[Biopython] Biopython 1.55 beta released

[Peter]

Dear Biopythoneers,

We’ve just released a beta of Biopython 1.55 for user testing, as
announced on the news server (which has RSS and atom feeds) and on
twitter:
http://news.open-bio.org/news/2010/08/biopython-1-55-beta-released/
http://twitter.com/biopython

Since Biopython 1.54 was released three months ago, we’ve made a good
start on work for Python 3 support (via the 2to3 script), but as a
side effect of this we’ve had to update quite a lot of the older parts
of the library. Although the unit tests are all fine, there is a small
but real chance that we’ve accidentally broken things – which is why
we’re doing this beta release.

In terms of new features, the most noticeable highlight is that the
command line tool application wrapper classes are now executable,
which should make it much easier to call external tools. This is
described in the updated documentation.
http://biopython.org/DIST/docs/tutorial/Tutorial.html
http://biopython.org/DIST/docs/tutorial/Tutorial.pdf

Note we are phasing out support for Python 2.4. We will continue to
support it for at least one further release (i.e. Biopython 1.56).
This could be delayed given feedback from our users (e.g. if this
proves to be a problem in combination with other libraries or a
popular Linux distribution).

(At least) 10 people have contributed to this release (so far),
including 5 new people - thank you all:

    * Andres Colubri (first contribution)
    * Carlos Rios Vera (first contribution)
    * Claude Paroz (first contribution)
    * Eric Talevich
    * Frank Kauff
    * Joao Rodrigues (first contribution)
    * Konstantin Okonechnikov (first contribution)
    * Michiel de Hoon
    * Peter Cock
    * Tiago Antao

Source distributions and Windows installers are available from the
downloads page on the Biopython website:
http://www.biopython.org/wiki/Download

Feedback is welcome through the mailing lists (or bugzilla),
especially if you find something that doesn't work.

Thank you,

Peter