SCons is a software construction tool (build tool, or make tool) written in Python. It is based on the design which won the Software Carpentry build tool competition in August 2000. Version 0.97 of SCons has been released and is available for download from the SCons web site: http://www.scons.org/download.php An RPM package and a Win32 installer are all available, in addition to the traditional .tar.gz and .zip files. A Debian package is available in Debian unstable. WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE? This release contains two fixes for problems discovered since 0.96.96 (the last testing version) was released. There are a HUGE number of fixes and new features since the last "stable" 0.96.1 release. If you are updating from 0.96.1 or an earlier version, BE SURE to read the release notes for important information about changes which may trigger rebuilds, or otherwise impact your configuration: http://www.scons.org/RELEASE.txt You can see a complete list of changes in the change log at: http://www.scons.org/CHANGES.txt ABOUT SCONS Distinctive features of SCons include: - a global view of all dependencies; no multiple passes to get everything built properly - configuration files are Python scripts, allowing the full use of a real scripting language to solve difficult build problems - a modular architecture allows the SCons Build Engine to be embedded in other Python software - the ability to scan files for implicit dependencies (#include files); - improved parallel build (-j) support that provides consistent build speedup regardless of source tree layout - use of MD5 signatures to decide if a file has really changed; no need to "touch" files to fool make that something is up-to-date - extensible through user-defined Builder and Scanner objects - build actions can be Python code, as well as external commands An SCons users' mailing list is available for those interested in getting started. You can subscribe by sending email to: users-subscribe@scons.tigris.org Alternatively, we invite you to subscribe to the low-volume SCons announcement mailing list to receive notification when new versions of SCons become available. Send email to: announce-subscribe@scons.tigris.org ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many, many thanks to all of the following people for their contributions during the entire protracted 0.97 development cycle, and its numerous pre-release testing versions: Anonymous, Anatoly, Matthias, Paul, Steve-o, Erling Andersen, Chad Austin, Stanislav Baranov, Timothee Besset, Joe Bloggs, Ken Boortz, John Calcote, Steve Christensen, Charles Crain, Matt Doar, Matthew Doar, Christopher Drexler, Bjorn Eriksson, Walter Franzini, Eric Frias, Gottfried Ganssauge, Dmitry Grigorenko, Helmut Grohne, Ralf W. Grosse-Kunstleve, David Gruener, Fawad Halim, Bob Halley, August Hörandl, Steven Johnson, Stephen Kennedy, Jay Kint, James Y. Knight, Arve Knudsen, Carsten Koch, Jean-Baptiste Lab, Chen Lee, Wayne Lee, Baptiste Lepilleur, Ben Leslie, Clive Levinson, Ben Liblit, Christian Maaser, Adam MacBeth, Sanjoy Mahajan, Jeff Mahovsky, Rob Managan, Rob Managan, Shannon Mann, Michael McCracken, Patrick Mezard, Dmitry Mikhin, Georg Mischler, Joel B. Mohler, Elliot Murphy, Leanid Nazdrynau, Christian Neeb, Matthew A. Nicholson, Han-Wen Nienhuys, Jan Nieuwenhuizen, Jan Nijtmans, Greg Noel, Gary Oberbrunner, Kian Win Ong, Tom Parker, Gerard Patel, Chris Pawling, Karol Pietrzak, Chris Prince, John Pye, Asfand Yar Qazi, Kevin Quick, Jon Rafkind, Steve Robbins, Christoph Schulz, Craig Scott, Stefan Seefeld, Jose Pablo Ezequiel "Pupeno" Fernandez Silva, Adam Simpkins, Vaclav Smilauer, a smith, Sohail Somani, Jeff Squyres, Levi Stephen, Amir Szekely, Matthias Troffaes, Erick Tryzelaar, Jonathan Ultis, Dobes Vandermeer, David J. Van Maren, Atul Varma, Nicolas Vigier, Richard Viney, David Vitek, Edward Wang, Greg Ward, Thad Ward, Ben Webb, Christoph Wiedemann, Russell Yanofsky and Johan Zander. On behalf of the SCons team, --SK