[RELEASE] Python 2.7 release candidate 1 released

[Benjamin Peterson]

On behalf of the Python development team, I'm effusive to announce the first
release candidate of Python 2.7.

Python 2.7 is scheduled (by Guido and Python-dev) to be the last major version
in the 2.x series. However, 2.7 will have an extended period of bugfix
maintenance.

2.7 includes many features that were first released in Python 3.1. The faster io
module, the new nested with statement syntax, improved float repr, set literals,
dictionary views, and the memoryview object have been backported from 3.1. Other
features include an ordered dictionary implementation, unittests improvements, a
new sysconfig module, and support for ttk Tile in Tkinter. For a more extensive
list of changes in 2.7, see http://doc.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2.7.html or
Misc/NEWS in the Python distribution.

To download Python 2.7 visit:

http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/

While this is a preview release and is thus not suitable for production use, we
strongly encourage Python application and library developers to test the release
with their code and report any bugs they encounter to:

http://bugs.python.org/

This helps ensure that those upgrading to Python 2.7 will encounter as few bumps
as possible.

2.7 documentation can be found at:

http://docs.python.org/2.7/


Enjoy!

 

[Franck Ditter]

Just an advice as I see that "old" Python is maintained.
When starting with Python (simple programs and GUIs) should I start
with Python 3.x ? If it has a decent implementation on Mac/Linux/Windows of course...
Thanks,

franck

 

[Aahz]

When starting with Python (simple programs and GUIs) should I start
with Python 3.x ?

That depends on the extent to which you rely strictly on the standard
Python library. If there's any likelihood that you will want to use
random third-party libraries, you probably want to stick with 2.x; ditto
if you want to rely on your users having their own copy of Python (in
which case you probably should target Python 2.4).

 

[Lie Ryan]

Just an advice as I see that "old" Python is maintained.
When starting with Python (simple programs and GUIs) should I start
with Python 3.x ? If it has a decent implementation on Mac/Linux/Windows of course...

I say, if you're learning the language and/or programming, python 3 is a
nicer to start with. However, as of now, not many third party libraries
has been ported to python 3.x yet; so if you're writing a real
application and you're expecting to use many third party libraries, then
stick with python 2.x.