seems to make sense to me to have its
> componentry on an upgrade path as well.
>
> Python 2.4.5 was released in 2008. That is now a considerably long
> time ago. I don’t think users would be happy to continue with a 2008
> release of lilypond, by way of analogy.
>
> Moving to Python 3 would be good.

Don't really see the cost/benefit now.  Moving to 2.7 should be easy in
comparison: LilyPond already runs with that on several platforms.  It's
"just" a matter of updating GUB.  No idea how complex that is for
Windows etc.  Python 3 is not backward-compatible.

-- 
David Kastrup