Re: [Plplot-devel] Port to SIP5?

[Alan W. I. <Ala...@gm...>]

On 2020-11-30 17:54+0100 Rafael Laboissière via Plplot-devel wrote:

> Dear PLplot developers,
>
> [For more context regarding the request below, see 
> https://bugs.debian.org/964127]
>
> Please, consider porting the Python-Qt build system to use SIP5 instead of 
> SIP4.

Hi Dmitry:

>From the PLplot bug discussion above, it appears Rafael was unable to
modify PLplot to use sip5 with two different methods which
are (1) to generalize our
present method for generating our pyqt5 binding so that method works for both sip4 and sip5 or
(2) adopting the completely new approach of using a sip5-based build system to generate our
pyqt5 binding.
I likely will also not be able to convert PLplot to use sip5
because my sip
expertise is not particularly good.  Also note we must
continue to support sip4 because many latest versions of distros
(including (!) Debian Unstable, see <https://packages.debian.org/sid/sip-dev>)
support that version of sip.  If you do provide a patch for this
issue, I would *far* prefer you to use method 1 that was described above.

Of course, it is normally a good idea for PLplot to support new
versions of external software such as sip5 so long as support for
older versions that are still being used by most distros (e.g., sip4)
is not compromised.  However, unless you can find an easy way to
support both sip4 and sip5 (e.g., with method 1 above), we should
likely just stick with sip4 for quite some time to come.  After all,
sip4 is a mature and stable product that upstream sip
(riverbankcomputing) has continued to support this year via minor
feature and bug-fix releases, and it appears that Debian also has no
immediate plans to abandon sip4.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Research affiliation with the Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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