Edit: also, looking at your comments[3E] it looks like surely you know this (sorry) so I'm now really not sure what you're getting at... :P
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
[2]: and even with PAE you still need to split into multiple processes/address spaces to do anything useful
32 bit is dead except for ARM, and it will be dead on ARM in 4 years.
Uh... sure? ... but the parent post was about how building for 32 bit _today_ simply does not work and will not work.
Whilst it's not necessarily best to build for technology almost gone, there definitely will continue to exist 32 bit devices that people would expect to run Python on for quite a number of years yet - today's 32 bit ARM chips aren't going anywhere awhile and not every form factor (say non-desktop) is well suited to a 64+-bit architecture. :/
