[IPython-dev] [ANN] IPython 0.4.0 has been released!

[Fernando Perez]

Hi all,

I've just released IPython 0.4.0.  The NEWS file and full changelog are linked 
to on the webpage, so I won't bother you with all of that here.

As always, the download link is at: http://ipython.scipy.org/dist

I changed the version number to start a 0.4 series, as I feel that the 
stability and maturity of the code warrants a number higher than 0.2.x. 
Numbers that low tend to scare users into thinking that it's pre-pre-alpha 
code, which it certainly isn't :)

I'd like to thank all the users who contributed patches and ideas for this 
release, and especially Jack Moffitt, who has done a TON of work to help with 
multiple areas of the project.  Gary Bishop has also been doing very good work 
with Windows-related things, which as you all know are my weakest spot.  Stay 
tuned for more on that front, as Gary irons out his new developments.

If you feel that your name should be on the credits section and it isn't, 
please drop me a line so I can correct the omission.  It was certainly not 
intentional.

I think IPython is really stabilizing quite nicely, since with a growing user 
base the bug/crash reports don't seem to be multiplying :)  So perhaps soon 
(after having 0.4.x out for a while), I can begin making more invasive 
architectural changes.  An internal cleanup of ipython will be necessary for 
it to continue growing, since the current codebase is simply too messy for 
most people to deal with.

A brief highlight of the most important changes since the last official 
release, which was 0.2.14 (as usual, the changelog is very detailed):


Bug Fixes
---------

- Fixed many crashes caused by the auto-eval code.  The new code is much 
safer, and free of potential side-effects.  Autocalling became controllable at 
runtime via @autocall.  This should be considered a critical fix.

- Fix namespace handling in @run which could cause problems with pickle.

- Fixed color handling across many terminal types.  Except for MS-Windows 
native cmd.exe windows, all terminals seem to handle color fine now.

- Fixed the installer removing many ugly distutils-related hacks/bugs.  It 
doesn't generate spurious errors and warnings anymore.

- Various fixes to the Gnuplot support (an important one in hardcopy).

- Fixed crash when pdb.pm() was called.

- Fixed potentially destructive change of files in ~ when ipython ran first.

- Fixed crash for user-defined prompt strings with unmatched '%' in them.

- Better handling of sys.excepthook to protect against spurious errors when 
exceptions are generated by WxWindows.

- Internal workaround in case 'kinds' is not found (recently removed from 
Numeric's standard distribution).

- Added workaround for SWIG crashes when inspecting objects.


New features/enhancements
-------------------------

- Optional (off by default) auto-indenting.  It can be toggled at runtime.

- Better support for mouse/non mouse versions of Gnuplot.

- Better timing routines (under Unix) in genutils, which use getresource(). 
These avoid the wraparound problems inherent in time.clock().

- IPython now supports -c option, just like regular python.

- IPython now has manpages (for ipython and pycolor).

- RPMS are provided by me, and Debian/Fink packages are being contributed by 
Jack Moffitt and Andrea Riciputi (respectively).

- Improved (X)Emacs integration.  It now seems to work almost perfectly (using 
Alex Schmolck's support files, available at ipython's site).




So please grab 0.4.0 and enjoy!

Thanks to all,

Fernando.