Prepare release 0.18.0

[dnicolodi]

No description provided.

[rgommers]

LGTM with one minor textual tweak.

I looked through the other issues and PRs - seems like all that can wait, and we can release 0.18.0 today. Can you confirm @dnicolodi? I have some time to do the release later today.

[dnicolodi]

The macOS test failure is due to Meson bug mesonbuild/meson#14534 and Cirrus got stock trying to run the fedora-41 job...

[dnicolodi]

Including #728 in the releases would enable matplotlib to remove a meson-python version pin to 0.16.2. IIRC you already reviewed #728 and the only thing missing were warnings, which I added. However, it is not a must for releasing 0.18.0

[rgommers]

I'd be inclined to do 0.18.0 right now, and a next 0.19.0 feature release as soon as #728 (and probably #731) is in. #728 is still actively being discussed, so I hesitate to hit the merge button there now. And it'd be nice to get the release out and test the PEP 639 waters.

[dnicolodi]

The discussion in #728 has nothing to do with the changes in #728 and it stems from a misunderstanding of what the PR does.

[rgommers]

Okay, let me have another look at #728 now then.

[rgommers]

Merged #728 now. Do you want to add a Changelog entry for it?

[rgommers]

I'll do it now actually and then merge, so I can get the release out today.