[python-committers] [RELEASED] Python 3.2 beta 1

[Brett Cannon]

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 13:46, Georg Brandl <georg at python.org> wrote:
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> On behalf of the Python development team, I'm happy to announce the
> first of two beta preview releases of Python 3.2.
>
> Python 3.2 is a continuation of the efforts to improve and stabilize the
> Python 3.x line.  Since the final release of Python 2.7, the 2.x line
> will only receive bugfixes, and new features are developed for 3.x only.
>
> Since PEP 3003, the Moratorium on Language Changes, is in effect, there
> are no changes in Python's syntax and built-in types in Python 3.2.
> Development efforts concentrated on the standard library and support for
> porting code to Python 3.  Highlights are:
>
> * numerous improvements to the unittest module
> * PEP 3147, support for .pyc repository directories
> * PEP 3149, support for version tagged dynamic libraries
> * PEP 3148, a new futures library for concurrent programming
> * PEP 384, a stable ABI for extension modules
> * PEP 391, dictionary-based logging configuration
> * an overhauled GIL implementation that reduces contention
> * an extended email package that handles bytes messages
> * countless fixes regarding bytes/string issues; among them full
>  support for a bytes environment (filenames, environment variables)
> * many consistency and behavior fixes for numeric operations
> * a sysconfig module to access configuration information
> * a pure-Python implementation of the datetime module
> * additions to the shutil module, among them archive file support
> * improvements to pdb, the Python debugger
>
> For a more extensive list of changes in 3.2, see
>
>    http://docs.python.org/3.2/whatsnew/3.2.html

* Introduction of a new importlib ABC to make supporting PEP 3147 (and
any future bytecode changes) transparent along with deprecating the
old source and bytecode-based ABCs in a backwards-compatible way.

This may be more of a What's New entry to go with the PEP 3147
mention, though, than a highlight.