Python 3.11.0a3 is available

You can tell that we are slowly getting closer to the first beta as the number of release blockers that we need to fix on every release starts to increase  But we did it! 

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3110a1/

Major new features of the 3.11 series, compared to 3.10

Among the new major new features and changes so far:

• PEP 657 – Include Fine-Grained Error Locations in Tracebacks
• PEP 654 – PEP 654 – Exception Groups and except*
  
• The Faster Cpython Project is already yielding some exciting results: this version of CPython 3.11 is ~19% faster on the geometric mean of the performance benchmarks, compared to 3.10.0.
(Hey, fellow core developer, if a feature you find important is missing from this list, let Pablo know.)

The next pre-release of Python 3.11 will be 3.11.0a3, currently scheduled for 2022-01-03.

More resources

• Online Documentation

• PEP 664, 3.11 Release Schedule
• Report bugs at https://bugs.python.org.

• Help fund Python and its community.

And now for something completely different

Rayleigh scattering, named after the nineteenth-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh is the predominantly elastic scattering of light or other electromagnetic radiation by particles much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. For light frequencies well below the resonance frequency of the scattering particle, the amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength. Rayleigh scattering results from the electric polarizability of the particles. The oscillating electric field of a light wave acts on the charges within a particle, causing them to move at the same frequency. The particle, therefore, becomes a small radiating dipole whose radiation we see as scattered light. The particles may be individual atoms or molecules; it can occur when light travels through transparent solids and liquids but is most prominently seen in gases.

The strong wavelength dependence of the scattering means that shorter (blue) wavelengths are scattered more strongly than longer (red) wavelengths. This results in the indirect blue light coming from all regions of the sky.

We hope you enjoy the new releases!

Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation.

https://www.python.org/psf/

Your friendly release team,
Ned Deily @nad 
Steve Dower @steve.dower 
Pablo Galindo Salgado @pablogsal

Python 3.10.1 is available

I hope you like bug fixes, because we have a whole shipment of them! Python 3.10.1 is the first maintenance release of Python 3.10 as we have packed more than 330 commits of fixes and general improvements. You can get it here:

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3101/

This is the first maintenance release of Python 3.10

Python 3.10.1 is the newest major release of the Python programming language, and it contains many new features and optimizations.

Major new features of the 3.10 series, compared to 3.9

Among the new major new features and changes so far:

• PEP 623 – Deprecate and prepare for the removal of the wstr member in PyUnicodeObject.

• PEP 604 – Allow writing union types as X | Y

• PEP 612 – Parameter Specification Variables

• PEP 626 – Precise line numbers for debugging and other tools.

• PEP 618 – Add Optional Length-Checking To zip.

• bpo-12782: Parenthesized context managers are now officially allowed.

• PEP 632 – Deprecate distutils module.

• PEP 613 – Explicit Type Aliases

• PEP 634 – Structural Pattern Matching: Specification

• PEP 635 – Structural Pattern Matching: Motivation and Rationale

• PEP 636 – Structural Pattern Matching: Tutorial

• PEP 644 – Require OpenSSL 1.1.1 or newer

• PEP 624 – Remove Py_UNICODE encoder APIs

• PEP 597 – Add optional EncodingWarning

More resources

• Online Documentation

• PEP 619, 3.10 Release Schedule

• Report bugs at https://bugs.python.org.

• Help fund Python and its community.

bpo-38605: from __future__ import annotations (PEP 563) used to be on this list in previous pre-releases but it has been postponed to Python 3.11 due to some compatibility concerns. You can read the Steering Council communication about it here to learn more.

And now for something completely different

The Meissner effect (or Meissner–Ochsenfeld effect) is the expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor during its transition to the superconducting state when it is cooled below the critical temperature. This expulsion will repel a nearby magnet. The German physicists Walther Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld discovered this phenomenon in 1933 by measuring the magnetic field distribution outside superconducting tin and lead samples. The experiment demonstrated for the first time that superconductors were more than just perfect conductors and provided a uniquely defining property of the superconductor state. The ability for the expulsion effect is determined by the nature of equilibrium formed by the neutralization within the unit cell of a superconductor.

You can do very cool things with it!

We hope you enjoy the new releases!

Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation.

https://www.python.org/psf/

Your friendly release team,
Ned Deily @nad 
Steve Dower @steve.dower 
Pablo Galindo Salgado @pablogsal