Got the following traceback after upgrading to 2.3c1

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File
"/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy_menu.py",
line 178, in menu_system
    a=alchemy.Alchemy(name=name,step='alchemy')
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 89, in __init__
   
self.traverseNodes([self.start_node],exclude_tags=["evaporate","info"])
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 786, in traverseNodes
    self.traverseNodes(node.childNodes,exclude_tags)
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 786, in traverseNodes
    self.traverseNodes(node.childNodes,exclude_tags)
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 786, in traverseNodes
    self.traverseNodes(node.childNodes,exclude_tags)
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 786, in traverseNodes
    self.traverseNodes(node.childNodes,exclude_tags)
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 786, in traverseNodes
    self.traverseNodes(node.childNodes,exclude_tags)
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 786, in traverseNodes
    self.traverseNodes(node.childNodes,exclude_tags)
  File "/root/alchemy/scripts/cvs/alchemy/alchemy.py",
line 766, in traverseNodes
    node.normalize()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/xml/dom/minidom.py", line
208, in normalize
    self.childNodes[:] = L
TypeError: object doesn't support slice assignment

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Are you sure this is a bug in Python, and not in Alchemy?

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The code worked again after I downgraded to Python 2.2.3. If
you like I can replicate in a shorter and includable code
snippet (I'd need to pop 2.3 back on my box first though)

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It would definitely help if you could provide more detail on
the nature of the failure. E.g. where did the DOM tree come
from that Alchemy tries to invoke .normalize on, and what is
self.childnodes in the place of the error. 

If you could instead submit a small example that allows
reproduction of the error, that would help as well.

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I can trigger this exception by calling the normalize()
method on a childless DOM node such as Text.  A little
script is attached. 

The question is: what should normalize() do for a class such
as Text?  Looking at the DOM Level 1 specification,
.normalize() is actually part of the Element interface, not
Node, so things like Text.normalize() wouldn't work at all.

One solution: move normalize() onto the Element class. 
Possibly backwards-incompatible.

Another solution: add a normalize() method to the Childless
mix-in that raises an exception.

This is still an issue with all Python versions, is there anybody who could take this on please?

Well, we certainly can't going making any incompatible changes now, so I've opted to add an empty normalize() method to the Childless mix-in.  This makes minidom a little more liberal than other DOM implementations, but I think that's OK.

Committed to trunk in rev83152, and backported to 2.7 in rev83153.