A new SCons checkpoint release, 2.1.0.alpha.yyyymmdd, is now available
  on the SCons download page:

          http://www.scons.org/download.php

  XXX The primary purpose of this release ... XXX

  A SCons "checkpoint release" is intended to provide early access to
  new features so they can be tested in the field before being released
  for adoption by other software distributions.

  Note that a checkpoint release is developed using the same test-driven
  development methodology as all SCons releases.  Existing SCons
  functionality should all work as it does in previous releases (except
  for any changes identified in the release notes) and early adopters
  should be able to use a checkpoint release safely for production work
  with existing SConscript files.  If not, it represents not only a bug
  in SCons but also a hole in the regression test suite, and we want to
  hear about it.

  New features may be more lightly tested than in past releases,
  especially as concerns their interaction with all of the other
  functionality in SCons.  We are especially interested in hearing bug
  reports about new functionality.

  We do not recommend that downstream distributions (Debian, Fedora,
  etc.) package a checkpoint release, mainly to avoid confusing the
  "public" release numbering with the long checkpoint release names.

  Here is a summary of the changes since 2.0:

  NEW FUNCTIONALITY

    - SCons can now automatically embed manifests in Windows executables
      and DLLs, by setting WINDOWS_EMBED_MANIFEST in the environment.

    - SCons now searches for site_scons dirs in several system-wide
      and per-user locations, in addition to the SConstruct top dir.
      This should enable much easier use of third-party (non-core)
      Tools.

    - List new features (presumably why a checkpoint is being released)

  DEPRECATED FUNCTIONALITY

    - List anything that's been deprecated since the last release

  CHANGED/ENHANCED EXISTING FUNCTIONALITY

    - scons --version now prints the path to the SCons package in use

    - List modifications to existing features, where the previous behavior
      wouldn't actually be considered a bug

    - Add initial support for VS/VC 2010

  FIXES

    - Visual Studio project generation now works when CPPPATH contains Dir nodes
    - Visual Studio projects are regenerated when CPPPATH or CPPDEFINES change
      NOTE: this will cause all MSVS projects to be regenerated with this version.
    - Passing MSVC_BATCH=False works now (treated same as 0)
    - Long compile lines no longer break MSVC_BATCH mode
    - RPATH is now in LINKCOM rather than LINKFLAGS, so resetting
      LINKFLAGS doesn't kill RPATH
    - Precompiled headers on Windows no longer break when used with
      variant dirs containing spaces.
    - Delete can now delete symlinks to directories and broken symlinks
    - CPPDEFINES containing dictionaries now work better.
    - A problem with using implicit-cache and removing dependencies on
      disk is corrected.
    - A problem with FS Entries which are dirs and have builders
      is corrected.
    - A problem with Install() of a dir when the dest dir exists
      is corrected.
    - Windows subprocess output should now be more reliable.
    - The users guide and man page have various fixes.
    - Appending to default $*FLAGS in a copied environment
      now works properly.
    - LaTeX scanner is improved for broken lines or embedded spaces.
    - Windows UNC paths (\\SERVER\SHARE\dir) now work much better.

    - List fixes of outright bugs


  IMPROVEMENTS

    - ParseFlags now supports -std=c++0x and related CXXFLAGS
    - ParseFlags now supports -dylib_file from pkgconfig
    - New debugging options to print unlink/relinking of variant files
      (--debug=duplicate) and preparation of targets (--debug=prepare).
    - SCons can now generate MSVS 9.0 and 10.0 Projects and Solutions.
    - MSVS Solution generation is improved.
    - Fortran 03 is supported (preliminary)
    - .sx files are now treated as assembly sources.
    - site_scons/site_init.py is now treated as a proper module
      with __doc__, __file__ and __name__.
    - TeX command strings now work on Windows when the new dir is
      on a different drive letter.
    - DMD version 2 is supported (using the phobos2 library)
    - New --debug=prepare option shows each target as it's prepared
      for building; can help when you don't know why a target isn't
      being built.

    - List improvements that wouldn't be visible to the user in the
      documentation:  performance improvements (describe the circumstances
      under which they would be observed), or major code cleanups

  PACKAGING

    - List changes in the way SCons is packaged and/or released

  DOCUMENTATION

    - List any significant changes to the documentation (not individual
      typo fixes, even if they're mentioned in src/CHANGES.txt to give
      the contributor credit)

  DEVELOPMENT

    - List visible changes in the way SCons is developed

  Thanks to
  Dirk Baechle,
  Vincent Beffara,
  Grzegorz Bizoń,
  Jean-François Colson,
  Bauke Conijn,
  Bill Deegan,
  Ken Deeter,
  Luca Falavigna,
  Alexander Goomenyuk,
  Justin Gullingsrud,
  Steven Knight,
  Arve Knudsen,
  Jean-Baptiste Lab,
  Rob Managan,
  Gary Oberbrunner,
  Evgeny Podjachev,
  Sohail Somani,
  Anatoly Techtonik,
  Allen Weeks,
  Russel Winder,
  Joe Zuntz
  for their contributions to this release.

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