Some major changes to the use of strings (vs. bytes) for Python 3.x, with all received values now exported as bytes, and input values being transformed to bytes using UTF-8 encoding (from strings) and ASCII encoding for everything else. If you want to use a different encoding, transform to bytes yourself first, but you probably should be using the FIX _DATA_ type for encoded values anyway?
Also a major expansion/rewrite of date and time value handling. Added a bunch of method covering all the FIX date/time types properly. The existing `append_time` method is deprecated, in favour of more specifically named method for UTC and local timezones, and datetime, date-only and time-only values.