Fedora 31 Is Already Planning Ahead For Python 3.8

While Fedora 30 isn't debuting for another three months, with the system-wide change deadline already having passed on that release, ambitious Fedora developers are already thinking about early feature plans for Fedora 31 that will debut in November.

One of the first Fedora 31 system-wide change proposals is for upgrading from Python 3.7 to Python 3.8. Python 3.7 was released just last summer and the Python 3.8.0 release isn't even expected until the end of October, but given it will be another big update to Python3, Fedora developers are working on coordinating the upgrade early to prevent possible fallout late in the cycle.

One of the new features added so far to Python 3.8 on the language side is the concept of assignment expressions using the notation NAME := expr. There is also a parallel file-system cache for compiled bytecode files, various performance optimizations, and other improvements though the feature freeze for Python 3.8 isn't even until the end of May, though early alpha releases have begun. Other early features and changes for Python 3.8 are outlined on the what's new page.

Beta releases are expected through the summer, the release candidates to start by the end of September, and the final release to ideally take place around 20 October.

The tentative Fedora 31 release schedule is putting this release to take place around the end of November.

The early feature planning for Python 3.8 in Fedora 31, which is still contingent upon the approval of FESCo, though that's almost a given, can be found via the Fedora Wiki.

For those on Fedora 29 or newer, you can already begin testing the Python 3.8 alpha releases via sudo dnf install python38.