reported by Michael Hudson in
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-November/030299.html

        Previously archive_util.py attempted to spawn an
        external 'zip' program for the zip action, if this fails, an
        attempt to import zipfile.py is made...

        This bites folks who have 'old' or non-conforming zip
        programs on windows platforms.  This change tries the 'zipfile'
        module first, falling back to spawning a zip process if
        the module isn't available.

user, and spell out a x-platform use limitation.

put more in the critical section than absolutely needed, acquire
the mutex before the "try".

more often than it is.  In response to bug:

[ 641808 ] Portability of Modules/_cursesmodule.c

submitted by Nick Mclaren.

Todo:
- command line parsing
- main program
- modulefinder(-like ;-) support to build standalone apps.

[ 634250 ] SearchDialogBase.py fix for Tk 8.4.1

SearchDialogBase refers to the grid 'col' option
considered ambiguous with Python 2.2.2 and Tk 8.4.1.
The correct name is 'column'.

Make sure we have a UNIX-compatible termios.
Apparently, McMillan Installer made a termios on windows
which caused unix_getpass() to be used instead of win_getpass().

Will backport.

- don't encode/escape elements
- fixed typo in doc string
- provide our own copy function for the Dict class

/usr/bin/python.

Re-order the "porting" section to list items by decreasing significance

the codecs docstrings.

that is outside the integer range no longer raises OverflowError, but
returns a long object instead.

This fixes SF bug http://www.python.org/sf/635115

dependence on the Tcl/Tk version number.  Now you point it at the
Tcl/Tk install you want to ship, and that's what it ships.

    suggested by PEP 291.