Drop Python 3.10 support following end-of-life

[ianna]

Python 3.10 has reached end-of-life and no longer receives bug fixes or security updates. We should remove support for Python 3.10 and update the project's supported Python version range accordingly.

https://blog.python.org/2026/10/python-31022-31117/

please post your thoughts here.

[henryiii]

In favor. Scikit-HEP projects should at worst follow EoL, though projects might choose to follow SPEC 0 instead (so far none have). Though if we have some important user stuck on 3.10 and also needing the latests awkward for some reason (?), this is the place to let us know!

[ikrommyd]

The only reason would be environments like cmssw. For example in correctionlib we support python 3.9 cause the central cmssw release used for production/reco/etc is on python 3.9.
That doesn't affect awkward normally, people don't typically do analysis in such envs and if one person does they can use any other environment or older version of awkward.

[ianna]

as discussed during the meeting today -- referencing here #4454