All the news that's fit to print. In other words, it's 1.5.2a2 time.

Misc/NEWS

 What's new in this release?
 ===========================
 
-Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.4.  The
-sections are now in a more useful order: the most recent changes are
-listed first.
+Below is a list of all relevant changes since release 1.4.  The most
+recent changes are listed first.
 
 A note on attributions: while I have sprinkled some names throughout
 here, I'm grateful to many more people who remain unnamed.  You may
@@ -14,6 +13,274 @@ credit, let me know and I'll add you to the list!
 ======================================================================
 
 
+From 1.5.2a1 to 1.5.2a2
+=======================
+
+General
+-------
+
+- It is now a syntax error to have a function argument without a
+default following one with a default.
+
+- __file__ is now set to the .py file if it was parsed (it used to
+always be the .pyc/.pyo file).
+
+- Don't exit with a fatal error during initialization when there's a
+problem with the exceptions.py module.
+
+- New environment variable PYTHONOPTIMIZE can be used to set -O.
+
+- New version of python-mode.el for Emacs.
+
+Miscellaneous fixed bugs
+------------------------
+
+- No longer print the (confusing) error message about stack underflow
+while compiling.
+
+- Some threading and locking bugs fixed.
+
+- When errno is zero, report "Error", not "Success".
+
+Documentation
+-------------
+
+- Documentation will be released separately.
+
+- Doc strings added to array and md5 modules by Chris Petrilli.
+
+Ports and build procedure
+-------------------------
+
+- Stop installing when a move or copy fails.
+
+- New version of the OS/2 port code by Jeff Rush.
+
+- The makesetup script handles absolute filenames better.
+
+- The 'new' module is now enabled by default in the Setup file.
+
+- I *think* I've solved the problem with the Linux build blowing up
+sometimes due to a conflict between sigcheck/intrcheck and
+signalmodule.
+
+Built-in functions
+------------------
+
+- The second argument to apply() can now be any sequence, not just a
+tuple.
+
+Built-in types
+--------------
+
+- Lists have a new method: L1.extend(L2) is equivalent to the common
+idiom L1[len(L1):] = L2.
+
+- Better error messages when a sequence is indexed with a non-integer.
+
+- Bettter error message when calling a non-callable object (include
+the type in the message).
+
+Python services
+---------------
+
+- New version of cPickle.c fixes some bugs.
+
+- pickle.py: improved instantiation error handling.
+
+- code.py: reworked quite a bit.  New base class
+InteractiveInterpreter and derived class InteractiveConsole.  Fixed
+several problems in compile_command().
+
+- py_compile.py: print error message and continue on syntax errors.
+Also fixed an old bug with the fstat code (it was never used).
+
+- pyclbr.py: support submodules of packages.
+
+String Services
+---------------
+
+- StringIO.py: raise the right exception (ValueError) for attempted
+I/O on closed StringIO objects.
+
+- re.py: fixed a bug in subn(), which caused .groups() to fail inside
+the replacement function called by sub().
+
+- The struct module has a new format 'P': void * in native mode.
+
+Generic OS Services
+-------------------
+
+- Module time: Y2K robustness.  2-digit year acceptance depends on
+value of time.accept2dyear, initialized from env var PYTHONY2K,
+default 0.  Years 00-68 mean 2000-2068, while 69-99 mean 1969-1999
+(POSIX or X/Open recommendation).
+
+- os.path: normpath(".//x") should return "x", not "/x".
+
+- getpass.py: fall back on default_getpass() when sys.stdin.fileno()
+doesn't work.
+
+- tempfile.py: regenerate the template after a fork() call.
+
+Optional OS Services
+--------------------
+
+- In the signal module, disable restarting interrupted system calls
+when we have siginterrupt().
+
+Debugger
+--------
+
+- No longer set __args__; this feature is no longer supported and can
+affect the debugged code.
+
+- cmd.py, pdb.py and bdb.py have been overhauled by Richard Wolff, who
+added aliases and some other useful new features, e.g. much better
+breakpoint support: temporary breakpoint, disabled breakpoints,
+breakpoints with ignore counts, and conditions; breakpoints can be set
+on a file before it is loaded.
+
+Profiler
