Move to Python 3.8

[cjh1]

[h-vetinari]

Very likely it would be better to jump to python 3.10 right away. The PyData ecosystem[^1] is about ~half a year away from starting to drop support for python 3.8, see NEP 29.

Python 3.11 would also be available of course, but presumably that's still too recent for many people (though it brings some very nice performance gains).

[^1]: numpy, scipy (which are dependencies here), as well as other important players in the ecosystem: pandas, matpotlib, networkx, scikit-learn, etc.

PS. And since conda-forge dropped python 3.7 recently, we cannot update the package anymore (e.g. for important migrations which keep tomlviz co-installable with the rest of the ecosystem)

[Obi-Wan]

Any chance that tomviz will be abandoning Python 3.7? Everyone is on 3.9 or later now.

[psavery]

I think it would be great for Tomviz to move Python forward. The superbuild that makes the binaries is currently in a GitHub Action in this repo.

Since it is open source, feel free to contribute. Or if you would like help from Kitware to do it, contact us here: https://www.kitware.com/contact/

[h-vetinari]

Python 3.7 is now EOL, and Python 3.8 has already been dropped by the newest releases of libraries following NEP 29 (e.g. numpy, scipy, pandas).