INSTALL: Firedrake doesn't install on Python 3.12

[JDBetteridge]

Describe the error
In the title. This is an issue as Unbuntu 24.04 ships with Python3.12 by default.

Steps to Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
python3.12 ./firedrake-install

Expected behavior
Firedrake installs.

Error message
Install script detects Python3.12 and exits

Environment:

• OS: Linux (I'm guessing Mac too...)
• Python version: 3.12

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

[jmv2009]

This message is two years old:

Can not install Firedrake with Python 3.12 at the moment:
Some wheels are not yet available for Python 3.12 for some required package(s).
Please install with Python 3.11 (or an earlier version >= 3.8).

Hacking through the install script, it appears there is actually no problem, except for
a) numpy (version 1.24) (needed version restriction removed and remove from wheel_blacklist to go through)
b) mpi4py (needs python3-dev package on host system to build to go through)
Curiously, both were on the wheel_blacklist, which undermined the claimed reason 3.12 should not yet be used, as claimed.

Note that the numpy version restriction appears due to performance.

[JDBetteridge]

I'm glad that hacking around has worked for you, but this won't solve the problem for all of our users. We still have some issues before we can claim that Firedrake is Python 3.12 ready. There are also good reasons to not use the numpy wheel related to BLAS/LAPACK ABI incompatibilities.

If you want to follow progress there is a PR open which will address Python 3.12 installation when merged.

PS: I'm well aware that the message is two years old! I put it there 😛