From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Windows emacs-25.1 i686 vs x86_64? Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 19:15:49 +0200 Message-ID: <83pom4fube.fsf@gnu.org> References: <6e2cffe5-942b-48d4-9ed5-ef39803bcd30@googlegroups.com> <87mvhgsf21.fsf@russet.org.uk> <8360o4monq.fsf@gnu.org> <87vaw4gq0j.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83oa1vlnkk.fsf@gnu.org> <87d1iba6od.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83ins2jq88.fsf@gnu.org> <87eg2p8swx.fsf@russet.org.uk> <831sypjmst.fsf@gnu.org> <83wpggip8j.fsf@gnu.org> <05ba947a-970a-178c-8036-bcdf84485384@cs.ucla.edu> <87inrzz4y0.fsf@russet.org.uk> <87fun2vxab.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83eg2mgf8l.fsf@gnu.org> <87fun0egxb.fsf@russet.org.uk> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1478711872 14349 195.159.176.226 (9 Nov 2016 17:17:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 17:17:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eggert@cs.ucla.edu, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 09 18:17:47 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1c4WV1-0000Di-84 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Nov 2016 18:17:23 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41425 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c4WV4-0003LY-8L for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:17:26 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54467) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c4WTh-0002Jk-PN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:16:02 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c4WTd-0002BI-Gi for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:16:01 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:56940) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c4WTd-0002BA-83; Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:15:57 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:4041 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1c4WTV-0002ue-TV; Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:15:50 -0500 In-reply-to: <87fun0egxb.fsf@russet.org.uk> (phillip.lord@russet.org.uk) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:209308 Archived-At: > From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) > Cc: rms@gnu.org, eggert@cs.ucla.edu, emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:50:24 +0000 > > > My main development machine runs Windows XP, so if you want to drop > > support for it, you should ask me to resign first. > > Yes, I remember you saying and I remain surprised that you use such an > old operating system, and presumably computer. I guess we wait till your > machine breaks before we move to XP. My machine is just 4-year old, so it is unlikely to break any time soon (barring force majeure). > > Btw, there are 2 versions of Windows between 9X and XP, which we still > > support, and you didn't mention. > > Good point, I had forgotten, my memory of those times is hazy. FWIW, I think considering deprecation of XP, or any other of the OS versions from the NT family, is unjustified, because, unlike Windows 9X, the number of features that Emacs needs missing from those older NT-family versions is very small, while all the significant features we want -- Unicode APIs, file security and access control, Uniscribe complex script shaping, etc. -- are present in all of those versions. So removing support for these versions will require some non-trivial amount of work, and will risk introducing bugs, while the gains will be insignificant to non-existent. By contrast, testing for availability of a function is just a few boilerplate lines of code. It really isn't worth the hassle.