Just one week shy of Christmas 2008, the Python world saw the release of version 3 of Python. Big deal, eh? Well ... it turns out it was and is, as Python 3 is the first major release of Python designed from the get-go to be incompatible with prior versions of the language.

Python is a great programming language and one of the easiest to learn. That doesn't mean that it isn't capable of powerful stuff, however, because Python is known to handle almost every kind of programming task quite well. From basic scripting to enhanced graphical 3D programs: Python can do it all.

Python 2.7, the last in the legacy Python 2.x dynamic language line, moved closer to general availability earlier this month when developers of the language put out a release candidate.

The Python developers have released two new version of the programming language. Versions 2.6.5 and 3.1.2 are both new maintenance releases

According to the blurb on the book's back cover, "This book offers a highly accessible introduction to natural language processing, the field that supports a variety of language technologies, from predictive text and email filtering to automatic summarization and translation".

Python is a very popular interpreted scripting language. C is a very popular compiled language. Due to its compiled nature, C is generally faster than Python, but is lower-level, making Python programming quicker and easier than C programming.

Due to arrive in June 2010, Python 2.7 has now reached its first beta. Python 2.7 is planned to be the last major edition of the Python 2.x series before it goes into "bug fix mode".

"Python is an interpreted programming language created by Guido van Rossum in 1990. Python is fully dynamically typed and uses automatic memory management; it is thus similar to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, Smalltalk, and Tcl. Python is developed as an open source project, managed by the non-profit Python Software Foundation..."

With the latest major Python release, creator Guido van Rossum saw the opportunity to tidy up his famous scripting language. What is different about Python 3.0? In this article, I offer some highlights for Python programmers who are thinking about making the switch to 3.x.