Python version support

Forums Exoplanets Couple of Questions about HOPS Software Python version support

#583028
Dr Paul Leyland
Participant

To be fair to Python (which is hard for me because I have a profound dislike of the language) the various point releases (e.g. 3.7 versus 3.8) appear to be very backward compatible. Something written for 3.7 will almost certainly run without any issues on 3.8 and, when it arrives, 3.9.  Problems can arise in the other direction but old code tends to run well.

The real problems arose when Python 2.x reached end of life earlier this year. Vast amounts of code is now on emergency life support with kludged-together installations of Python 2. Much more is unavailable. To give just one example, my favourite GUI network scanner, zenmap, is no longer part of the Linux systems I run.