[Buildbot-devel] GSoC: Forward porting to python3

[Dustin J. Mitchell]

On Mon, Mar 9, 2015 at 8:23 PM, Jørn Lomax <northlomax at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think how to handle backwards compatability is something that should be
> discussed in greater detail, with input from the community at large. I'm a
> fan of just branching the current build and having a dedicated python3
> branch. That way the 2.x version will always be up to date and we won't have
> to worry about things breaking backwards compatibility. This of course makes
> for more work with pulling in patches to two branches and such, so it's a
> trade-off. But I'm new to the community, so I don't know how you have
> handles things like this in the past and maybe you have a system for this
> already? And I see (from 30 mins with the source, so I might be wrong), no
> reason that buildmaster can't run python3 while buildslave runs python2

We're already running two active branches, more or less -- eight and
master.  So adding another one would make things quite a bit harder,
particularly if that branch would remain separate until we dropped
python2 support (which will likely be several years).

You're right that the master and buildslave don't have to run the same
version of Python.

> I also forgot to mention that the task might seem a little small, but from
> experience, it's better to have a project that is a little too small, than
> too big. Things happen, code is code, computers are computers, something
> unpredicted might show up. If the project is done earlier than thought, I'm
> up for working with other tasks or just fixing bugs/documenting

That's a great point.  I have no problem with a good, solid proposal
for this project.  I would only be worried if the application
suggested you were planning on having an easy summer :)

> Not sure what parts of twisted are ported. They have 167 tickets marked
> Python-3.x, and 69 are still marked active. Looking through them they mostly
> seem like enhancements. I can send an email to their ML or drop by on IRC
> and ask if you want?

The part I would be the most worried about is Perspective Broker.  It
would definitely be worth learning the status of that subsystem.

Dustin