RELEASED Python 2.4 (final)

[Anthony Baxter]

On behalf of the Python development team and the Python community, I'm
happy to announce the release of Python 2.4.

Python 2.4 is a final, stable release, and we can recommend that Python
users upgrade to this version.

Python 2.4 is the result of almost 18 month's worth of work on top
of Python 2.3 and represents another stage in the careful evolution
of Python. New language features have been kept to a minimum, many
bugs have been fixed and a wide variety of improvements have been made.

Notable changes in Python 2.4 include improvements to the importing of
modules, generator expressions, function decorators, a number of new
modules (including subprocess, decimal and cookielib) and countless
numbers of fixed bugs and smaller enhancements. For more, see the
(subjective) highlights, the release notes, or Andrew Kuchling's What's
New In Python, all available from the 2.4 web page.

http://www.python.org/2.4/

Please log any problems you have with this release in the SourceForge
bug tracker (noting that you're using Python 2.4):

http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470

Enjoy the new (stable!) release,
Anthony

Anthony Baxter
(e-mail address removed)
Python Release Manager
(on behalf of the entire python-dev team)

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[Dave Merrill]

Newb question: Is it possible/recommended to have multiple versions of
Python installed simultaneously? Earlier, I installed 2.4rc1, and a number
of things in my 2.3.3 install stopped working. Are there known techniques
for managing multiple versions?

Thanks,

Dave Merrill

 

[Stefan Behnel]

Newb question: Is it possible/recommended to have multiple versions of
Python installed simultaneously? Earlier, I installed 2.4rc1, and a number
of things in my 2.3.3 install stopped working. Are there known techniques
for managing multiple versions?

Short answer: depends on your OS.

I assume "stopped working" means: libraries were missing. This means that
"managing multiple versions" already works for you. The libraries are
installed for Python 2.3 and only 2.3 uses them. That's the expected
behaviour. Install them for 2.4 as well and everything should work fine.

Stefan

 

[Anthony Baxter]

Newb question: Is it possible/recommended to have multiple versions of
Python installed simultaneously? Earlier, I installed 2.4rc1, and a number
of things in my 2.3.3 install stopped working. Are there known techniques
for managing multiple versions?

If you're building from source, use 'make altinstall' rather than
'make install'.
This will install Python as $prefix/bin/python2.4, and leave the
'python' executable
alone.

 

[Dave Merrill]

Should have been more specific.

As I recall, after I installed 2.4rc1 I installed the latest versions of
wxWindows and SPE IDE into it. The 2.4 copy of SPE died silently when
started, which I can accept as a incompatible versions.

What was strange to me was that at that point, the 2.3.3 copy of SPE did the
same thing. After I uninstalled 2.4, SPE ran again under 2.3.3, and that's
what I'm using now.

What caused this kind of interaction between installs? SPE and wxWindows
both live in site-packages, which I would have thought would make them
Python-version specific.

Dave Merrill

 

[Dave Merrill]

Used the packaged Windows (win2k) installs of Python and all components I
described. Not a C guy, no compiler, minimal knowledge about them.

Dave Merrill

 

[Anthony Baxter]

Should have been more specific.

As I recall, after I installed 2.4rc1 I installed the latest versions of
wxWindows and SPE IDE into it. The 2.4 copy of SPE died silently when
started, which I can accept as a incompatible versions.

What was strange to me was that at that point, the 2.3.3 copy of SPE did the
same thing. After I uninstalled 2.4, SPE ran again under 2.3.3, and that's
what I'm using now.

What caused this kind of interaction between installs? SPE and wxWindows
both live in site-packages, which I would have thought would make them
Python-version specific.

Beats me. You could try running SPE from a command line and seeing
what errors it spits out - you're probably going to need to talk to
whoever packaged up SPE.

Anthony

 

[Harry George]

Newb question: Is it possible/recommended to have multiple versions of
Python installed simultaneously? Earlier, I installed 2.4rc1, and a number
of things in my 2.3.3 install stopped working. Are there known techniques
for managing multiple versions?

Thanks,

Dave Merrill

I can only speak for *NIX systems; don't know about MS Win** systems.
The quick answer is "Yes, it can be done".

1. Build and install as
make altinstall

This installs, e.g.:
/usr/local/
bin/
python2.3
lib/
python2.3


It does NOT also make an entry at /usr/local/bin/python. Thus any
scripts which call for "python" or "/usr/bin/env python" get the
default version.

