FWIW, I’ve run into the exact same issue helping users here, including as recently as a couple days ago here:
It took a good several minutes to find the precise link to the latest installer to send them (as they’d gotten confused and couldn’t find it themselves).
On one hand, I’m probably more familiar with the Python site and docs than the average user. On the other hand, how I normally download a specific Python version is just conda install python=X.Y.Z, heh.
Yup, I ended up pulling up the release PEP to find it; an average user would likely only have trial and error.
Do you mean the first table? A reorganization along those lines could be a good idea; I do think though that we should give users some indication that they are getting a release with known security issues rather than truly the latest point version. As such, I’d suggest that:
- The left-most column containing the feature version link to that feature version’s page, as described below
- Two columns be added, one “Latest installer release” and one “Latest source-only release”, with the relevant versions of each linked directly to the per-release download page
- There be a page for each feature version with two prominent links/buttons up top: "Last binary release (with installers): X.Y.Z` and “Last source-only release (no installers): X.Y.Z” or something like that, and then listing all the releases for that feature version
I’m also not sure whether we need the second table, especially with the intermingled versions making it hard to read and follow, as opposed to just a link to the “all versions” page for users who want that.
Take this with a grain of salt, though—I have some experience with UI/UX, but as a Conda user where downloading and installing a different Python is as easy as conda install python=VERSION, and Conda has all the versions both bugfix and security-only, I and most of the users I assist am not exposed to this page as much as many/most.