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New, more complete list of what's new, pointing to Misc/NEWS for the 

whole list.  Also changed all references to the FAQ to point to the
FAQ wizard.
This commit is contained in:
Guido van Rossum 1997-08-15 18:30:14 +00:00
parent c95a6c1af5
commit 4952369e61
1 changed files with 86 additions and 34 deletions
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README
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@ -8,37 +8,85 @@ This is Python release 1.5 alpha 3
What's new in this release?
---------------------------
Too much has changed to list it all; I'll be more complete later.
Too much has changed to list it all here. There's a long list of
changes in Misc/NEWS. That's still not complete, but it's getting
there... I'm working my way through a year of change logs to extract
meaningful descriptions of all but the most insignificant changes.
The most important changes since Python 1.4 include:
Here are the most importand changes since 1.5a2:
- Many previously undocumented modules are now documented; some are
now officially obsolete or deprecated.
- The new "re" module is here (still very experimental). This is a
new regular expression package that uses Perl syntax and solves some
thread-safeness problems with the matching interface.
- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see Tools/scripts.)
- In support of the re module, a new form of string literals is
introduced, "raw strings": e.g. r"\n" is equal to "\\n".
- There's an assert statement.
- Many previously undocumented modules are now documented; some are
now officially obsolete or deprecated. (Thanks Andrew Kuchling!)
- There's a -O option that removes SET_LINENO instructions and code
prefixed with ``if __debug__: ...''.
- The build process now builds a single library (libpython1.5.a)
which contains everything except for the main() entry point. This
makes life much easier for applications that embed Python.
- It's much smarter about the initial value for sys.path; you can
control it easier using $PYTHONHOME (see the usage message, e.g. try
``python -h'').
- GNU readline is now configured as an extension module.
- The Grand Renaming is completed: all linker-visible symbols defined
by Python now have a "Py" or "_Py" prefix, and the same is true for
most macros and typedefs.
- There is much better support for embedding Python in applications
that use threads. Such applications can now create multiple
interpreter instances if they like to. Embedding applications can
also uninitialize or reinitialize Python, and explicitly manipulate
the global lock.
- The build strategy now uses a single library (libpython1.5.a) which
contains everything except for the main() entry point. This makes
life much easier for applications that want to embed Python.
- Tk 8.0b2 is supported. Support for Tk 4.0 is dropped (4.1 and
higher are still supported).
- There is also much better support for embedding Python in
applications that use threads.
- New Tk dialog modules by Fredrik Lundh: tkColorChooser.py,
tkCommonDialog.py, tkMessageBox.py, tkFileDialog.py,
tkSimpleDialog.py.
- Unfinished projects: documentation; multiple independent
interpreters; more Windows support.
- I've redone many aspects of the Windows version -- e.g. sys.path
is set more like it is done on Unix, there's a new module msvcrt
which exports a bunch of MS VC runtime functions like setmode() and
kbhit(), and there are new project files for DevStudio VC++ 5.0.
- Some new speedups, e.g. inlined some opcodes for int arguments
(i+i, i-i, L[i]; Fredrik Lundh).
- All known leaks have been plugged.
- New dictionary d.update(e): for k, v in e.items(): d[k] = v.
- New strategy for clearing modules: globals whose name starts with
a single underscore are deleted first.
- Comparisons can now raise exceptions.
- Metaclasses can now be programmed in Python (see Misc/NEWS, search
for "corollary").
- New tools faqwiz and webchecker included.
Other important changes, if thgis is the first release you see since
1.4:
- It's much faster (almost twice for pystone.py -- see
Tools/scripts.)
- There's an assert statement.
- There's a -O option that removes SET_LINENO instructions, assert
statements and code prefixed with ``if __debug__: ...''.
- It's much smarter about the initial value for sys.path; you can
control it easier using $PYTHONHOME (see the usage message, e.g. try
``python -h''). In most situations, the interpreter can be
installed at an arbitrary location without having to recompile.
- The Grand Renaming is completed: all linker-visible symbols
defined by Python now have a "Py" or "_Py" prefix, and the same is
true for most macros and typedefs.
- New regression test.
What is Python anyway?
@ -156,8 +204,10 @@ See also the platform specific notes in the next section.
If recursive makes fail, try invoking make as "make MAKE=make".
If you run into other trouble, see section 3 of the FAQ (file
Misc/FAQ) for hints on what can go wrong, and how to fix it.
If you run into other trouble, see section 3 of the FAQ
(http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py or
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for hints on what can go wrong,
and how to fix it.
If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all
object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or
@ -332,7 +382,7 @@ created. The only file not installed with a version number in its
name is the manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1"
by default.
If you have a previous installation of a pre-1.4 Python that you don't
If you have a previous installation of a pre-1.5 Python that you don't
want to replace yet, use "make altinstall". This installs the same
set of files as "make install" except it doesn't create the hard link
to "python1.5" named "python" and it doesn't install the manual page
@ -530,8 +580,9 @@ below).
All documentation is also available on-line via the Python web site
(http://www.python.org/, see below). It can also be downloaded
separately from the ftp archives (see below) in Emacs INFO, HTML or
PostScript form -- see the web site or the FAQ (file Misc/FAQ) for
more info.
PostScript form -- see the web site or the FAQ
(http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py or
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for more info.
Emacs mode
@ -539,7 +590,8 @@ Emacs mode
There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file
Misc/python-mode.el. Originally written by Tim Peters, it is now
maintained by Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@cnri.reston.va.us>.
maintained by Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@cnri.reston.va.us>. The latest
version is online at ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/emacs/python-mode.el.
Web site
@ -553,9 +605,9 @@ that's close you you.
Ftp site
--------
Python's own ftp site is ftp.python.org, directory /pub/python. See
the FAQ (file Misc/FAQ) for a list of other ftp sites carrying the
Python distribution.
Python's own ftp site is ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python. There are
numerous mirrors; see http://www.python.org/python/Mirrors.html for a
list of mirror sites.
Newsgroup and mailing list
@ -588,10 +640,10 @@ your bug has already been reported!
Questions
---------
For help, if you can't find it in the manuals, the FAQ or on the web
site, it's best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing
list (see above). If you specifically don't want to involve the
newsgroup or mailing list, send questions to python-help@python.org.
For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's
best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see
above). If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or
mailing list, send questions to python-help@python.org.
The Tk interface