The latest beta release includes significant speed enhancements and more.
This week the Python Software Foundation released a new beta version of Python 3.11. Pablo Galindo Salgado, Steering Council Member for Python.org, issued an announcement.
“There are no easy releases these days!” he wrote. “After a week of delay due to several release blockers, buildbot problems and pandemic-related difficulties here is 3.11.0a6 for you to test.”
“Python 3.11 is still in development. This release, 3.11.0a6 is the sixth of seven 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, Salgado writes.
The new release is a preview not recommended for production
During the alpha phase, features may be added up until the start of the beta phase (2022-05-06) and, if necessary, may be modified or deleted up until the release candidate phase (2022-08-01). Please keep in mind that this is a preview release and its use is not recommended for production environments.
Many new features for Python 3.11 are still being planned and written, Salgado explains. Among the new major new features and changes so far:
- PEP 657 – Include Fine-Grained Error Locations in Tracebacks
- PEP 654 – Exception Groups and except*
- PEP 673 – Self Type
- PEP 646 – Variadic Generics
- 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 PyPerformance benchmarks, compared to 3.10.0.
The next pre-release of Python 3.11 will be 3.11.0a7, currently scheduled for Tuesday, 2022-04-05.
“We hope you enjoy the new releases!” writes the Python team. “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.”