3. Python version support

Date: 2024-08-22

Status

Accepted

Context

We need to decide which versions of python we will support. We want to be able to make use of new python features, and reduce the number of different supported versions, but we also want scientists in a variety of environments to be able to use the code in this repository. At the time of writing this, we merged DiamondLightSource/hyperion into this repository. It only supported python 3.11, while mx-bluesky at this time supported 3.10 and 3.11.

Decision

We will support no older python version than described in https://numpy.org/neps/nep-0029-deprecation_policy.html We may if appropriate choose to drop python versions before they are dropped by that schedule. Instead of modifying hyperion to work with python 3.10, we are dropping support for it at the time of writing this.

Consequences

We must always support at least the newest major python version, and most likely several versions behind it, but no version older than 42 months.