v0.8.11 is broken on Ubuntu 18.04 due to too old Python version

[atchik6056]

Reading state information... Done
variety is already the newest version (0.8.11~git202310280115.363a76e~ppa974~ubuntu18.04.1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Setting up variety (0.8.11~git202310280115.363a76e~ppa974~ubuntu18.04.1) ...
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/jumble/Jumble.py", line 43
    if (spec := importlib.util.spec_from_file_location(name, path)) is not None:
             ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

dpkg: error processing package variety (--configure):
 installed variety package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 variety
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[jlu5]

Ok, this is sort of a packaging mistake. 0.8.11 shouldn't have been released for 18.04 because the fix from #652 needs Python >= 3.8.

Is upgrading your Ubuntu install an option? 18.04 is more or less end-of-life, as is Python < 3.8, so I don't see much point in adjusting the code to support these old versions.

[atchik6056]

this is what I thought... python, I have seen similar issues like that before
just wanted to inform you
yes , I am working on the upgrade to at least 20.04 though several earlier attempts during last couple of years have failed due to multiple additional repos and dependencies, this particular server/ws has been upgraded quite a few time, I think from Ubuntu 12, it is possibly time to reinstall...
thank you for the answer

[jlu5]

I've pushed updates to the backports PPA to revert the affected versions to 0.8.10

[atchik6056]

thank you, I just simply downgraded for now

PS: thanks a lot for the app, I have been using it for many years on all my linux workstations