[RELEASED] Python 3.1 beta 1

[Benjamin Peterson]

On behalf of the Python development team, I'm thrilled to announce the first and
only beta release of Python 3.1.

Python 3.1 focuses on the stabilization and optimization of features and changes
Python 3.0 introduced.  For example, the new I/O system has been rewritten in C
for speed.  File system APIs that use unicode strings now handle paths with
undecodable bytes in them. [1] Other features include an ordered dictionary
implementation and support for ttk Tile in Tkinter.  For a more extensive list
of changes in 3.1, see http://doc.python.org/dev/py3k/whatsnew/3.1.html or
Misc/NEWS in the Python distribution.

Please note that this is a beta release, and as such is not suitable for
production environments.  We continue to strive for a high degree of quality,
but there are still some known problems and the feature sets have not been
finalized.  This beta is being released to solicit feedback and hopefully
discover bugs, as well as allowing you to determine how changes in 3.1 might
impact you.  If you find things broken or incorrect, please submit a bug report
at

    http://bugs.python.org

For more information and downloadable distributions, see the Python 3.1 website:

    http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.1/

See PEP 375 for release schedule details:

    http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0375/



Enjoy,
-- Benjamin

Benjamin Peterson
benjamin at python.org
Release Manager
(on behalf of the entire python-dev team and 3.1's contributors)