Core and builtins
+- The built-ins slice() and buffer() are now callable types. The
+ types classobj (formerly class), code, function, instance, and
+ instancemethod (formerly instance-method), which have no built-in
+ names but are accessible through the types module, are now also
+ callable. The type dict-proxy is renamed to dictproxy.
+
- Fixed string.startswith and string.endswith builtin methods
so they accept negative indices. [SF bug 493951]
Extension modules
+- The 'new' module is no longer an extension, but a Python module that
+ only exists for backwards compatibility. Its contents are no longer
+ functions but callable type objects.
+
- The bsddb.*open functions can now take 'None' as a filename.
This will create a temporary in-memory bsddb that won't be
written to disk.