#150 Drop support for Python 2.6, Python 3.3

[Stephen Finucane]

Both of these versions are unsupported by upstream. If anyone is still using these versions, they are either (a) paying someone to maintain then or (b) don't care about the security issues they're exposing themselves to and are happy to not use the features added in newer Python releases. In both cases, it doesn't seem like docutils should be responsible for supporting these EOL releases. More importantly, however, is the fact that this allows us to finally start moving towards a single source for Python 2.7 and Python 3. Supporting this is infinitely easier with Python 2.7 releases, which includes many helpers for use in the migration.

Note that there's actually a lot of cleanup going on here, mostly due to the sheer amount of workarounds still present for these versions. I probably have missed some but they can be caught later.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Finucane stephen@that.guru

[Stephen Finucane]

Second patch to remove additional dead code. This applies even if we don't remove Python 2.6/3.3 support, I suspect.

---

Remove legacy ImportError exception handlers

A number of 'except ImportError' statements were present where they were no longer necessary.

• The 'subprocess' library has been present since Python 2.4 [1]
• The 'tempfile' library has been present since at least Python 2.3 [2]
• The 'csv' library has been present since Python 2.3 [3]

[1] https://docs.python.org/release/2.5/lib/module-subprocess.html
[2] https://docs.python.org/release/2.5/lib/module-tempfile.html
[3] https://docs.python.org/release/2.5/lib/module-csv.html

Signed-off-by: Stephen Finucane stephen@that.guru

[Hugo]

By the way, Python 3.4 is also soon EOL, on 2019-03-16.

Not as big benefit dropping that as for, say 2.6, but something to consider.

[Günter Milde]

Thank you for the patch.
We traditionally announce the drop of version support at least one release in advance,
therefore this change should be done after releasing v 0.15.

[Stephen Finucane]

OK. Is there anything I can do to help there? Where are the announcements made and how often are releases made? If releases are far enough apart (~1 year), we may want to consider dropping Python 3.4 and maybe even Python 2.7 (EOL 2020-01-01). Those should be separate patches.

As noted above, the second patch applies even with the version of Python currently in place. Perhaps this could be applied?

[Stephen Finucane]

Can this patch land now?

[Günter Milde]

As some of the changes in the patch are already done in current master, it would be simpler if you rebase and re-create the patch.

[Stephen Finucane]

I've done this and then some. Just sent a large, 39 patch series to the
list. Please let me know if you receive it. I'm sure I can upload it a
different way if necessary.
Stephen
On Wed, 2019-08-21 at 12:35 +0000, Günter Milde wrote:

As some of the changes in the patch are already done in current
master, it would be simpler if you rebase and re-create the patch.

[patches:#150] Drop support for Python 2.6, Python 3.3

Status: open

Group: None

Created: Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:55 AM UTC by Stephen Finucane

Last Updated: Mon Aug 19, 2019 09:09 AM UTC

Owner: nobody

Attachments:

0001-Drop-support-for-Python-2.6-Python-3.3.patch (25.7 kB; text/x-
patch)

Both of these versions are unsupported by upstream. If anyone is
still using these versions, they are either (a) paying someone to
maintain then or (b) don't care about the security issues they're
exposing themselves to and are happy to not use the features added in
newer Python releases. In both cases, it doesn't seem like docutils
should be responsible for supporting these EOL releases. More
importantly, however, is the fact that this allows us to finally
start moving towards a single source for Python 2.7 and Python 3.
Supporting this is infinitely easier with Python 2.7 releases, which
includes many helpers for use in the migration.

Note that there's actually a lot of cleanup going on here, mostly due
to the sheer amount of workarounds still present for these versions.
I probably have missed some but they can be caught later.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Finucane stephen@that.guru

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