Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

[Andreas Florath]

Hello!

I suggest dropping python 2.3 support for xen-3.5.

Major Reason:
o Functionality / Libraries are missing:
   Example: for a new feature I'm working on a 'working' base64
   encoding and decoding is needed.  The one which comes with
   python 2.3 is not usable.  There is the possibility to copy
   over the 2.4ff implementation into the Xen source tree or
   to implement this functionality (again).  IMHO both ways
   are not sensible.

Additional minor ones:
o Syntactic sugar is missing; e.g.:
   @staticmethod must be expressed by
   'function_name = staticmethod(function_name)'
   The first makes the code more readable.
o 'try: except: finally:' construct is missing in python 2.3
   This can be rewritten using 'try: { try: except: } finally:' but this is
   not really nice.

Rational:
o Only very old distributions use python versions less than 2.4.
   And IMHO those old versions will never update to xen-3.5.  Typically
   the enterprise distributions (like RHEL or SLES) will stay at the
   same (major) version for each package during the life cycle of the
   distribution's release.
   [For me it looks that only a very few people running old systems with
   xen-3.5. I exchanged some EMails with Isaku Yamahata and
   KUWAMURA Shin'ya (from FUJITSU) - and even those told me that they
   are planing to update in near future or even started to update.]

I read an earlier discussion about this [1], but things are getting more
difficult to use only python 2.3 functionality...


Additionally it makes sense (and IMHO it is important) to have a kind
of roadmap which python version is supported in which release of Xen.
At some point it must be decided, how to deal with python 3. AFAIK
there is a smooth migration path to 3.X from 2.6 only - not
from 2.4 or 2.5

So a support matrix might look like:

Xen | Supported Python Versions
----+---------------------------
3.4 | 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
3.5 | 2.4 2.5 2.6
3.6 | 2.5 2.6
3.7 | 2.6 3.1
4.0 | 3.1 3.2

(Of course starting with Xen 3.6 this is only for illustration.)


Kind regards

Andreas


[1] http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2009-05/msg01331.html

Re: Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

[Jan Beulich]

I'm definitely against dropping compatibility in a way like this, as it would
mean that I can't use the Xen tools anymore on most of my development/
test systems (SLE10 - and no, I'm not in any way considering installing
newer Python there, as that will make it impossible to get other possible
issues resolved on these systems, as I'll always be asked to first restore
the "stock" state of the machine).

Jan

>>> Andreas Florath <xen@flonatel.org> 18.08.09 19:47 >>>
Hello!

I suggest dropping python 2.3 support for xen-3.5.

Major Reason:
o Functionality / Libraries are missing:
   Example: for a new feature I'm working on a 'working' base64
   encoding and decoding is needed.  The one which comes with
   python 2.3 is not usable.  There is the possibility to copy
   over the 2.4ff implementation into the Xen source tree or
   to implement this functionality (again).  IMHO both ways
   are not sensible.

Additional minor ones:
o Syntactic sugar is missing; e.g.:
   @staticmethod must be expressed by
   'function_name = staticmethod(function_name)'
   The first makes the code more readable.
o 'try: except: finally:' construct is missing in python 2.3
   This can be rewritten using 'try: { try: except: } finally:' but this is
   not really nice.

Rational:
o Only very old distributions use python versions less than 2.4.
   And IMHO those old versions will never update to xen-3.5.  Typically
   the enterprise distributions (like RHEL or SLES) will stay at the
   same (major) version for each package during the life cycle of the
   distribution's release.
   [For me it looks that only a very few people running old systems with
   xen-3.5. I exchanged some EMails with Isaku Yamahata and
   KUWAMURA Shin'ya (from FUJITSU) - and even those told me that they
   are planing to update in near future or even started to update.]

I read an earlier discussion about this [1], but things are getting more
difficult to use only python 2.3 functionality...


Additionally it makes sense (and IMHO it is important) to have a kind
of roadmap which python version is supported in which release of Xen.
At some point it must be decided, how to deal with python 3. AFAIK
there is a smooth migration path to 3.X from 2.6 only - not
from 2.4 or 2.5

So a support matrix might look like:

Xen | Supported Python Versions
----+---------------------------
3.4 | 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
3.5 | 2.4 2.5 2.6
3.6 | 2.5 2.6
3.7 | 2.6 3.1
4.0 | 3.1 3.2

(Of course starting with Xen 3.6 this is only for illustration.)


Kind regards

Andreas


[1] http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2009-05/msg01331.html 

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Re: Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

[xen]

Hello!

Sorry - but I do not fully understand you.

What do you mean with 'in a way like this'?  My mail is a try to
establish a long term overview over supported python versions.  This
gives everybody a chance to do long term planing when to upgrade to a
new version.  It was not meant to be 'everybody has to update in the
next couple of weeks'.

What is your idea about future python support and timelines?  Do
you think e.g. python 2.2 should be supported in xen-3.5 also?
(In one of the documents this version is still mentioned.)

[Are you running xen-unstable on a production environment?
I also do not understand: when you currently run xen unstable, why do
you concern about support? You are already miles out of the support
line.  :-)
So when you are asked to 'restore the "stock" state' you also remove
xen unstable?]

SLES 10 comes with python 2.4 (Service Pack 2 uses 2.4.2). SLES runs out
of 'General Support' on 31 Jul 2013 [1] - at this point of time you
should think about updating. And SLES 11 comes already with python 2.6.

Can I interpret your answer as: dropping python 2.3 support is ok for
you, but python 2.4 must be supported for at least a couple of years?

