Pip 20.1 has been released

On behalf of the PyPA, I am pleased to announce that a new version of pip, pip 20.1, has been released.

To install pip 20.1, you can run:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

The highlights for this release are:

• Significant speedups when building local directories, by changing behavior to perform in-place builds, instead of copying to temporary directories.
• Significant speedups in pip list --outdated, by parallelizing network access. This is the first instance of parallel code within pip's codebase.
• A new pip cache command, which makes it possible to introspect and manage pip's cache directory.
• Better pip freeze for packages installed from direct URLs, enabled by the implementation of PEP 610.

This release also contains an alpha version of pip's next generation resolver. It is off by default because it is unstable and not ready for everyday use. If you're curious about this, please visit this GitHub issue about the resolver, what doesn't work yet, and what kind of testing would help us out. We plan to release a version of pip that includes a beta of the new resolver in May.

The full changelog is available.

As with all pip releases, a significant amount of the work was contributed by pip's user community. Huge thanks to all who have contributed, whether through code, documentation, issue reports and/or discussion. Your help keeps pip improving, and is hugely appreciated.

Thank you to the pip and PyPA maintainers, and to all the contributors and volunteers who work on or use Python packaging tools.

And thank you to Mozilla (through its Mozilla Open Source Support Awards) and to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, for funding enabling work on the new resolver, and thanks to the PSF and the Packaging WG for obtaining and administering that funding.

Python 3.9.0a6 is now available for testing

On behalf of the entire Python development community, and the currently serving Python release team in particular, I’m pleased to announce the release of Python 3.9.0a6. Get it here:

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-390a6/

 

This is an early developer preview of Python 3.9

Python 3.9 is still in development. This release, 3.9.0a6, is the last out of six planned alpha releases. Alpha releases are intended to make it easier to test the current state of new features and bug fixes and to test the release process. During the alpha phase, features may be added up until the start of the beta phase (2020-05-18) and, if necessary, may be modified or deleted up until the release candidate phase (2020-08-10). Please keep in mind that this is a preview release and its use is not recommended for production environments.

 

Major new features of the 3.9 series, compared to 3.8

Many new features for Python 3.9 are still being planned and written. Among the new major new features and changes so far:

• PEP 584, Union Operators in dict
• PEP 585, Type Hinting Generics In Standard Collections
• PEP 593, Flexible function and variable annotations
• PEP 602, Python adopts a stable annual release cadence
• PEP 616, String methods to remove prefixes and suffixes
• PEP 617, New PEG parser for CPython
• BPO 38379, garbage collection does not block on resurrected objects;
• BPO 38692, os.pidfd_open added that allows process management without races and signals;
• BPO 39926, Unicode support updated to version 13.0.0
• BPO 1635741, when Python is initialized multiple times in the same process, it does not leak memory anymore
• A number of Python builtins (range, tuple, set, frozenset, list) are now sped up using PEP 590 vectorcall
• A number of standard library modules (audioop, ast, grp, _hashlib, pwd, _posixsubprocess, random, select, struct, termios, zlib) are now using the stable ABI defined by PEP 384.
• (Hey, fellow core developer, if a feature you find important is missing from this list, let Łukasz know.)

The next pre-release, the first beta release of Python 3.9, will be 3.9.0b1. It is currently scheduled for 2020-05-18.

Your friendly release team,
Ned Deily @nad
Steve Dower @steve.dower
Łukasz Langa @ambv

Python 2.7.18, the last release of Python 2

The CPython core developers are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Python 2.7.18.

Python 2.7.18 is the last Python 2.7 release and therefore the last Python 2 release. It's time for the CPython community to say a fond but firm farewell to Python 2.

Download this unique, commemorative Python release on python.org.

Python 2.7 has been under active development since the release of Python 2.6, more than 11 years ago. Over all those years, CPython's core developers and contributors sedulously applied bug fixes to the 2.7 branch, no small task as the Python 2 and 3 branches diverged. There were large changes midway through Python 2.7's life such as PEP 466's feature backports to the ssl module and hash randomization. Traditionally, these features would never have been added to a branch in maintenance mode, but exceptions were made to keep Python 2 users secure. Thank you to CPython's community for such dedication.

Python 2.7 was lucky to have the services of two generations of binary builders and operating system experts, Martin von Löwis and Steve Dower for Windows, and Ronald Oussoren and Ned Deily for macOS. The reason we provided binary Python 2.7 releases for macOS 10.9, an operating system obsoleted by Apple 4 years ago, or why the "Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7" exists is the dedication of these individuals.

Python 3 would be nowhere without the dedication of the wider community. Library maintainers followed CPython by maintaining Python 2 support for many years but also threw their weight behind the Python 3 statement. Linux distributors chased Python 2 out of their archives. Users migrated hundreds of millions of lines of code, developed porting guides, and kept Python 2 in their brain while Python 3 gained 10 years of improvements.

Finally, thank you to GvR for creating Python 0.9, 1, 2, and 3.

Long live Python 3+!

Python 2.7.18 release candidate 1 available

A first release candidate for Python 2.7.18 is now available for download. Python 2.7.18 will be the last release of the Python 2.7 series, and thus Python 2.