Planning: minimum Python 3.7

[scivision]

By PyPI downloads, Python 3.8 surpassed Python 3.6 Meson downloads ~ November 2021. Minimum supported Python 3.7 planning as Python 3.6 falls out of use/support. Using similar criteria to drop Python < 3.6: #6297

• Ubuntu 20.04 Python 3.8
• Ubuntu 18.04 (EOL standard support April 2023) Python 3.6
• Debian stable Python 3.9
• RHEL 8 AppStream Python 3.9

Benefits include:

• Python 3.10 type annotation improvements available in Python >= 3.7 via from __future__ import annotations
• asyncio improvements

[eli-schwartz]

I have a PR for this: #9510

[scivision]

Thanks! I searched Meson issue but not PRs 😨

[eli-schwartz]

Add to the list of improvements:

• dataclasses
  Quoting @dcbaker

  dataclasses I find generally help encourage writing better classes that don't do a bajillion things in their initializers.

• importlib.resources to replace embedded files as python strings (mesondata.py)

Add to the list of supported python versions:

• Debian oldstable Python 3.7