The 2023.X project aims to modernise the Sire API and associated Sire website. The primary goals are;

1. Have a clean and modern build system, built on top of conda, that enables the reliable and easy building of conda packages using a single workflow across Linux, MacOS and Windows for ARM and X86-64 platforms for the versions of Python that we support.

2. To refresh the website and build a complete set of tutorials that guide users through how to use Sire. Sire is evolving into the molecular manipulation library for BioSimSpace. These tutorials will make it easier for this functionality to be exposed within BioSimSpace, and for users to be able to use Sire for these tasks in a robust, easy to use, and unsurprising way.

3. To adopt a pythonic API that fully embraces that Sire is a C++ library that is exposed to Python. The result will make it easier to write straightforward tutorials, plus will remove some of the complexities and surprises that come from the C++ layer. Sire users will predominantly be able to access and use functionality via a pythonic python API. Part of this move will be to follow PEP8 guides for naming, e.g. lower case module names and underscore_case function names. This breaks backwards compatibility, hence the 2023.X project.

A measure of success of the project will be whether BioSimSpace (via BioSimSpace's 2023.X project) is able to easily move across to the new Sire 2023.X API. This will be judged via 2023.0.X pre-releases of Sire and BioSimSpace that will be made through 2022. If these are successful, then the plan is that the Sire and BioSimSpace 2023.1.0 releases will be made together, both using the new API.