handle older PyTorch versions

[pmcurtin]

[draft] this will have to wait until the new logging is merged with main, since some of the CI tests fail?

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📚 Documentation preview 📚: https://torchrunx--53.org.readthedocs.build/en/53/

[pmcurtin]

I worked out that in version 2.3 they changed the arguments to start_processes to accept a different kind of logging configuration. We don't really use their logging anymore (at least, not in the logging branch), but we still need to provide the right kind of argument such that it doesn't error out. There might be other compatibility issues, so I need to test some different versions. Hence the draft.

[pmcurtin]

Ok, so with this change I've additionally tested PyTorch versions 2.0.0, 2.1.0, 2.2.0, 2.4.0. I think our dev environment is 2.3.0. So that covers everything >=2.0.0, I think? I don't think minor versions like 2.2.1 would fail if 2.3.0 works?

[apoorvkh]

That's great -- the only thing I would add is that we should use a tool like tox in our CI to automatically run the test on all combinations of Python >= 3.8.1 and PyTorch >= 2.0.

[pmcurtin]

Yeah I'll look into doing it automatically with tox.

[pmcurtin]

For meeting: https://tox.wiki/en/4.16.0/user_guide.html#generative-environments

[apoorvkh]

Maybe use Github actions to do the matrix

And Pixi "features" to specify different PyTorch and Python versions

https://pixi.sh/latest/features/multi_environment/#feature-environment-set-definitions