[Python-Dev] Buildbot x86 XP-4 3.x doesn't compile anymore: drop it?

[Tim Golden]

On 28/03/2015 09:51, Victor Stinner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The buildbot x86 XP-4 3.x doesn't compile anymore since 3 months or
> more (maybe when Steve upgraded the Visual Studio project to VS 2015?
> I don't know).
>
> Would it be possible to fix this buildbot, or to turn it off?
>
> By the way, do we seriously want to support Windows XP? I mean, *who*
> will maintain it (no me sorry!). I saw recent changes to explicitly
> *drop* support for Windows older than Visa (stop using GetTickCount,
> always call GetTickCount64, for time.monotonic).

Per PEP 11, we track Microsoft lifecycle support, so we no longer 
support WinXP on 3.5 and newer. We do support XP on 3.4 and older, 
including 2.7. At least, that's my understanding. Given that, the only 
XP buildbot which makes sense is one running VS 2008 (2.7, 3.1, 3.2) or 
VS 2010 (3.3, 3.4).

I think -- and I'm responding here to the wider set of emails Victor has 
just posted re failing buildbots -- that the difficulty with red 
buildbots is finding someone at the intersection of understanding the 
buildbot platform and understanding the code which has just broken it. 
(Or at least, having the wherewithal to come to understand both).

And that someone might well not be the person who's hosting the 
buildbot: at its minimum they run up a VM and install the OS and the 
required tools. It's can be a way of offering help to the Python 
community without even being involved in core development at all.

I concur with what Victor's touched on: that buildbots are not useful if 
they're always red. But finding the right person to turn them green is 
not necessarily easy.

For myself I'm quite willing for someone to ping me with: "there's a 
Windows buildbot gone red; can you have a look?" But I have precious 
little time, and if the failure requires me to garner an understanding 
of a deep-level code change, a version-specific issue with the VS 
compiler, and some odd interaction with VM on which the buildbot is 
running, I'm unlikely to have enough time or energy to invest in it.

Willing-but-not-always-able-ly-yours,

TJG