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Comment by mpdehaan2 | Hacker News Reader

No problem! I've already fixed it so that all my code is forward compatible with Python 7000, despite not knowing what any of the syntax or library changes are going to look like.

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There is a difference between writing code that might break and code that is guaranteed to break. Badly written version checks are guaranteed to break.

Which is why GetVersionEx() on Windows will always tell you that you are running Windows 8, unless your application has a manifest entry indicating specifically that it is compatible with a higher version.

Microsoft thought there were too many broken version checks in the wild, so decided to hobble the version check function as a fix. I can understand why they did it.

Hell, the reason Windows 10 is Windows 10 is because of all the bad version checks looking for "9X"

Ha! Is that true in a documented fashion or just widely suspected? I had never heard that, but it makes perfect sense.

https://searchcode.com/?q=if%28version%2Cstartswith%28%22win...

If you Google it, you can find plenty of articles, but this is the original source [0]. The Redditor has since deleted their account it seems.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2hwlrk/new_wind...

That's just a silly rumor. The only examples I've seen of programs using strings to do version checks are Java ones. The function that returns "Windows 95" for Win4.0.xx could simply have been made to return "Windows Nine" or "Windows\xa09" for Win6.4.xx. "Problem" solved. The rest of the world, who's been using GetVersionEx(), wouldn't even notice it.

IMHO, the most probable reason was marketing (OS X).

No, it's not a silly rumor. It was Java programs (among others), but Microsoft takes backwards compatibility very seriously. Windows 9 builds were tested internally at Microsoft, and the bugs in third-party programs drove the decision to bump the version to 10.

Java would have returned "Windows NT (unknown)" as far as I know. How would programs get a string that said "Windows 9"? What API would be involved? What would they be reading that is text-based, wouldn't lie, [and existed on 9x]?

All my code uses

    from __future__ import __all__

Silly you, time travel has existed for quite a while by the time python 7000 is released. No import statements are required as everything you need is, and always has been, included from the beginning of the ages.

Somehow all of those libraries are still smaller than my slack desktop app.

> Somehow all of those libraries are still smaller than my slack desktop app.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_burn_centers_in_the_Un...

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