On Saturday, August 22, 2015 at 6:32:56 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 9:53 AM, sohcahtoa82 wrote: > > On Friday, August 21, 2015 at 3:42:36 PM UTC-7, hamilton wrote: > >> On 8/21/2015 1:41 PM, Chris Angelico wrote: > >> > Python 3.5 does not support Windows XP. > >> > >> Is there a simple explanation for this ? > >> > >> Or is it just is. > > > > I have no relationship with the Python developers, but I would say that > > running such an old operating system is simply irresponsible due to > > security issues and should be discouraged in any way possible. > > > > Windows XP is 14 years old. In the computing world, that's *ancient*. > > It's time to upgrade and join the modern world. > > The security concerns of XP aren't Python's problem, and Python isn't > in the business of twisting people's arms to make them upgrade just > for the sake of upgrading. However, every new version of Windows > introduces new APIs and features, so maintaining support for an older > version means ignoring all features added since then; conversely, > dropping support for XP means taking advantage of anything that was > added in Vista. That's why the change in support.
And it can cost a pretty penny: when someone upgrades from XP (say) to something modern like Windows 10 it almost certainly requires buying a new machine. One of the charms of linux used to be (dunno how true today) that it could run reasonably well on extremely underpowered hardware -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list