On behalf of the Python development team, I'm delighted to announce the first release candidate of Python 3.4. This is a preview release, and its use is not recommended for production settings. Python 3.4 includes a range of improvements of the 3.x series, including hundreds of small improvements and bug fixes. Major new features and changes in the 3.4 release series include: * PEP 428, a "pathlib" module providing object-oriented filesystem paths * PEP 435, a standardized "enum" module * PEP 436, a build enhancement that will help generate introspection information for builtins * PEP 442, improved semantics for object finalization * PEP 443, adding single-dispatch generic functions to the standard library * PEP 445, a new C API for implementing custom memory allocators * PEP 446, changing file descriptors to not be inherited by default in subprocesses * PEP 450, a new "statistics" module * PEP 451, standardizing module metadata for Python's module import system * PEP 453, a bundled installer for the *pip* package manager * PEP 454, a new "tracemalloc" module for tracing Python memory allocations * PEP 456, a new hash algorithm for Python strings and binary data * PEP 3154, a new and improved protocol for pickled objects * PEP 3156, a new "asyncio" module, a new framework for asynchronous I/O Python 3.4 is now in "feature freeze", meaning that no new features will be added. The final release is projected for mid-March 2014. To download Python 3.4.0rc1 visit: http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.4.0/ Please consider trying Python 3.4.0rc1 with your code and reporting any new issues you notice to: http://bugs.python.org/ Enjoy! -- Larry Hastings, Release Manager larry at hastings.org (on behalf of the entire python-dev team and 3.4's contributors)