2. Make a wrapper script, e.g. /usr/local/bin/py23:
unset PYTHONHOME PYTHONPATH
/usr/local/bin/python2.3 "$@"

3. Use "py23" to build site-packages. Since you need to do this
repeatedly, it is best to save the build scripts on a python-version
basis. E.g., a "go23" script. Inside the scripts, use "py23" as
appropriate wherever you would have used "python". e.g.:

....
export PKGVER=Numeric-23.0
ln -s ../${PKGVER}.tar.gz .
gzip -cd ${PKGVER}.tar.gz | gtar xvf -
cd ${PKGVER}

py23 setup.py build
py23 setup.py install
cd ..
....

4. When another python version shows up, copy the go23 to go24, edit
it for py23-->py24, and start building. Use either version at the
commmand line or in other scripts via py23 or py24. NOTE: In cgi's,
give the full path, e.g.:

#!/usr/local/bin/python2.3

 

[Peter Hansen]

Newb question: Is it possible/recommended to have multiple versions of
Python installed simultaneously? Earlier, I installed 2.4rc1, and a number
of things in my 2.3.3 install stopped working. Are there known techniques
for managing multiple versions?

What exactly stopped working? Other than the fact that
file associations for .py files will, obviously, point to
only one of the two versions, I don't believe there should
be any other conflicts. They use different registry keys,
for example, and normally don't rely on environment
variables, the PATH, or such. Had you made any customizations
to the default installation, such as adding a PYTHONHOME
env var, or putting one folder in your PATH?

-Peter

 

[Chang LI]

On behalf of the Python development team and the Python community, I'm
happy to announce the release of Python 2.4.

Is there Windows 64-bit edition available?

 

[Morten Lied Johansen]

On behalf of the Python development team and the Python community, I'm
happy to announce the release of Python 2.4.

Question from a noob:

I have several third party python-modules installed on my current
Windowssystem, and I was wondering if there is a way to upgrade to
Python 2.4 without having to download and install all of those again?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[Jeff Shannon]

Should have been more specific.

As I recall, after I installed 2.4rc1 I installed the latest versions of
wxWindows and SPE IDE into it. The 2.4 copy of SPE died silently when
started, which I can accept as a incompatible versions.

What was strange to me was that at that point, the 2.3.3 copy of SPE did the
same thing. After I uninstalled 2.4, SPE ran again under 2.3.3, and that's
what I'm using now.

Some vague possibilities that occur to me --

The 2.4 version is missing some libraries, or has binary libraries that
are compiled against a different version of Python. (All compiled
extensions must be compiled against a specific major.minor version;
extensions compiled against 2.3 won't work with 2.4.)

You have path issues, such that you're attempting to run 2.3 libs with
2.4, or vice versa. Check which version is now your "default"
(associated with .py/.pyw files, and/or found by typing a bare 'python').

I'm leaning towards the first of these as being most likely -- I
strongly suspect that there are few third-party packages that are
compiled against 2.4 yet. Those should start appearing Real Soon
Now(tm), though, now that 2.4 is officially released.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International

 

[Peter Hansen]

Question from a noob:

I have several third party python-modules installed on my current
Windowssystem, and I was wondering if there is a way to upgrade to
Python 2.4 without having to download and install all of those again?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

If they're pure Python, done as standard packages with no
special dependencies etc, you could just copy their folders
from the lib/site-packages folder of your old Python to the
equivalent place in the new one.

If they're not, it may still be possible, but downloading
and installing may be easier.

My approach is to maintain a folder with the original .exe
files for each package I install, separate from everything
else. When I upgrade, I just run them again and select
Python 2.4 as the destination, and I don't have to worry
about extracting them from the old version.

If, by the way, these packages include C extensions, you
definitely have to download new ones and install from
scratch...

-Peter

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Martin_v=2E_L=F6wis=22?=]

Is there Windows 64-bit edition available?

Yes:

http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.4/python-2.4.ia64.msi

Regards,
Martin

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=]

Christmas came early this year. Thank you all nice Python developers.

 

[Anthony Baxter]

Is there Windows 64-bit edition available?

If you went to the 2.4 page, you'd see that there is indeed a windows-itanium
version available. One click. http://www.python.org/2.4/

 

[Klaus Meyer]

happy to announce the release of Python 2.4.

Thanks!

minor remarks:

First line from C:\Python24\README.txt

This is Python version 2.4 alpha 3


In C:\Python24\Tools
in various subdirs the README.TXT files disappeared.