Python 3.8 compatibility issues

[dev-zero]

• IPython 5.8.0, see ipython 5.8.0 incompatible with Python 3.8 #3559
• pylint 2.3.1, syntax error on import pylint-dev/pylint#2976 , seeing this on functools import

[sphuber]

ipython problem has been solved because we could update the requirement after circus could be updated: 982b089

I also checked the pylint checkbox since the linked issue is fixed and we are now using pylint==2.4.4. However, there is no explicit mention that python 3.8 is now supported, but the pre-commit CI stage runs on 3.8