From the ‘It’s Done When It’s Done’ files:
Over two and a half years after the last major release of the open source Python language, Python 3.3 is now generally available.
When Python 3.2came out back in March of 2011, most of the world’s Python developers were still running Python 2.x
Today, there are still a fair number of Python 2.x applications and code out there, but that’s ok – Python 3.3 has features in it designed for easier porting of code from Python 2.x to 3.x.
PEP 414: Explicit Unicode literals is one such Python 2.x transition features.
“To ease the transition from Python 2 for Unicode aware Python applications that make heavy use of Unicode literals, Python 3.3 once again supports the “u” prefix for string literals,” the Python 3.3 release notes state.
Looking at new features, one of the ones that interests me the most is PEP 405 for virtual environments
“Virtual environments help create separate Python setups while sharing a system-wide base install, for ease of maintenance,” the release notes state. “Virtual environments have their own set of private site packages (i.e. locally-installed libraries), and are optionally segregated from the system-wide site packages.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.