The latest release of Python, 3.8, is available with many new features and optimizations. Notable improvements include a walrus operator and positional-only parameters.

One main change to Python 3.8 is the addition of the so-called "walrus" operator which adds support for assignment expressions to Python. The “walrus” operator := means you can assign values to a variable as part of an expression, so saving some lines of code when you want to use the value of an expression later in your program.

Support has also been added for positional-only parameters (/). Many CPython built-in and standard library functions only accept positional-only parameters, and this new support makes it easier to work with such functions.

The “vectorcall” protocol has been added to the Python/C API. This is based on the "fastcall" convention, which is already used internally by CPython. The new features can be used by any user-defined extension class. Most of the new API is private in CPython 3.8, and the developers plan to finalize the semantics and make it public in Python 3.9. The new vectorcall only applies to the Python/C API, it does not affect the Python language or standard library.

The current release, 3.8. adds an Audit Hook and Verified Open Hook. Both can be used from Python or native code, and are intended to let applications and frameworks take advantage of extra notifications, while also allowing embedders or system administrators to deploy builds of Python where auditing is always enabled.

Python 3.8.0 is available on the Python downloads page and for developers not yet ready to move on to the latest release so is Python 3.7.5. According to Python Insider bugfix releases of 3.7x will continue until mid 2020 and security fixes until mid 2023. 

• Mike James is the author of Programmer's Python: Everything is an Object published by I/O Press as part of the  I Programmer Library. 

More Information

Python HomePage

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