[Python-Dev] RELEASED: Python 2.3b2

[Guido van Rossum]

Thanks, Barry, for getting a release out on a Sunday, while I was
still recovering from a week of Belgian food, beer and hacking.  And
thanks also to Tim, Fred, Jeremy, Neil, and all others who helped
getting this release out.

Looking over the list of highlights it's clear that 2.3 is focusing on
stability.  I hope that we can limit trunk checkins to bugfixes only
between now and the final release of 2.3.

I can now mention why I suddenly wanted to accelerate 2.3's schedule.

At EuroPython I was cornered by the key Macpython developers with
exciting news: Apple's next release of Mac OSX, code-named Panther,
uses Python and Apple is planning to include Python 2.3 in that
release.  (Apple already ships Mac OSX with Python 2.2 included in the
developer tools, but Panther will actually use Python for some
essential functionality.)

Apple's schedule is such that August 1st is about the latest release
date for Python 2.3 that will make this possible.  I appreciate
everybody's help with keeping this schedule!

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)