0.18.0 release

[IvanIsCoding]

Target Date

Mid January

Goals

• Ship bug fixes (like the fix for Deleting node breaks JSON roundtrip #1516)
• Ship already merged features (e.g. Matrix Market)
• Support Python 3.14
• Support free-threaded Python
• Include the RustworkX Playground in the documentation to showcase the Pyodide support

PRs left to review

Matthew Treinish (@mtreinish) can you take a look at the PRs when you have time? I think this is the optimal order to review them:

Required

1. Remove Python 3.9 support and the legacy retworkx import #1509
2. Officially support Python 3.14 #1521
3. Migrate from setuptools-rust to maturin #1527
4. Add free-threaded Python to the CI #1528

Nice to Have

5. [ON HOLD] Add interactive playground for users to try rustworkx #1451

PRs left to write

1. Add free-threaded Python to cibuildwheel and test it
2. Release PR

Also, I merged and fixed #1517

Open Question

Should we publish a wheel for windows arm64? It's getting more traction now, NumPy ships a wheel.

[jberg5]

Many thanks for reviewing my change the other day! I'm very excited to put it to use. Is there a rough timeline for this upcoming release?

[IvanIsCoding]

Many thanks for reviewing my change the other day! I'm very excited to put it to use. Is there a rough timeline for this upcoming release?

As soon as #1528 is merged, I will add the release notes and trigger a release. I might need to get another PR to tweak the build for 3.14 free-threaded, but that is about it.

[IvanIsCoding]

I will need to polish the 3.14t builds so I might as well try to fix the state of ppc64le/s390x. I opened IBM/actionspz#82

[jberg5]

Hi Ivan Carvalho (@IvanIsCoding), just wanted to check in here, how goes the release? If the 3.14 stuff is a blocker, would it be possible to release a 17.2 version of rustworkx with 1227db6 - we're very excited to start using it.

[IvanIsCoding]

Hi @IvanIsCoding, just wanted to check in here, how goes the release? If the 3.14 stuff is a blocker, would it be possible to release a 17.2 version of rustworkx with 1227db6 - we're very excited to start using it.

I know 0.18 has been taken longer, Matthew hasn't had time to review all my PRs yet. But I think #1563 and other benefits will force us to trigger a release regardless.

I don't think I want to start a backport release now. I will try to polish 0.18.0. In general, we haven't been fast with releases recently and it can be frustrating, specially for new contributors.

But it's a marathon, not a race. My goal with 0.18 is to ensure the library is still usable with future versions of Python. Be it through the stable ABI or through the free-threaded interpreter.

[jberg5]

Appreciate the update, thanks Ivan Carvalho (@IvanIsCoding). I'll see if maintaining our own fork would be feasible for the time being.