[chirp_devel] Python 3 status

Fri Aug 20 15:47:31 PDT 2021

Here's my take on the current situation with the various efforts at moving
Chirp to Python 3.

* Matthew Poletiek has created a GitHub repo for Py3, but it was not
created properly. Instead of migrating the Mercurial repo to Git, what Matt
did was make a copy / take a snapshot of the 'py3' branch in Mercurial.
Then he made some local changes, and *then* he checked it into a new GitHub
repo. So there are a couple of issues here. One, all of the history of the
codebase has been lost. Two, Matthew's initial changes have been lost,
since it looks like he made local changes between copying from Mercurial
and checking into GitHub. I suppose, in theory, if you knew the commit at
which Matthew made his copy from Mercurial, you could somehow diff the
entire tree between that and his initial commit to GitHub. But there's no
commit history to explain what he did.

* Joe Pizzi started from Matthew Poletiek's codebase. He too has a repo on
GitHub. The big issue here is that, for unknown (to me) reasons, he did not
fork Matthew's codebase, preserving history, but actually copied it into a
new GitHub repo. So in Joe's codebase, we not only have the same issues as
with Matthew's codebase, described above, but we also have the issue of
when Joe made his copy of Matthew's codebase, and whether or not Matthew
made changes to his after Joe made that copy.

* A huge number of changes have been made to the (Python 2) trunk of Chirp
since Matthew made his copy, and those have not been merged into either the
'py3' Mercurial branch or the GitHub tree(s).

This is a mess. It is unclear to me whether Matthew and Joe are intending
for their changes to be merged back, but I think it would be extremely
unlikely for that to happen. Since the history has been lost in the GitHub
trees, any attempt to merge in one or both of these trees would have to
come in the form of a gigantic patch with no history. Frankly, I would be
very surprised if Dan would apply such a patch, even if he had the time and
inclination to review it. Having no opportunity to review the changes
commit by commit, it would be an all-or-nothing merge.

In my opinion, what would really need to happen is:

1. Do a proper migration of the Mercurial codebase to Git, preserving full
history. Make a clear note of the (Mercurial) commit at which this was
done, for later reference. (The right thing would be for the Mercurial repo
to be tagged at this point, but that seems unlikely to happen.)
2. Get that *unmodified* copy pushed up to GitHub as the starting point.
3. Figure out the diff between what Matthew first checked in to his repo
and what he copied from Mercurial. If Matthew doesn't have a local Git repo
from which to obtain commit info, at least make those changes from the
first commit to the new GitHub repo.
4. Figure out whether Matthew has made any changes to his GitHub repo since
Joe made his copy. I am not entirely sure what path to take if he has made
changes. If he hasn't, then move on.
5. Somehow apply all of the commits from Joe's repo on top of the new
GitHub repo, preserving all of the commit history. I've no idea if this is
possible given the path that has been taken through the creation of all
these trees and commits. I'm also assuming that Joe has made meaningful
commits with appropriate explanatory messages, but that may not be a safe
assumption.
6. Merge in all of the changes to the trunk in Mercurial since the py3
branch was created (and that have not already been merged; I'm unclear as
to whether or not any have). This is a huge task because of the degree of
change in the py3 branch and its derivatives.

At that point, there would in theory be a Python 3 version of Chirp in
GitHub with full project history. But that is a lot of work, and I've no
idea if Matthew and / or Joe would be interested in pursuing it. For
someone else to do it without them, the important point in the list above
would be #3.

For completeness, the other alternative is to start again, from the Chirp
trunk instead of the py3 branch, and do a Python 3 migration *without*
retaining Python 2 compatibility. Also a huge task, but I have to wonder if
the result would be better in the end, and much cleaner as a codebase for
the future. In my opinion, Chirp should be *moved* to Python 3, without all
the complicated work involved in supporting both Python 2 and Python 3, and
all the additional developer effort, and testing, that would be involved
with that on an ongoing basis.

Martin.
KD6YAM

On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 12:45 PM Dominick C. Pastore via chirp_devel <
chirp_devel at intrepid.danplanet.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> New to the mailing lists, but I've been trying to read up on the status
> of Python 3 support. I'm on Linux (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS), where Python 2 is
> no longer well-supported. The Flatpak version works alright, but I'm
> hoping to make some contributions to the VX-6R driver, so that means
> running from source.
>
> Anyway, a couple questions:
>
> 1. The main question is what is the status of this? Dan mentioned in
> 2019 that about half the drivers had been converted, and the bugtracker
> for #495 shows a bit more work since, but it (and the Py3 branch) hasn't
> been updated in quite a while. I saw some messages from certain
> individuals saying they've made some significant progress on their own
> (e.g.
> http://intrepid.danplanet.com/pipermail/chirp_devel/2021-June/006397.html),
>
> but I'm guessing that's in private repos? I'm just not really sure
> what's going on. If there's still more work to be done, I'd like to
> help, because the legacy Python 2 dependencies are a royal pain.
>
> 2. I know Dan was working on rewriting the GUI to use wxPython since
> gtk2 wasn't ported to Python 3. Is that still part of the Python 3 plan?
> Is there still more work to be done there?
>
> Thanks,
> Nick
> KW4XV
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