A plea for Python 2.3

[Jeff Squyres]

I was testing the fix for http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/bts/ 
issue967 today and discovered that the next release of Mercurial will  
not support Python 2.3.

As a lurker on this list, I recognize that I may have missed prior  
discussions and/or rationale for why 2.3 support is being dropped.   
Have I missed the boat to plea for continued support for Python 2.3?

I ask because many of us enterprise types are using RHEL4 ("it ain't  
broke, so they aren't fixing it") which ships with Python  
2.3.something.  And I will need 967 fix (support for pushing to https  
through a proxy), which means upgrading to Mercurial <next> when it is  
released.  I installed my own personal copy of Python 2.6.2 to test  
the 967 fix, but I don't know how many sites/users will be able/ 
motivated to do this.

I, for one, might well be happy with reduced functionality with a  
Mercurial >v1.3 running on Python 2.3.  For example, if I try "hg  
some_cool_new_feature ...", hg may respond, "Sorry, I can't do this  
because Python 2.3 doesn't support it.  Upgrade your Python to be able  
to use this feature."  I don't know how feasible this is -- or if it  
would cause unbearable ugliness in the hg code base -- but I thought  
I'd at least throw out the idea.

On the other hand, it's certainly a fair question to ask how many  
people will be affected by removing support for Python 2.3.  Has it  
been established that the answer is "not many," or maybe even "we  
don't care"?  (either of which are valid answers; I'm just curious)

If this is all old discussion and the decision has already been made /  
can't be changed, ok. But I thought I'd ask anyway.  :-)

-- 
Jeff Squyres
Cisco Systems