+--------
+
+- Changes so that JPython can use it.  Also fix the calibration code
+so it actually works again
+.
+Internet Protocols and Support
+------------------------------
+
+- imaplib.py: new version from Piers Lauder.
+
+- smtplib.py: change sendmail() method to accept a single string or a
+list or strings as the destination (commom newbie mistake).
+
+- poplib.py: LIST with a msg argument fixed.
+
+- urlparse.py: some optimizations for common case (http).
+
+- urllib.py: support content-length in info() for ftp protocol;
+support for a progress meter through a third argument to
+urlretrieve(); commented out gopher test (the test site is dead).
+
+Internet Data handling
+----------------------
+
+- sgmllib.py: support tags with - or . in their name.
+
+- mimetypes.py: guess_type() understands 'data' URLs.
+
+Restricted Execution
+--------------------
+
+- The classes rexec.RModuleLoader and rexec.RModuleImporter no
+longer exist.
+
+Tkinter
+-------
+
+- When reporting an exception, store its info in sys.last_*.  Also,
+write all of it to stderr.
+
+- Added NS, EW, and NSEW constants, for grid's sticky option.
+
+- Fixed last-minute bug in 1.5.2a1 release: need to include "mytime.h".
+
+- Make bind variants without a sequence return a tuple of sequences
+(formerly it returned a string, which wasn't very convenient).
+
+- Add image commands to the Text widget (these are new in Tk 8.0).
+
+- Added new listbox and canvas methods: {xview,yview}_{scroll,moveto}.)
+
+- Improved the thread code (but you still can't call update() from
+another thread on Windows).
+
+- Fixed unnecessary references to _default_root in the new dialog
+modules.
+
+- Miscellaneous problems fixed.
+
+
+Windows General
+---------------
+
+- Call LoadLibraryEx(..., ..., LOAD_WITH_ALTERED_SEARCH_PATH) to
+search for dependent dlls in the directory containing the .pyd.
+
+- In debugging mode, call DebugBreak() in Py_FatalError().
+
+Windows Installer
+-----------------
+
+- Install zlib.dll in the DLLs directory instead of in the win32
+system directory, to avoid conflicts with other applications that have 
+their own zlib.dll.
+
+Test Suite
+----------
+
+- test_long.py: new test for long integers, by Tim Peters.
+
+- regrtest.py: improved so it can be used for other test suites as
+well.
+
+- test_strftime.py: use re to compare test results, to support legal
+variants (e.g. on Linux).
+
+Tools and Demos
+---------------
+
+- Four new scripts in Tools/scripts: crlf.py and lfcr.py (to
+remove/add Windows style '\r\n' line endings), untabify.py (to remove
+tabs), and rgrep.yp (reverse grep).
+
+- Improvements to Tools/freeze/.  Each Python module is now written to
+its own C file.  This prevents some compilers or assemblers from
+blowing up on large frozen programs, and saves recompilation time if
+only a few modules are changed.  Other changes too, e.g. new command
+line options -x and -i.
+
+- Much improved (and smaller!) version of Tools/scripts/mailerdaemon.py.
+
+Python/C API
+------------
+
+- New mechanism to support extensions of the type object while
+remaining backward compatible with extensions compiled for previous
+versions of Python 1.5.  A flags field indicates presence of certain
+fields.
+
+- Addition to the buffer API to differentiate access to bytes and
+8-bit characters (in anticipation of Unicode characters).
+
+- New argument parsing format t# ("text") to indicate 8-bit
+characters; s# simply means 8-bit bytes, for backwards compatibility.
+
+- New object type, bufferobject.c is an example and can be used to
+create buffers from memory.
+
+- Some support for 64-bit longs, including some MS platforms.
+
+- Many calls to fprintf(stderr, ...) have been replaced with calls to
+PySys_WriteStderr(...).
+
+- The calling context for PyOS_Readline() has changed: it must now be
+called with the interpreter lock held!  It releases the lock around
+the call to the function pointed to by PyOS_ReadlineFunctionPointer
+(default PyOS_StdioReadline()).
+
+- New APIs PyLong_FromVoidPtr() and PyLong_AsVoidPtr().
+
+- Renamed header file "thread.h" to "pythread.h".
+
+- The code string of code objects may now be anything that supports the
+buffer API.
+
+
+======================================================================
+
+
 From 1.5.1 to 1.5.2a1
 =====================