In 2014, under Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) 466, Python developers decided to backport the OpenSSL ssl module from Python 3.4 to Python 2.7, despite 2.7 already being a maintenance release.

The vast majority of Python objects don’t have reference cycles, so the garbage collector doesn’t need to run 24/7. Instead, the garbage collector uses a few heuristics to run less often and ...