> My knowledge of SQLite features kind of got frozen in time when I stopped doing python work as frequently as I used to a few years ago. I recall lamenting that I couldn't use their fancy new features because I was more or less constrained to whatever version Python bundled for its default.
Python uses an SQLite3 shared library, all you need to do to upgrade the SQLite3 engine is replace the shared library (.DLL on windows, .so.0 or something like that on Linux). You've never been locked into a version of the SQLite engine (well, if SQLite4 came out, you'd probably have to wait for Python to support that instead of only SQLite3, but...)
> Can I now trust modern python installations to have native-json enabled sqlite built in?
JSON has been compiled in by default since 3.38, my Python 3.10 installation (3.12 is current python) has 3.40 bundled, so, depending on what you mean by "modern" that seems reasonably safe (but, again, you aren't limited by what is bundled.)
OTOH, the JSON5 support is only from 3.42 onward, so even reasonably modern Python might not have that built in.
Python uses an SQLite3 shared library, all you need to do to upgrade the SQLite3 engine is replace the shared library (.DLL on windows, .so.0 or something like that on Linux). You've never been locked into a version of the SQLite engine (well, if SQLite4 came out, you'd probably have to wait for Python to support that instead of only SQLite3, but...)
> Can I now trust modern python installations to have native-json enabled sqlite built in?
JSON has been compiled in by default since 3.38, my Python 3.10 installation (3.12 is current python) has 3.40 bundled, so, depending on what you mean by "modern" that seems reasonably safe (but, again, you aren't limited by what is bundled.)
OTOH, the JSON5 support is only from 3.42 onward, so even reasonably modern Python might not have that built in.