python-peps/pep-0356.txt

PEP: 356
Title: Python 2.5 Release Schedule
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: Neal Norwitz, GvR, Anthony Baxter
Status: Draft
Type: Informational
Created: 07-Feb-2006
Python-Version: 2.5
Post-History:

Abstract

    This document describes the development and release schedule for
    Python 2.5.  The schedule primarily concerns itself with PEP-sized
    items.  Small features may be added up to and including the first
    beta release.  Bugs may be fixed until the final release.

    There will be at least two alpha releases, two beta releases, and
    one release candidate.  The release date is planned 19 August 2006.


Release Manager

    Anthony Baxter has volunteered to be Release Manager.

    Martin von Loewis is building the Windows installers,
    Ronald Oussoren is building the Mac installers,
    Fred Drake the doc packages and
    Sean Reifschneider the RPMs.


Release Schedule

    alpha 1: April 5, 2006 [completed]
    alpha 2: April 27, 2006 [completed]
    beta 1:  June 20, 2006 [completed]
    beta 2:  July 11, 2006 [completed]
    beta 3:  August 1, 2006 [planned]
    rc 1:    August ??, 2006 [planned]
    final:   August ??, 2006 [planned]


Completed features for 2.5

    PEP 308: Conditional Expressions
    PEP 309: Partial Function Application
    PEP 314: Metadata for Python Software Packages v1.1
    PEP 328: Absolute/Relative Imports
    PEP 338: Executing Modules as Scripts
    PEP 341: Unified try-except/try-finally to try-except-finally
    PEP 342: Coroutines via Enhanced Generators
    PEP 343: The "with" Statement
	(still need updates in Doc/ref and for the contextlib module)
    PEP 352: Required Superclass for Exceptions
    PEP 353: Using ssize_t as the index type
    PEP 357: Allowing Any Object to be Used for Slicing

    - ASCII became the default coding

    - AST-based compiler
      - Access to C AST from Python through new _ast module

    - any()/all() builtin truth functions

    New standard library modules

      - cProfile -- suitable for profiling long running applications
        with minimal overhead

      - ctypes -- optional component of the windows installer

      - ElementTree and cElementTree -- by Fredrik Lundh

      - hashlib -- adds support for SHA-224, -256, -384, and -512
        (replaces old md5 and sha modules)

      - msilib -- for creating MSI files and bdist_msi in distutils.

      - pysqlite

      - uuid

      - wsgiref

    Other notable features

      - Added support for reading shadow passwords (http://python.org/sf/579435)

      - Added support for the Unicode 4.1 UCD

      - Added PEP 302 zipfile/__loader__ support to the following modules:
        warnings, linecache, inspect, traceback, site, and doctest

      - Added pybench Python benchmark suite -- by Marc-Andre Lemburg

      - Add write support for mailboxes from the code in sandbox/mailbox.
        (Owner: A.M. Kuchling.  It would still be good if another person
        would take a look at the new code.)

      - Support for building "fat" Mac binaries (Intel and PPC)

      - Add new icons for Windows with the new Python logo?

      - New utilities in functools to help write wrapper functions that
        support naive introspection (e.g. having f.__name__ return
        the original function name).

      - Upgrade pyexpat to use expat 2.0.

      - Python core now compiles cleanly with g++

Possible features for 2.5

    Each feature below should implemented prior to beta1 or
    will require BDFL approval for inclusion in 2.5.

    - Modules under consideration for inclusion:

    - Add new icons for MacOS and Unix with the new Python logo?
      (Owner: ???)
      MacOS: http://hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/python/prettified-py-icons.png

    - Check the various bits of code in Demo/ all still work, update or 
      remove the ones that don't.
      (Owner: Anthony)

    - All modules in Modules/ should be updated to be ssize_t clean.
      (Owner: Neal)


Deferred until 2.6:

    - bdist_deb in distutils package
      http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-February/060926.html

    - bdist_egg in distutils package

    - pure python pgen module
      (Owner: Guido)

    - Remove the fpectl module?

    - Make everything in Modules/ build cleanly with g++


Open issues

    - Bugs that need resolving before release, ie, they block release:
        http://python.org/sf/1530559 - struct rejecting floats
        http://python.org/sf/1333982 - AST
        http://python.org/sf/1191458 - AST (test_trace issue mentioned below)

        http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-July/067774.html
                Problem with __index__

    - Bugs that ought to be resolved before release (all exist in 2.4):
        http://python.org/sf/1526585 - SystemError concat long strings
        http://python.org/sf/1523610 - PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords potential
                                        core dump
        http://python.org/sf/1519025 - socket timeout crash when receive signal
        http://python.org/sf/1517042 - Fix crashers/gc_inspection.py
        http://python.org/sf/1475523 - gettext.py bug
        http://python.org/sf/1467929 - %-formatting and dicts

    - AST compiler problems
      (Owner: Jeremy Hylton)
       * string constants that are not assigned are in byte code
            def foo():
                "docstring" 
                "not a docstring" 
         the constant (not a docstring) should not be stored in co_consts

       * test_trace tests that were commented out for AST must be fixed
         only test_05_no_pop_tops remains outstanding
         (Owner: Jeremy Hylton)
         http://python.org/sf/1191458

    - The PEP 302 changes to (at least) pkgutil, runpy and pydoc must be
      documented.

    - test_zipfile64 takes too long and too much disk space for 
      most of the buildbots.  How should this be handled?
      It is currently disabled.

    - should C modules listed in "Undocumented modules" be removed too?
      "timing" (listed as obsolete), "cl" (listed as possibly not up-to-date),
      and "sv" (listed as obsolete hardware specific).

Copyright

    This document has been placed in the public domain.



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