[RELEASED] Python 3.2 alpha 1

[Georg Brandl]

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On behalf of the Python development team, I'm happy to announce the
first alpha preview release of Python 3.2.

Python 3.2 is a continuation of the efforts to improve and stabilize the
Python 3.x line.  Since the final release of Python 2.7, the 2.x line
will only receive bugfixes, and new features are developed for 3.x only.

Since PEP 3003, the Moratorium on Language Changes, is in effect, there
are no changes in Python's syntax and built-in types in Python 3.2.
Development efforts concentrated on the standard library and support for
porting code to Python 3.  Highlights are:

* numerous improvements to the unittest module
* PEP 3147, support for .pyc repository directories
* an overhauled GIL implementation that reduces contention
* many consistency and behavior fixes for numeric operations
* countless fixes regarding string/unicode issues; among them full
  support for a bytes environment (filenames, environment variables)
* a sysconfig module to access configuration information
* a pure-Python implementation of the datetime module
* additions to the shutil module, among them archive file support
* improvements to pdb, the Python debugger

For an extensive list of changes in 3.2, see Misc/NEWS in the Python
distribution.

To download Python 3.2 visit:

     http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.2/

3.2 documentation can be found at:

     http://docs.python.org/3.2/

Please consider trying Python 3.2 with your code and reporting any bugs
you may notice to:

     http://bugs.python.org/


Enjoy!

- --
Georg Brandl, Release Manager
georg at python.org
(on behalf of the entire python-dev team and 3.2's contributors)
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