generate_packets.py: Add type annotations
alienvalkyrie Reply To alienvalkyrie
* Increase the minimum supported Python version to 3.5 or even 3.6
This script is quite fundamental part of our build (it's needed to build any component), though it's not needed when building from the tarball (one can work around python requirements by producing a tarball in another environment). Python-3.5 was released 2015.
Python-3.4 is already the highest (release date wise) requirement we have for building the server, and even for most of the guis.
alienvalkyrie Reply To cazfi
Python-3.4 is already the highest (release date wise) requirement we have for building the server, and even for most of the guis.
...so what you're saying is, there's almost certainly a ton of new, useful features in less outdated versions of our other dependencies as well, that we could be taking advantage of to improve our code base — and the only real cost would be no longer supporting environments which only supply versions of these dependencies that have already been EOL for years anyway?
My point being; I'm not convinced forgoing the very tangible benefits provided by certain new features is worth it just to maintain compatibility with environments that only ship dependency versions which are years out-of-date.
Reply To alienvalkyrie
Reply To cazfi
Python-3.4 is already the highest (release date wise) requirement we have for building the server, and even for most of the guis.
...so what you're saying is, there's almost certainly a ton of new, useful features in less outdated versions of our other dependencies as well
Not really. For most dependencies the development has been really slow.
Reply To cazfi
Reply To alienvalkyrie
Reply To cazfi
Python-3.4 is already the highest (release date wise) requirement we have for building the server, and even for most of the guis.
...so what you're saying is, there's almost certainly a ton of new, useful features in less outdated versions of our other dependencies as well
Not really. For most dependencies the development has been really slow.
To clarify: We are talking about mandatory dependencies. Optional dependencies are completely another thing.
alienvalkyrie Reply To alienvalkyrie
Leave out any annotations that would require typing
This is the option I'll probably go with, not attempting any try-import shenanigans. I'll also, at this point in time at least, not add any imports for base types from e.g. collections.abc or contextlib – even where those would already be possible in Python 3.4 – for the sole purpose of use in type annotations; I don't think we'll need them very much anyway.
There are still certain considerations:
So long as there aren't any objections to it, I'm going to be making use of these options – the end result will be code that runs under Python 3.4, but uses more recent type checking features where reasonable and subsequently requires an up-to-date type checker supporting Python 3.10 features. I think this is a reasonable tradeoff, since static type checking is entirely optional, even for development.
(Unless, of course, we do decide to raise the minimum Python version to something that has only been EOL for under three years.)
Reply To alienvalkyrie
we do decide to raise the minimum Python version
One option I have in mind is to start keeping our minimum python version, even for things outside meson build, in line with the minimum python version of our minimum meson version, starting from freeciv-3.3, i.e., in master as soon as S3_2 has been branched.
Reply To cazfi
Reply To alienvalkyrie
we do decide to raise the minimum Python version
One option I have in mind is to start keeping our minimum python version, even for things outside meson build, in line with the minimum python version of our minimum meson version, starting from freeciv-3.3, i.e., in master as soon as S3_2 has been branched.
Python requirement bump discussion to a new ticket -> #44735
alienvalkyrie With the decision in #44735 to increase the minimum Python version for freeciv-3.2 to Python 3.5, I will be using the typing module for abstract base types, typevars etc.; however, I'll still stick to aforementioned (string-wrapped) use of newer, preferred typing syntax, so "list[int | float]" instead of typing.List[typing.Union[int, float]] – the only point in evaluating annotations at runtime would be to check that they are well-formed, which is already being done by the static type checker.
alienvalkyrie alienvalkyrie 
Part of #43927. Add PEP 484-style type annotations for use with IDEs and static type checkers.
The decision in #44735 renders the rest of the original ticket description moot. It is kept here as context for the discussion.
Problem: Python 3.4 has no special support for type annotations, beyond allowing function argument and return type annotations. In particular, the typing module is only introduced in Python 3.5, and variable annotations only in Python 3.6.
Potential solutions:
In particular, this means no generic functions (which some helper functions could be)
This might add a certain amount of noise to the script
The first of these options is likely the best one that doesn't require changing dependency versions.