SCons 0.90 goes beta, adds Visual Studio .NET support

SCons release 0.90, the first SCons beta release, is now available for download. SCons is a software construction tool (build tool, or substitute for Make) implemented in Python, based on the winning design in the Software Carpentry build tool competition (in turn based on the Cons build tool). This release most notably adds support for Visual Studio .NET, and for Visual Studio project files (.dsp, .dsw, .sln and .vcproj).

IMPORTANT: Release 0.15 contains the following interface changes:
- SCons now checks for the existence of Microsoft Visual Studio on disk before using it (to avoid getting misled by bogus stuff left over in the registry). SCons might not find a copy of Visual Studio if it's an older version that installed itself in a default directory that we haven't seen before; please let us know if that seems to be the case.

See the release notes for more information about these changes.

This release adds the following features:
- SCons now supports Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
- SCons now support Microsoft Visual Studio project (.dsp, .dsw, .sln and .vcproj) files.
- An M4 Builder has been added.
- Support for the Intel C Compiler (icl.exe) has been added.
- The SConf subsystem can now check for specific functions and types.

The following fixes have been added:
- Portability to non-GNU versions of lex and yacc has been improved.
- Library prefixes now work correctly in a subdirectory that matches the prefix.
- Options are now saved as their actual value type (not all as strings), values that contain single quotes are now stored correctly, and any non-default Option values is stored regardless of how it was changed.
- The temporary file name used to link long command line on Win32 systems now has a .lnk suffix (necessary for some tool chains).
- SCons now generates an error if a construction variable is not the same form as a valid Python identifier.
- The "-h" option no longer requires the distutils package.
- Up-to-date messages now quote the targets like Make (`backquote-quote') instead of with double quotes.
- SCons now correctly builds targets above the current directory when the -u, -U or -D options are used.
- The -n option no longer updates the .sconsign file signatures.
- Import('*') to import all Export()ed variables now works properly.
- The SConf subsystem now works properly with the -n and -q options, when using SConscriptChdir(), with paths containing white space, and with Builders tha return lists of nodes.

The documentation has been improved:
- A bug in the _concat() function documentation has been fixed.
- The no_import_lib construction variable is now documented.
- Added clarifying text that $FLAGS variables do not automatically contain their corresponding $_INCFLAGS values.
- New features have been documented.