[Biopython] Dropping Python 3.7, was: Planning Biopython 1.82

[Peter Cock]

Pull request to drop Python 3.7 support:

https://github.com/biopython/biopython/pull/4309

Note in the Biopython 1.81 release notes we said "We intend to drop
Python 3.7 support."

Peter

On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 10:41 AM Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Related to this, I would like to at least deprecate support for Python 3.7
> which still receives security updates until June 2023:
>
> https://devguide.python.org/versions/
>
> i.e. Print a warning to stderr during installation like this old example:
>
> https://github.com/biopython/biopython/commit/654309121f2cc0c01dfff73cd3dec3a435d76fc2
>
> But it would be simpler to just drop support for Python 3.7 if there are
> no objections? Note NumPy already did this with numpy 1.24.0 which
> was released December 2022.
>
> Peter
>
> On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 10:30 AM Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Thank you to João Rodrigues for handling the Biopython 1.81 release,
> > which helped improve our documentation for this process:
> >
> > https://biopython.org/wiki/Building_a_release
> >
> > Are there any open pull requests our community would particularly
> > like to see merged ready for the next release, or major issues which
> > need resolving?
> >
> > Would any of our regular contributors like manage the release?
> > João again perhaps?
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Peter
> >
> > P.S.
> >
> > One of the main pain points remains building the documentation,
> > which requires latex (easy enough but a large dependency) and also
> > hevea for HTML (not as easy to install as it could be). I have not yet
> > been able to dedicate more time to finish the planned conversion
> > from LaTeX and these tools to RST and Sphinx, but perhaps will be
> > able to work on this during the BOSC 2023 CoFest?
> >
> > Separately we could look at automatically uploading the wheels to PyPI.