Update version to 4.1.5

[cdce8p]

• Update version to 4.1.5
• Add changelog entry
• Split up wheel builder matrix for faster builds
• Build wheels for MacOS arm64

Ref:

• Python 3.12? #261 (comment)

[cdce8p]

Thanks @brandon-rhodes! The 4.1.5 release does work with Python 3.12 for me.

[brandon-rhodes]

And thank you for reminding me that the sdist needed to be updated, and not merely new binaries produced! I failed to think through the case of a 3.12 user who needed to build locally.

The cost, alas, is that for the first time there's now a PyEphem release up on PyPI without any wheels for Python 2.7. The last time one of my projects broke 2.7 compatibility, it became clear that it was still in use — there are space-related projects which are still on things like old RHEL versions, and which have locked in their choices of software for the whole mission duration because any upgrade to the underlying operating system could break old scripts or change their output.

I'm not quite clear whether legacy users would now (a) get an error because 4.1.5 lacks a 2.7 binary and they don't have a compiler, or (b) get 4.1.4 installed instead because a 2.7 binary does exist for it.

But since there's a simple quick fix — having them install ephem==4.1.4 — that wouldn't reduce their functionality, because 4.1.5 didn't add any new features or fix any API bugs, I think I'm inclined to do this experiment and see whether any 2.7 users open an issue.

I'm wary of being mean to people like this, and putting a hurdle in front of them (understanding a new error message they might not have seen before, and hoping they discover GitHub, create an account, and open an issue — what if they aren't native English speakers and can't work out those steps?), so there's the chance that in a few days I'll think better of this decision and try fixing the build so that 2.7 artifacts are built again. But as this week and next are busy ones for me, it's likely that it won't happen quickly in any case, and that we will indeed get at least a few-week experiment in whether 2.7 folks are still using PyEphem.

[cdce8p]

Tbh I didn't realize that the Python 2.7 wheels weren't built. There are still the CI tests for 2.7 though.
I had to check PyPI but the last time wheels were uploaded was for 4.1.1.
https://pypi.org/project/ephem/4.1.1/#files
https://pypi.org/project/ephem/4.1.2/#files

As for pip, AFAIK it shouldn't be an issue. Since 2.7 is still tested, user can install the sdist without issues, even for 4.1.5. They just have to build it themselves. If at some point in the future support were to be removed, that still wouldn't be an issue as long as requires-python is set updated probably. In that case pip would just select the last compatible version.

As for now, since 2.7 is still tested, it was trivial for me to add an additional build step for the release. See #263