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Diffstat (limited to 'README')
| -rw-r--r-- | README | 51 |
1 files changed, 40 insertions, 11 deletions
@@ -1,14 +1,43 @@ -This is Python release 1.2 -========================== +This is Python release 1.3b1 +============================ + +I.e., the first beta release of Python 1.3. What's new in this release? --------------------------- -This version provides new functionality as well as bug fixes, lots of -new documentation, and quite a few new library modules. Everyone -should upgrade. For a full list of what's new and changed, see -Misc/NEWS. +- Keyword parameters (see the last chapter of the tutorial). +- Third argument to raise (the stacktrace to provide). +- Faster function and method calls. +- Jim Fulton's abstract object interface (Include/abstract.h). +- Support for Tk 4.0 in Tkinter (Tkinter now supports keywords!). +- Rewritten htmllib.py (HTML parser), with new formatter.py. +- Rewritten rexec.py (restricted execution). +- New modules ni.py and ihooks.py (package support and more). +- And lots more that you'll have to discover on your own. + + +Why is it called a beta release? +-------------------------------- + +Because it is. There's no documentation except the source. A few +things are broken by the changes for keyword parameters (the access +statement, the profiler, half of newmodule.c). It has only been tested +on two Unix platforms (IRIX 5.3 and Solaris 2.4). The Mac and Windows +sopport has not been fully re-integrated. + + +Why do I release it anyway? +--------------------------- + +Because I'm also releasing a prototype of Grail, an extensible web +browser that is its answer to Java and could become Python's "Killer +App". Grail depends heavily on some features of Python 1.3 (such as +keyword parameters). The release date for Grail is determined by other +factors and I don't want to release it without full source. + +Oh, and I'm going on a two week holiday as well :-) What is Python anyway? @@ -424,11 +453,8 @@ The Tk interface Tk (the user interface component of John Ousterhout's Tcl language) is also usable from Python. Since this requires that you first build and install Tcl/Tk, the Tk interface is not enabled by default. It -requires Tcl 7.3 and Tk 3.6. It doesn't work yet with Tk 4.0-beta! -(Actually, the C code does, but the Tkinter.py module hasn't been -adapted yet.) For more info about Tk, including pointers to the -source, see John Ousterhout's home page at -<URL:http://playground.sun.com/~ouster/>. +requires Tcl 7.4 and Tk 4.0. (Support for Tk 3.6 and Tcl 7.3 can be +found in Lib/tk3inter/.) To enable the Python/Tk interface, once you've built and installed Tcl/Tk, all you need to do is edit two lines in Modules/Setup; search @@ -457,6 +483,9 @@ also use dynamic loading for the C tkinter module, in which case you must manually fix up sys.path or set $PYTHONPATH for the Python Tkinter module.) +See <URL:http://www.sunlabs.com/research/tcl/> for more info on where +to get Tcl/Tk. + Distribution structure ---------------------- |