On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 at 13:06, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > Jonathan Wakely <jwakely....@gmail.com>: > > On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 at 11:56, David Malcolm wrote: > > > Python 2.6 onwards is broadly compatible with Python 3.*. and is about > > > to be 10 years old. (IIRC it was the system python implementation in > > > RHEL 6). > > > > It is indeed. Without some regular testing with Python 2.6 it could be > > easy to introduce code that doesn't actually work on that old version. > > I did that recently, see PR 86112. > > > > This isn't an objection to using Python (I like it, and anyway I don't > > touch the parts of GCC that you're talking about using it for). Just a > > caution that trying to restrict yourself to a portable subset isn't > > always easy for casual users of a language (also a problem with C++98 > > vs C++11 vs C++14 as I'm sure many GCC devs are aware). > > It's not very difficult to write "polyglot" Python that is indifferent > to which version it runs under. I had to solve this problem for > reposurgeon; techniques documented here...
I don't see any mention of avoiding dict comprehensions (not supported until 2.7, so unusable on RHEL6/CentOS6 and SLES 11). I maintain it's easy to unwittingly use a feature (such as dict comprehensions) which works fine on your machine, but aren't supported by all versions you intend to support. Regular testing with the oldest version is needed to prevent that (which was the point I was making).
