feat: drop support for python 3.8 (#2243)

Author: afuetterer

.github/workflows/testing.yml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ jobs:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     strategy:
       matrix:
-        python-version: ["3.8", "3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
+        python-version: ["3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
 
     steps:
     - uses: actions/checkout@v4

README.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-[![PyPI - Python](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-v3.8+-blue.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/bertopic/)
+[![PyPI - Python](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-v3.9+-blue.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/bertopic/)
 [![Build](https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/MaartenGr/BERTopic/testing.yml?branch=master)](https://github.com/MaartenGr/BERTopic/actions)
 [![docs](https://img.shields.io/badge/docs-Passing-green.svg)](https://maartengr.github.io/BERTopic/)
 [![PyPI - PyPi](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/BERTopic)](https://pypi.org/project/bertopic/)

pyproject.toml

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ version = "0.16.4"
 description = "BERTopic performs topic Modeling with state-of-the-art transformer models."
 readme = "README.md"
 license = {file = "LICENSE"}
-requires-python = ">=3.8"
+requires-python = ">=3.9"
 authors = [
     { name = "Maarten P. Grootendorst", email = "[email protected]" },
 ]
@@ -28,7 +28,6 @@ classifiers = [
     "Operating System :: POSIX",
     "Operating System :: Unix",
     "Programming Language :: Python",
-    "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10",
     "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11",