Why input polling? (implementation detail question)

[Indy68]

In several posts it has been mentioned that various problems are related to polling, e.g. input polling. I'm just curious, why do you need to poll input? Are you using a development platform where standard windows events can't be used, or what's the reason for polling? After all, polling is not the recommended practise in Windows development (too quick polling uses CPU in vain, too slow polling is unresponsive and middle-way polling has potential of both problems)

[Helpless]

There is no input polling. You got it wrong.

[Indy68]

Ok, good to hear. To prevent my misunderstandings in the future, can you explain what does these sentences mean:

From v1.01 Beta 2 fix list:

Reduced input polling during airstrike missions. AI should be faster, but more chances of black screens

Your response regarding performance problems:

The good news that since we managed to solve the mouse click problem, it is possible to reduce polling cycles without any visible degradation for the game performance

[Helpless]

I'm not sure there is a need to go into very details, so my explanations can be vague and targeted mostly to non-programmers.

And, yes, polling was a bad word here. Sorry for confusion.