Python 3.8.4
Release Date: July 13, 2020
This is the fourth maintenance release of Python 3.8
Note: The release you're looking at is Python 3.8.4, a bugfix release for the legacy 3.8 series. Python 3.11 is now the latest feature release series of Python 3. Get the latest release of 3.11.x here.
Major new features of the 3.8 series, compared to 3.7
- PEP 572, Assignment expressions
- PEP 570, Positional-only arguments
- PEP 587, Python Initialization Configuration (improved embedding)
- PEP 590, Vectorcall: a fast calling protocol for CPython
- PEP 578, Runtime audit hooks
- PEP 574, Pickle protocol 5 with out-of-band data
- Typing-related: PEP 591 (Final qualifier), PEP 586 (Literal types), and PEP 589 (TypedDict)
- Parallel filesystem cache for compiled bytecode
- Debug builds share ABI as release builds
- f-strings support a handy
=
specifier for debugging continue
is now legal infinally:
blocks- on Windows, the default
asyncio
event loop is nowProactorEventLoop
- on macOS, the spawn start method is now used by default in
multiprocessing
multiprocessing
can now use shared memory segments to avoid pickling costs between processestyped_ast
is merged back to CPythonLOAD_GLOBAL
is now 40% fasterpickle
now uses Protocol 4 by default, improving performance
There are many other interesting changes, please consult the "What's New" page in the documentation for a full list.
More resources
- Online Documentation
- PEP 569, 3.8 Release Schedule
- Report bugs at https://bugs.python.org.
- Help fund Python and its community.
Windows users
- The binaries for AMD64 will also work on processors that implement the Intel 64 architecture. (Also known as the "x64" architecture, and formerly known as both "EM64T" and "x86-64".)
- There are now "web-based" installers for Windows platforms; the installer will download the needed software components at installation time.
- There are redistributable zip files containing the Windows builds, making it easy to redistribute Python as part of another software package. Please see the documentation regarding Embedded Distribution for more information.
macOS users
- For Python 3.8, we provide one installer: 64-bit-only that works on macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) and later systems.
- Please read the "Important Information" displayed during installation for information about SSL/TLS certificate validation and the running the "Install Certificates.command".
And now for something completely different
Michael Palin: Hello, good evening and welcome to another edition of Blood, Devastation, Death War and Horror, and later on we'll be meeting a man who does gardening. But first on the show we've got a man who speaks entirely in anagrams.
Palin: I believe you're working on an anagram version of Shakespeare?
Eric Idle: Sey, sey - taht si crreoct, er - ta the mnemot I'm wroking on 'The Mating of the Wersh'.
Palin: Have you done 'Hamlet'?
Idle: 'Thamle'. 'Be ot or bot ne ot, tath is the nestquoi.'
Palin: And what is your next project?
Idle: 'Ring Kichard the Thrid'.
Palin: I'm sorry?
Idle: 'A shroe! A shroe! My dingkom for a shroe!'
Palin: Ah, Ring Kichard, yes... but surely that's not an anagram, that's a spoonerism.
Idle: (offended) If you're going to split hairs, I'm going to piss off.
Files
Version | Operating System | Description | MD5 Sum | File Size | GPG |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gzipped source tarball | Source release | 387e63fe42c40a29e3408ce231315516 | 23.0 MB | SIG | |
XZ compressed source tarball | Source release | e16df33cd7b58702e57e137f8f5d13e7 | 17.2 MB | SIG | |
macOS 64-bit installer | macOS | for OS X 10.9 and later | 8464bc5341d3444b2ccad001d88b752b | 28.8 MB | SIG |
Windows help file | Windows | bf7942cdd74f34aa4f485730a714cc47 | 8.1 MB | SIG | |
Windows x86 embeddable zip file | Windows | 910c307f58282aaa88a2e9df38083ed2 | 7.0 MB | SIG | |
Windows x86 executable installer | Windows | c3d71a80f518cfba4d038de53bca2734 | 25.5 MB | SIG | |
Windows x86 web-based installer | Windows | 075a93add0ac3d070b113f71442ace37 | 1.3 MB | SIG | |
Windows x86-64 embeddable zip file | Windows | for AMD64/EM64T/x64 | c68f60422a0e43dabf54b84a0e92ed6a | 7.8 MB | SIG |
Windows x86-64 executable installer | Windows | for AMD64/EM64T/x64 | 12297fb08088d1002f7e93a93fd779c6 | 26.6 MB | SIG |
Windows x86-64 web-based installer | Windows | for AMD64/EM64T/x64 | 7c382afb4d8faa0a82973e44caf02949 | 1.3 MB | SIG |