ANNOUNCE: SCons 0.13 (build tool in Python) is now available

[Steven Knight]

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 0.13 of SCons has been released and is available for download
from the SCons web site:

	http://www.scons.org/

Or through the download link at the SCons project page at SourceForge:

	http://sourceforge.net/projects/scons/

RPM and Debian packages and a Win32 installer are all available, in
addition to the traditional .tar.gz and .zip files.


WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE?

Release 0.13 contains an important fix for a critical bug found shortly
after SCons version 0.12 was released.

SCons version 0.12 has a bug that occurs when a build directory
is used without duplicating source files in the build tree
("BuildDir(duplicate=0)") and any subsidiary SConscript file includes
another SConscript file.

This bug has been fixed in version 0.13, and a test has been added to
the regression test base to catch this situation in the future.

Release 0.13 also contains an unrelated fix to support fetching files
using earlier versions of Perforce that don't use the Windows registry.


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
  - easily 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 using SCons.  You can subscribe at:

	http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/scons-users

Alternatively, we invite you to subscribe to the low-volume
scons-announce mailing list to receive notification when new versions of
SCons become available:

	http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/scons-announce


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Special thanks to Charles Crain for making this release possible by
finding and fixing the critical bug fixed in this release.

On behalf of the SCons team,

	--SK