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Significant Dependency Issue: Timezonefinder does not support Python 3.7 #314
Description
Describe the bug
Timezonefinder no longer supports python 3.7. This is a significant issue since RocketPy officially supports Python 3.7 but depends on timezonefinder.
To Reproduce
Create an environment with Python 3.7.9 on Windows and attempt to install RocketPy. The following error should occur (tested locally and via GitHub Actions):
Best match: timezonefinder 6.1.9
Processing timezonefinder-6.1.9.tar.gz
error: Couldn't find a setup script in C:\Users\ghceo\AppData\Local\Temp\easy_install-byqibg5q\timezonefinder-6.1.9.tar.gzExpected behavior
RocketPy should install without any issues, but it fails since a required library cannot be installed.
Additional context
This started to be a problem only recently. Requiring an earlier version of timezonefinder (<6.1) would solve the issue. However, this is dangerous for many reasons since we can end up with out of dated time zone delimitations.
Activity
giovaniceotto commentedon Dec 31, 2022
Did a little digging and found out that
timezonefinderdropped support for version 3.7 once Numpy started supporting only versions 3.8 and above.I believe we should do the same for release v.1.0.0: drop support for Python 3.7, support Python 3.8 - Python 3.11.
@MateusStano and @Gui-FernandesBR, do you agree?
Additional Context
Numpy dropped support for Python 3.7 since version 1.22.0, released on Dec 31, 2021. More details can be found in https://numpy.org/devdocs/release/1.22.0-notes.html and numpy/numpy#19665.
Official Python 3.7 end-of-life: https://endoflife.date/python
Gui-FernandesBR commentedon Dec 31, 2022
If numpy dropped 3.7, I agree dropping as well.
On the other hand, why not just dropping timezonefinder then? This is a not so light weight library, and probably there are other options available.
Gui-FernandesBR commentedon Dec 31, 2022
I think @phmbressan may have an opinion as well
giovaniceotto commentedon Dec 31, 2022
There is no other viable alternative to
timezonefinderavailable, in my opinion. If we drop it, we will drop the feature that automatically detects the timezone based on latitude and longitude.Here is a comprehensive list of what is available: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16086962/how-to-get-a-time-zone-from-a-location-using-latitude-and-longitude-coordinates
We can make it an optional dependency.
giovaniceotto commentedon Dec 31, 2022
To add to the discussion of dropping this library, or making it optional, it is currently not implemented in the
Environmentclass. It is only used in theEnvrionmentAnalysisclass. In fact, it is only used briefly in one method: https://github.com/RocketPy-Team/RocketPy/blob/master/rocketpy/EnvironmentAnalysis.py#L346It can easily be made into an optional dependency!
giovaniceotto commentedon Dec 31, 2022
I went ahead and created #315. It does not solve the discussion of dropping support for Python 3.7 or not. It only makes the
timezonefinderpackage requirement optional, which, in my honest opinion, should be the case regardless since it is not necessary to run the basic functionality of RocketPy.MateusStano commentedon Jan 2, 2023
It definitely makes sense to drop Python 3.7 for v1.0
Are there any other libraries that should be made optional? I just checked and there are a few other EnvironmentAnalysis libraries that are required for installation, i.e. windrose, jsonpickle and ipywidgets.
I'd suggest we open a PR to remove the Python 3.7 dependency and make these other libraries optional as well
giovaniceotto commentedon Jan 10, 2023
Matplotlib has dropped support for Python 3.7 in its latest version as well.
Gui-FernandesBR commentedon May 26, 2023
I recently created the PRs #365 and #368, which are going to drop the support for python version 3.7 in rocketpy and reduce the number of mandatory dependencies, respectively.
After merging these two PRs, I believe we are going to be able to close this one, finally.
MateusStano commentedon Jun 20, 2023
Solved in #365 and #368