[Python-ideas] Default Python Windows version on python.org (was: Is it Python 3 yet?)

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 27.01.2017 06:13, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 1/26/2017 5:32 PM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> 
>> Many applications on Windows are still 32-bit applications and
>> unless you process large amounts of data, a 32-bit Python
>> system is well worth using. In some cases, it's even needed,
>> e.g. if you have to use an extension which links to a 32-bit
>> library.
> 
> I look through the list of a few hundred windows packages at
> http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/
> 
> The two packages that require CUDA 8 and CUDNN are 64-bit only.  As far
> as I saw in a careful check, all other windows binaries are available in
> both 32- and 64-bit versions.  The situation may be different on PyPI,
> but win64 will cover most thing likely to be used by a beginner.

32-bit vs. 64-bit is a still very much a conscious choice on
Windows x64, and so whether or not a beginner chose to install
3rd party libs as 32-bit or 64-bit version is not something
we can really tell from looking at the browser info.

It would probably be better to make the choice for Python a
conscious one as well by offering both alternatives or at
least make it clear that the default is e.g. x64.

Some cases where you'd prefer 32-bit over 64-bit:
- MS Office:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Choose-the-64-bit-or-32-bit-version-of-Office-2dee7807-8f95-4d0c-b5fe-6c6f49b8d261
- LibreOffice:
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/55819/version-5-choose-32-bit-or-64-bit/
- Anything to do with media codecs
- Anything that still supports older Windows versions
  (vendors often don't ship 64-bit variants due to this)

You just have to compare the number of entries in your
"Programs" dir with the "Programs (x86)" dir to see how
common 32-bit applications are today.

It's also possible that an application of library installs
both 32-bit and 64-bit variants. You can then run into issues
when configuring these. The ODBC manager on Windows x64 is a
prominent example: there are actually two versions of this,
one for 32-bit drivers and one for 64-bit drivers - using distinct
configurations. 32-bit apps only see the drivers configured with
the 32-bit manager, 64-bit apps only the ones configured with
the 64-bit variant.

Anyway, I agree that defaulting to x64 is the way forward, and
defaulting to x64 for Python on Windows x64 is a good approach,
but making the default choice clear to the beginner is probably
just as needed to at least give them a hint at what the cause
of their problems could be.

They have to make the same choice with many other applications
as well, so it's not like they've never seen this before.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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