I am very happy to announce the release of Python 2.3 release candidate 1. The python-dev crew has fixed almost 50 bugs since the beta release last month. You can find the downloads at the usual place: http://www.python.org/2.3/ All major reported bugs have been fixed for this release. If we do not discover any major bugs in the next week, we will re-release this code as Python 2.3 final. We encourage potential users of Python 2.3 to try the release candidate with their programs and report any bugs as soon as possible. To report a new bug, use the SourceForge bug tracker http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?func=addbug&group_id=5470 This release of Python does not have any big changes, but it does have many small changes that improve the libraries, fix bugs, and increase stability. According to some simple benchmarks, Python 2.3 is 25-30% faster than Python 2.2.3. There are about 15 new or significantly revised standard library modules, and a few new builtins. Andrew Kuchling's What's New in Python 2.3 describes the most visible changes since Python 2.2 in more detail: http://www.python.org/doc/2.3c1/whatsnew/ Have fun! -- Jeremy Hylton <http://www.python.org/~jeremy/>