Regards

Andreas


[1] http://support.novell.com/lifecycle/lcSearchResults.jsp?st=-1&sl=-1&sg=1

Re: Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

[Jan Beulich]

>>> <xen@flonatel.org> 19.08.09 12:20 >>>
>What is your idea about future python support and timelines?  Do
>you think e.g. python 2.2 should be supported in xen-3.5 also?
>(In one of the documents this version is still mentioned.)

If any actively supported distro still uses it - yes.

>[Are you running xen-unstable on a production environment?

No, in a development env.

>I also do not understand: when you currently run xen unstable, why do
>you concern about support? You are already miles out of the support
>line.  :-)

No, since I don't remove/replace the Xen version that comes with the
distro, but run various Xen versions side by side. I have severe doubts
that this is possible with Python (even with Xen it's not as simple as it
ought to be - just see how easy it is to run different kernel versions on
the same box all underneath the same single distro).

>So when you are asked to 'restore the "stock" state' you also remove
>xen unstable?]

As per above - no.

>SLES 10 comes with python 2.4 (Service Pack 2 uses 2.4.2). SLES runs out
>of 'General Support' on 31 Jul 2013 [1] - at this point of time you
>should think about updating. And SLES 11 comes already with python 2.6.
>
>Can I interpret your answer as: dropping python 2.3 support is ok for
>you, but python 2.4 must be supported for at least a couple of years?

Not really - I'd still like to be able to also run Xen on my one remaining SLES9
box (until SLES9 goes out of support), which uses 2.3.3.

Jan

Re: Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

[Andreas Florath]

Hello!

>>>> <xen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 19.08.09 12:20 >>>
>> What is your idea about future python support and timelines?  Do
>> you think e.g. python 2.2 should be supported in xen-3.5 also?
>> (In one of the documents this version is still mentioned.)
>
> If any actively supported distro still uses it - yes.

That's a very strange argumentation: So you think if there is
somewhere in the world somebody who supports a distribution for the
next 20 years which uses python 2.2 Xen has to support python 2.2 for
this time?  (I cannot really believe that you think this...)


> No, since I don't remove/replace the Xen version that comes with the
> distro, but run various Xen versions side by side. I have severe doubts
> that this is possible with Python [...]

lenny$ ls -l /usr/bin/python2.?
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1053228 17. Feb 2009  /usr/bin/python2.4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1174292 17. Feb 2009  /usr/bin/python2.5


>> [Are you running xen-unstable on a production environment?
>
> No, in a development env.

>> SLES 10 comes with python 2.4 (Service Pack 2 uses 2.4.2). SLES runs out
>> of 'General Support' on 31 Jul 2013 [1] - at this point of time you
>> should think about updating. And SLES 11 comes already with python 2.6.
>>
>> Can I interpret your answer as: dropping python 2.3 support is ok for
>> you, but python 2.4 must be supported for at least a couple of years?

> Not really - I'd still like to be able to also run Xen on my one  
> remaining SLES9
> box (until SLES9 goes out of support), which uses 2.3.3.

To be sure that I get this correct: you are developing for xen-unstable on a
SLES9 box?  Are you planning to go in production with this?  Where do you get
support from?
And: you like to run Xen unstable on SLES9 but you don't want to upgrade and
you think (because you like it) this is a reason why python 2.3 support
should not be dropped for Xen unstable?

Kind regards

Andreas

Re: Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for xen-3.5

[tamull]

I think the idea to have a compatibility matrix is a good one.

The arguments for supporting rather old Python versions seems strange to me. What is the benefit if the according XEN versions are not supported on the distros in question anyway?
The reasoning sounds artificial, or is there any point which was not stated explicitly???


-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:52:17 +0200
> Von: Andreas Florath <xen@flonatel.org>
> An: Jan Beulich <JBeulich@novell.com>
> CC: xen-devel@lists.xensource.com
> Betreff: Re: [Xen-devel] Suggestion: drop python 2.3 support for   xen-3.5

> Hello!
> 
> >>>> <xen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 19.08.09 12:20 >>>
> >> What is your idea about future python support and timelines?  Do
> >> you think e.g. python 2.2 should be supported in xen-3.5 also?
> >> (In one of the documents this version is still mentioned.)
> >
> > If any actively supported distro still uses it - yes.
> 
> That's a very strange argumentation: So you think if there is
> somewhere in the world somebody who supports a distribution for the
> next 20 years which uses python 2.2 Xen has to support python 2.2 for
> this time?  (I cannot really believe that you think this...)
> 
> 
> > No, since I don't remove/replace the Xen version that comes with the
> > distro, but run various Xen versions side by side. I have severe doubts
> > that this is possible with Python [...]
> 
> lenny$ ls -l /usr/bin/python2.?
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1053228 17. Feb 2009  /usr/bin/python2.4
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1174292 17. Feb 2009  /usr/bin/python2.5
> 
> 
> >> [Are you running xen-unstable on a production environment?
> >
> > No, in a development env.
> 
> >> SLES 10 comes with python 2.4 (Service Pack 2 uses 2.4.2). SLES runs
> out
> >> of 'General Support' on 31 Jul 2013 [1] - at this point of time you
> >> should think about updating. And SLES 11 comes already with python 2.6.
> >>
> >> Can I interpret your answer as: dropping python 2.3 support is ok for
> >> you, but python 2.4 must be supported for at least a couple of years?
> 
> > Not really - I'd still like to be able to also run Xen on my one  
> > remaining SLES9
> > box (until SLES9 goes out of support), which uses 2.3.3.
> 
> To be sure that I get this correct: you are developing for xen-unstable on
> a
> SLES9 box?  Are you planning to go in production with this?  Where do you
> get
> support from?
> And: you like to run Xen unstable on SLES9 but you don't want to upgrade
> and
> you think (because you like it) this is a reason why python 2.3 support
> should not be dropped for Xen unstable?
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Andreas
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel

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