Closed PeterJCLaw closed 2 years ago
Need is a strong word. Do we actually need to?
The infrastructure side of this is a much easier argument, because those are internet accessible and security is more of a concern.
Do we need to migrate the kit software too? I get that it's a legacy technology which it would be good to upgrade, and that competitors all learn Python 3, but it's been that case for several years (I was being taught Python 3.2 back in 2014). I'm definitely not against it, I just don't want us to be trying to do too much in a short amount of time. Shipping something legacy is infinitely better than shipping something unstable!
3.5 feels like a reasonable version, although Debian is often behind the curve when it comes to versions, and chances are "buster" (the next version) will ship before the start of SR2020, which has 3.7 by default.
I'd actually meant to put "2020" rather than "SR2020" in the description, though I actually think that targeting this being done before the start of the competition year is the right thing to do. Some of the things mentioned can definitely wait a bit longer though.
In terms of Python versions, while Buster does come out soon, Stretch will still be supported for some time after that and many currently supported distros are still using even older versions of Python 3. Debating which version to support could easily become a lengthy discussion without much real benefit to it. Supporting 3.5 doesn't really cost us anything, but should mean that things are likely to work in the vast majority of places.
I'm trying not to worry too much about the kit here -- that's already well covered by #19. My main purpose in creating this ticket was to enumerate all the other things we need to look at, so that we don't get to the point of setting up the competitor services machine for next year and find we need to make changes at that point.
In terms of "need" -- we are fast approaching the point where distros are going to stop including Python 2 and well past the point where all current distros have Python 3 available. I think it's reasonable therefore to argue that this is something we need to do.
Sitrep on this.
I've made a good number of the related scripts/programs compatible with Python 3 and just plain converted others. For things which are deployed I'm mostly going for compatible first so that migration can happen smoothly.
The remaining things essentially fall into two buckets: kit related things and user-account related things.
libkoki
things) while trying to upgrade other things.I'm fairly happy with progress on this so far. Happily much of it has been running 2to3
, though the sheer number of things we have means it's been quite slow.
I've made good progress on nemesis
which includes the srusers
library also used by userman
. I think there's a good chance that that stack will be converted before the new year. (See https://github.com/srobo/nemesis/pull/6 and the related PRs specific to Python 3; though also note that both nemesis
and libnemesis
recently gained Circle CI testing as a stepping stone here :tada:).
I'm now ignoring #286 for the purposes of this conversion. As a result, I'll likely pick up #60 once userman
is done, with the aim to have it done during this competition year.
Marking off libkoki generation tool as libkoki
has been replaced by zoloto
which uses standard markers.
Since we haven't used the ticketing/reception software for a couple of competition cycles and likely aren't going to use it, I think we can ignore the need to upgrade them. Similarly the outstanding puppet deployment work was related exclusively to them and was not used at all for the most recent competition cycle.
I'm therefore calling this done.
Python 2 is beyond end of life. Any Python tools we continue to use should be updated to Python 3 in order to ensure that we can continue operating.
This task is a parent task to oversee the general effort.
When upgrading we should ensure wide support for the components remains, which likely means targeting the a version of Python 3 which is widely installed by default. Choosing the version in Debian stable (currently ~"stretch"~ "buster") seems a good choice here, so let's stick to supporting Python ~3.5~ 3.7 and above.
Components currently in use where support is either known to be lacking or unknown:
The following components support Python 3:
sr.tools
sr.robot
& dependencies; however this is already tracked by #19, so any discussion of the kit stack should happen thereDeprecated:
Please add other current components or projects to the above lists if they are missing.