Remove Python 3.8 support

[amas0]

Submission Checklist

• Run unit tests
• Declare copyright holder and open-source license: see below

Summary

This PR bumps the required Python version of the library to 3.9. Resolves #802 .

Also uses the 3.9 features of typing with generics for dict, list, tuple and dictionary unions with |.

I also removed 3.8 testing from the Github workflow for CI/CD and added 3.13 (I think the way I did it is correct? I've not used it before).

Copyright and Licensing

Please list the copyright holder for the work you are submitting (this will be you or your assignee, such as a university or company): myself

By submitting this pull request, the copyright holder is agreeing to license the submitted work under the following licenses:

• Code: BSD 3-clause (https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause)

[WardBrian]

It looks like this file got processed with string normalization turned on before you updated the pyproject.toml -- mind reverting those changes?

[amas0]

Woops, good catch.

As a side note, we're pretty inconsistent throughout the library with string quoting. It'd be a big edit, but is there any desire to just go ahead and normalize everything to either single or double quotes and be consistent going forward?

[WardBrian]

Thank you!

[WardBrian]

As a side note, we're pretty inconsistent throughout the library with string quoting. It'd be a big edit, but is there any desire to just go ahead and normalize everything to either single or double quotes and be consistent going forward?

I wouldn't be opposed to doing this in it's own PR, but the setting disabling string normalization predates me so we may also want to ask @mitzimorris if she minds