Replace `rez.utils.data_utils.cached_property` with `functools.cached_property` about rez HOT 3 OPEN

I started looking into the issue and wanted to clarify a couple of things.

1. Does this issue mean rez will drop Python 3.7 compatibility? functools.cached_property was added in Python 3.8 (docs, StackOverflow). As an alternative, some sort of compatibility layer can be introduced (e.g., use the replacement starting with Python 3.8, and leave the previous implementation for Python 3.7). What is a preferred solution here?

2. Do we need to be concerned about uncache? functools.cached_property uncaches a property the same way, by deleting the attribute (docs):

   The cached value can be cleared by deleting the attribute. This allows the cached_property method to run again.

   So my intuition is that whenever uncache is called in current solution, it can be reimplemented in the replacement, too.

from rez.

1. Does this issue mean rez will drop Python 3.7 compatibility? functools.cached_property was added in Python 3.8 (docs, StackOverflow). As an alternative, some sort of compatibility layer can be introduced (e.g., use the replacement starting with Python 3.8, and leave the previous implementation for Python 3.7). What is a preferred solution here?

We could potentially depend on https://pypi.org/project/backports.cached-property/ for Python 3.7.

2. Do we need to be concerned about uncache? functools.cached_property uncaches a property the same way, by deleting the attribute (docs):

From what I see, uncached is used in two different places (see https://github.com/search?q=repo%3AAcademySoftwareFoundation%2Frez+%2F%5B%5E_+%5Duncache%5C%28%2F&type=code). If we can delete the attribute to uncache, then I guess we could try to use the built-in cached_property.

One thing I'm very concerned about is the speed. cached_property is used in hot paths. I see a lot more attribute accesses in functools.cached_property than in our version.

from rez.

Thinking about it a little bit more, maybe we don't need to get rid of our implementation. I'd be interested to see if it can provide any speed improvements though.

from rez.