Tim Peters wrote:
[Steve Holden]
Reasonable enough, but I suspect that Thomas' suggestion might save us from raising false hopes. I'd suggest that the final release announcement point out that this is the first release containing specific support for 64-bit architectures (if indeed it is)
[Martin v. Löwis]
It isn't. Python ran on 64-bit Alpha for nearly a decade now (I guess), and was released for Win64 throughout Python 2.4. ActiveState has been releasing an AMD64 package for some time now.
Python has also been used on 64-bit Crays, and I actually did the first 64-bit port in 1993 (to a KSR Unix machine -- took less than a day to get it running fine! Guido's an excellent C coder.). Win64 is the first (and probably only forever more) where sizeof(long) < sizeof(void*), and that caused some Win64-unique pain, and may cause more.
BTW, at least two of the people at the NFS sprint earlier this year were compiling and running Python on Win64 laptops. It's "solid enough", and surely nobody expects that Win64 users expect 100% perfection of anything they run <0.5 wink>.
I suppose we should be grateful thirteen years experience has gone into 64-bit support. I agree that "some breakage may occur" is true of any release and architecture though in the eyes of this lurker, at least, python-dev does a more-than-averagely conscientious job. It's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of the Google sprints. I am sure the 64-bitters will be out in force, so there'll be useful data about any such problems. <irony wink="0.97">64 bits is, I am sure, as much as anyone is ever going to need, so the pain will finally be over.</irony> It's good to see the idea of industry support for open source sprints taking off. Tomorrow, the world ... :-) regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com Recent Ramblings http://del.icio.us/steve.holden