Tier 1 support: E.g. why isn't Windows supported for 32-bit?

Julia supports 32-bit (on Linux with tier 1 support).

I’m just curious, why not on Windows. E.g. Windows 10 supports 32-bit (but not Windows 11). Are there any tests know to fail? Is it just an oversight, and can be given tier 1 support?

I can see some open issues labeled 32-bit, and also others labeled Windows, but none with both labels.

Python support 32-bit Windows, and it’s the only tier 1 supported platform they have that Julia doesn’t (as tier 1). Python however doesn’t support 32-bit Linux as tier 1, while Julia does. Rust supports 32-bit for both.

https://github.com/python/peps/pull/2442/files

I do also see Python has multithreading by now all all supported platforms, i.e. since Python 3.7 (the oldest supported version, it’s a requirement for support).

Python supports roughly as many platforms as Julia, before way more, but most platforms have been dropped over time.

The basic reason is just that 32 bit linux is a much more relevant platform since Linux is used in embedded and other much more hardware constrained environments. Windows already takes about 2 gb of ram, so there are very few platforms where a 32 bit windows makes any sense. Also, Microsoft has stopped distributing 32 bit versions of the operating system.

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Even Microsoft stopped selling it.

Nobody uses it in 2022. There’s a big developer cost to supporting it, and nobody uses it. It’s not worth it unless something happens like someone donates 1mil to the Julia open source organization and asks for it. But since no one uses Windows 32-bit, that’s fairly unlikely to happen.

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but it’s still basically irrelevant due to GIL…

At least most bugs labelled 32-bit would apply equally to Linux and Windows. I have a hard time thinking of 32-bit Windows only bugs, was curious if any known. I don’t have any Windows to check, but I thing at actually does work. I realize tier 1, is (also) a statement about the future, I doubt it costs “1mil”.

If someone were to get CI completely reliable on 32-bit Windows (and is willing to maintain it), then we can make it tier 1. Contributions welcome, as ever! There’s a #ci-dev channel on Slack and a weekly meeting.

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