Python version support policy

[peterschutt]

Maintainers have been discussing creating a policy for python version support, and are considering making the policy span 4 current versions.

This will mean we drop python 3.7 support before its official EOL.

Anyone out there using starlite on 3.7 that would be adversely affected by this change?

[Goldziher]

i suggest that if we don't see a blocker for this emerging in the next 2 weeks, we make this actionable.

[jonadaly]

For posterity, why are we thinking of doing this?

I can think of a few advantages of dropping 3.7 support before its EOL in June 2023:

• Slightly simpler CI
• Syntax for 3.8 without future (does this affect us?)
• Support for >3.8 via future (e.g. generic types)

Disadvantages:

• Anyone on 3.7 using starlite won't receive any new features/bugfixes (I imagine this is a vanishingly small % of users)
• If we're aiming to be a widely used framework, perhaps we ought to support all active versions of python

[Goldziher]

Biggest difference is the Literal type and TypedDict

[jtraub]

But both are available through typing_extensions 🤔

[Goldziher]

ok, we are removing 3.7