Remove unsupported flags SND_PURGE and SND_NOWAIT from winsound

[DBJim]

The SND_PURGE and SND_NOWAIT flags defined in winsound are unsupported for many years and ignored by modern Windows.

I propose to remove them in 3.13.

Reference:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions//dd743680(v=vs.85)

Linked PRs

• gh-105677: Remove SND_PURGE and SND_NOWAIT from winsound #105681

[zooba]

Unfortunately, they're not marked as deprecated with a planned removal in our docs. The first step should be a deprecation warning if someone passes them into our function.

But really, is this an important change to make? They don't cost anything, and they live inside their own extension module so aren't even adding memory pressure for most users.

I'd rather not remove things that could break users when it's not going to add any value. (For reference, it took me one search to find a number of code samples that currently work but will raise AttributeError after this change, so we need to be able to explain to them why this is a good thing.)

[DBJim]

Thanks for your feedback @zooba

I think there is value in cleaning up, but I'll be guided by yourself and the community whether it's worth it to remove these with a deprecation period.

[JelleZijlstra]

I would suggest not changing anything here; the documentation already says these flags are unsupported, and as @zooba says there's very little value in removing them from the implementation.

This would be a good use case for Victor's proposed soft deprecation though (https://discuss.python.org/t/formalize-the-concept-of-soft-deprecation-dont-schedule-removal-in-pep-387-backwards-compatibility-policy/27957?u=jelle).

[DBJim]

Thanks, good idea. I will close the issue and I'll keep an eye on the proposed soft deprecation. Appreciate the feedback.