[illume]

You'll notice the usual benchmark section is missing from there. The one that tells you python 2.6 is XXX% faster than python2.5

This is because often 2.6 is slower than 2.5. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-September/0...

Some things are faster, and some are slower. But for the normal benchmarks mentioned in the release notes (for 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5), it's slower overall.

[llimllib]

  $ python2.6 /opt/local/lib/python2.5/test/pystone.py
  Pystone(1.1) time for 50000 passes = 0.867314
  This machine benchmarks at 57649.2 pystones/second

  $ python2.5 /opt/local/lib/python2.5/test/pystone.py
  Pystone(1.1) time for 50000 passes = 0.970622
  This machine benchmarks at 51513.4 pystones/second

(which is not to say it's always, or even usually faster; just that it's certainly faster on the standard benchmark)