[RELEASE] Python 3.14.0 alpha 2 is out

Alpha 2? But Alpha 1 only just came out!

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3140a2/

This is an early developer preview of Python 3.14

Major new features of the 3.14 series, compared to 3.13:

Python 3.14 is still in development. This release, 3.14.0a2 is the second
of seven planned alpha releases.

Alpha releases are intended to make it easier to test the current state of
new features and bug fixes and to test the release process.

During the alpha phase, features may be added up until the start of the
beta phase (2025-05-06) and, if necessary, may be modified or deleted up
until the release candidate phase (2025-07-22). Please keep in mind that
this is a preview release and its use is not recommended for production
environments.

Many new features for Python 3.14 are still being planned and written.
Among the new major new features and changes so far:

* PEP 649: deferred evaluation of annotations
* PEP 741: Python configuration C API
* PEP 761: Python 3.14 and onwards no longer provides PGP signatures for
release artifacts. Instead, Sigstore is recommended for verifiers.
* Improved error messages
* (Hey, fellow core developer, if a feature you find important is missing
from this list, let Hugo know.)

The next pre-release of Python 3.14 will be 3.14.0a3, currently scheduled
for 2024-12-17.

More resources

* Online documentation: https://docs.python.org/3.14/
* PEP 745, 3.14 Release Schedule: https://peps.python.org/pep-0719/
* Report bugs at https://github.com/python/cpython/issues
* Help fund Python and its community: https://www.python.org/psf/donations/

And now for something completely different

Ludolph van Ceulen (1540-1610) was a fencing and mathematics teacher in
Leiden, Netherlands, and spent around 25 years calculating π (or pi), using
essentially the same methods Archimedes employed some seventeen hundred
years earlier.

Archimedes estimated π by calculating the circumferences of polygons that
fit just inside and outside of a circle, reasoning the circumference of the
circle lies between these two values. Archimedes went up to polygons with
96 sides, for a value between 3.1408 and 3.1428, which is accurate to two
decimal places.

Van Ceulen used a polygon with half a billion sides. He published a
20-decimal value in his 1596 book Vanden Circkel (“On the Circle”), and
later expanded it to 35 decimals:

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288

Van Ceulen’s 20 digits is more than enough precision for any conceivable
practical purpose. For example, even if a printed circle was perfect down
to the atomic scale, the thermal vibrations of the molecules of ink would
make most of those digits physically meaningless. NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory’s highest accuracy calculations, for interplanetary navigation,
uses 15 decimals: 3.141592653589793.

At Van Ceulen’s request, his upper and lower bounds for π were engraved on
his tombstone in Leiden. The tombstone was eventually lost but restored in
2000. In the Netherlands and Germany, π is sometimes referred to as the
“Ludolphine number”, after Van Ceulen.

Enjoy the new release

Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and
these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by
volunteering yourself or through organisation contributions to the Python
Software Foundation.

Regards from a chilly Helsinki with snow on the way,

Your release team,
Hugo van Kemenade
Ned Deily
Steve Dower
Łukasz Langa