Proposal: Language version updates

[grayside]

Thank you for taking the time to advocate for samples practice improvements!

Description

It is unclear to contributors what language version should be supported. I think we should consider the following guidelines:

• Do not update the minimum language version beyond the oldest supported language version. For specific products that support an older version (such as Serverless Runtimes), an older minimum could be considered.
• Do not update the minimum language version to a non-LTS language version, for languages where there is a specific LTS release.

The guideline should also link to per-language official guidance on version support, such as

This proposal is not suggesting adding minimum version indicators or enforcement where not present already.

Impact

This will create an improved contributor experience, reducing the amount of revisiting the logic.

Challenge

Negligible, this is mostly about communicating expectations and does not affect code structure.

[grayside]

Work on a proposal around this is in progress.

[grayside]

• signal app compatibility with language version -> particularly for acknowledging language design freshness
• runtime (dockerfile, buildpack, etc) use latest
• supporting all versions of language that Cloud supports