[ASK] Whether to drop support for Python 3.6

[simonzhaoms]

Description

As said at Release Python 3.6, Python 3.6 has now reached end-of-life. I wonder if we should drop the support for Python 3.6 in the near future?

Other Comments

See also:

• Status of Python branches
• Time to Say Goodbye: Python 3.6 Is End-of-Life

[loomlike]

3.6 is still the most popular version:
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-python/3

but I agree that it's a good time to start thinking about migration.
Maybe start running test/build pipelines for both 3.6 and 3.8 for a while and eventually drop 3.6?

[simonzhaoms]

As of March 8, 2022:

Let's see what it will be in 1 month, 2 months, 6 months.

[simonzhaoms]

April 8, 2022:

[simonzhaoms]

[AdityaSoni19031997]

As of https://endoflife.date/python, Python 3.6 had already reached EOL 9 months before. Next best version for long term compatibility is Python 3.8+.

[miguelgfierro]

Right now we are not testing on 3.6, I think still most of the code works, but not 100% sure

[miguelgfierro]

As of Oct 2022

[miguelgfierro]

We discussed this point.

The approach we considered is, right now we are not getting problems with 3.6, and it is used by 40%, so we can keep it for now. If we start getting dependency issues, then we can reconsider removing 3.6.

@simonzhaoms do you like this approach, or do you think we should change it?

[simonzhaoms]

@miguelgfierro Yeah, let's keep it for now.