[Python-Dev] [RELEASED] Python 3.3.0 alpha 3

[Mark Shannon]

Georg Brandl wrote:
> On behalf of the Python development team, I'm happy to announce the
> third alpha release of Python 3.3.0.
> 
> This is a preview release, and its use is not recommended in
> production settings.
> 
> Python 3.3 includes a range of improvements of the 3.x series, as well
> as easier porting between 2.x and 3.x.  Major new features and changes
> in the 3.3 release series are:
> 
> * PEP 380, Syntax for Delegating to a Subgenerator ("yield from")
> * PEP 393, Flexible String Representation (doing away with the
>   distinction between "wide" and "narrow" Unicode builds)
> * PEP 409, Suppressing Exception Context
> * PEP 3151, Reworking the OS and IO exception hierarchy
> * A C implementation of the "decimal" module, with up to 80x speedup
>   for decimal-heavy applications
> * The import system (__import__) is based on importlib by default
> * The new "packaging" module, building upon the "distribute" and
>   "distutils2" projects and deprecating "distutils"
> * The new "lzma" module with LZMA/XZ support
> * PEP 3155, Qualified name for classes and functions
> * PEP 414, explicit Unicode literals to help with porting
> * PEP 418, extended platform-independent clocks in the "time" module
> * The new "faulthandler" module that helps diagnosing crashes
> * A "collections.ChainMap" class for linking mappings to a single unit
> * Wrappers for many more POSIX functions in the "os" and "signal"
>   modules, as well as other useful functions such as "sendfile()"
> * Hash randomization, introduced in earlier bugfix releases, is now
>   switched on by default
> 

Don't forget PEP 412 ;)

Rather than a long list of PEPs would it be better to split it into two 
parts?
1. language & library changes.
The details are important here, so that the PEPs should probably be 
fairly prominent.

2. Performance enhancements
People want to know how much faster 3.3 is or how less memory it uses.
Who cares which PEP does what (apart from the authors)?

Or maybe three parts?
New features.
Behavioural changes (i.e. bug fixes)
Performance enhancements

Cheers,
Mark.