release date: end april 2025

wanted:

• numpy-2.2
• Jupyterlab-4.4
• numba-0.61.1+
• reduce further technical debt and simplify maintainance:
  • best code is simpler code that AIs won't screw up ... will obviously need another cycle
  • reduced and modernize code, easier to read
• continue rework to PEP-751 and signed wheels idea
  • all wheels are now updated from pypi with hash256 control
  • a requirements with hashtags to check (sha256) is provided, allowing "pip install -r requirement.txt --require-hashes"
  • a lockfile and a WinPython variant with its "WheelHouse" is next cycle aim
  • explore trusted publisher workflow, requires twine-6.1.0
• local AI use ... moved to next cycle
• the last Python-3.12 iteration

Experiment:

• local AI packages: DeepSeek R1 still claims 32Go Ram and 256Gb disk ? Microsoft released a "1bit" version
• check if free-threading is aiming 3x speed-up with 4+4 cpu, on Windows, the "interesting" bar ... 2.5x for alpha7

Direction:

• Help Python Sustainability by favorising :
  • latest ( = more efficient and maintained) python
  • dataframe API protocol: latest numpy ... in the limit of Numba support
  • browser interfaces (and WebApp): Jupyterlite includes Duckdb, Polars-0.18.0 is now possible in pyodide-0.27
• WinPython sustainability:
  • make code AI-maintainable to simplify maintainance
  • Goal is also to reduce WinPython to:
    • a minimal quantity of readable simple code
    • a list of wheels with signatures, available also from pip, with hash check, that could be provided un-installed
    • ... the Wheel-Next initiative may help https://wheelnext.dev/summits/2025_03/slidedecks_and_resources/
    • ... also PEP 751 "common Lockfile standard" was accepted this cycle https://peps.python.org/pep-0751/
    • ... also PEP 784 "zstandard in stdlib" was accepted this cycle, giving hope for smaller Wheels for 3.14 ?