messages.  Makes it easier to debug reported errors...

  DESCRIPTION
    The module exports the software_version() subroutine which
    returns the release version of the Ensembl Core API.

fetch_all_alternative_by_Transcript() method in TranslationAdaptor.

fetch_all_alternative_by_Transcipt() and let it only fetch alternative
translations.

Adding a new method as a result of benchmarking to keep developers using SqlHelper with very large data sets. We now can allow the developer to define how they wish to iterate through a result set

_merge_ajoining_coords added to make sure that having more than one coord is wrong. Andy Yates wrote the code i just checked it and added it.

Addition of utility classes for use in the Ensembl API. The first are shortcuts for asserting object/ref types and the second is a class which removes boilerplate from working with databases.