What went wrong in Python1.6 ?

[A.M. Kuchling]

In article <gfbtiu43dfto4e1r5repik4dkdgcn2rdtr at 4ax.com>,
	Rhymes wrote:
> Now I ask my self: what went wrong in that release? Where i could find
> some further infos about this "miscarriage" ?

After the primary Python developers left CNRI, CNRI management <rolls
eyes> requested a release that wrapped up everything the developers
had done while still working here.  Development had continued to roll
on, though, and a year's worth of community patches had been
incorporated into CVS, resulting in Python 2.0.  

Python 1.6 therefore ended up being 1.5.2 + Unicode + new SRE regex
engine + some bugfixes.  Work had to be done to backport the 2.0
Unicode code to 1.6, because you wouldn't want 1.6 and 2.0 to be
incompatible, but no one in their right mind would have used 1.6,
because 2.0 was 1.6 + cyclical GC + augmented assignment + list
comprehensions + XML support + more bugfixes and was available at the
same time.  This meant the backporting work was mostly wasted effort,
occupying time that could have been spent on other things.

--amk                                                             (www.amk.ca)
That's the trouble with computers, always think in black and white. No
aquamarines, no blues, no imagination.
    -- The Doctor, in "The Invisible Enemy"