1 .. _releases-1.0-alpha-2:
3 ================================
4 Django 1.0 alpha 2 release notes
5 ================================
7 Welcome to Django 1.0 alpha 2!
9 This is the second in a series of preview/development releases leading
10 up to the eventual release of Django 1.0, currently scheduled to take
11 place in early September 2008. This releases is primarily targeted at
12 developers who are interested in testing the Django codebase and
13 helping to identify and resolve bugs prior to the final 1.0 release.
15 As such, this release is *not* intended for production use, and any
16 such use is strongly discouraged.
19 What's new in Django 1.0 alpha 2
20 ================================
22 Django's development trunk has been the site of nearly constant activity over
23 the past year, with several major new features landing since the 0.96 release.
24 For features which were new as of Django 1.0 alpha 1, see :ref:`the 1.0 alpha 1
25 release notes <releases-1.0-alpha-1`. Since the 1.0 alpha 1 release several new
26 features have landed, including:
28 ``django.contrib.gis`` (`GeoDjango`_)
29 A project over a year in the making, this adds world-class GIS
30 (`Geographic Information Systems`_) support to Django, in the form
31 of a ``contrib`` application. `Its documentation`_ is currently
32 being maintained externally, and will be merged into the main
33 Django documentation prior to the final 1.0 release. Huge thanks
34 go to Justin Bronn, Jeremy Dunck, Brett Hoerner and Travis Pinney
35 for their efforts in creating and completing this feature.
37 Pluggable file storage
38 Django's built-in ``FileField`` and ``ImageField`` now can take advantage of
39 pluggable file-storage backends, allowing extensive customization of where
40 and how uploaded files get stored by Django. For details, see :ref:`the
41 files documentation <topics-files>`; big thanks go to Marty Alchin for
42 putting in the hard work to get this completed.
45 Thanks to a lot of work from Leo Soto during a Google Summer of
46 Code project, Django's codebase has been refactored to remove
47 incompatibilities with `Jython`_, an implementation of Python
48 written in Java, which runs Python code on the Java Virtual
49 Machine. Django is now compatible with the forthcoming Jython 2.5
52 There are many other new features and improvements in this release, including
53 two major performance boosts: strings marked for translation using
54 :ref:`Django's internationalization system <topics-i18n>` now consume far less
55 memory, and Django's internal dispatcher -- which is invoked frequently during
56 request/response processing and when working with Django's object-relational
57 mapper -- is now significantly faster.
59 .. _GeoDjango: http://geodjango.org/
60 .. _Geographic Information Systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
61 .. _Its documentation: http://geodjango.org/docs/
62 .. _Jython: http://www.jython.org/
65 The Django 1.0 roadmap
66 ======================
68 One of the primary goals of this alpha release is to focus attention
69 on the remaining features to be implemented for Django 1.0, and on the
70 bugs that need to be resolved before the final release. Following this
71 release, we'll be conducting a series of development sprints building
72 up to the beta and release-candidate stages, followed soon after by
73 Django 1.0. The timeline is projected to be:
75 * **August 14, 2008: Django 1.0 beta release.** Past this point Django
76 will be in a "feature freeze" for the 1.0 release; after Django 1.0
77 beta, the development focus will be solely on bug fixes and
80 * August 15, 2008: Sprint (based in Austin, Texas, USA, and online).
82 * August 17, 2008: Sprint (based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and online).
84 * **August 21, 2008: Django 1.0 release candidate 1.** At this point,
85 all strings marked for translation within Django's codebase will be
86 frozen, to provide contributors time to check and finalize all of
87 Django's bundled translation files prior to the final 1.0 release.
89 * August 22, 2008: Sprint (based in Portland, Oregon, USA, and online).
91 * **August 26, 2008: Django 1.0 release candidate 2.**
93 * August 30, 2008: Sprint (based in London, England, UK, and online).
95 * **September 2, 2008: Django 1.0 final release.** The official Django
96 1.0 release party will take place during the first-ever DjangoCon,
97 to be held in Mountain View, California, USA, September 6-7.
99 Of course, like any estimated timeline, this is subject to change as
100 requirements dictate. The latest information will always be available
101 on the Django project wiki:
103 http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/VersionOneRoadmap
106 What you can do to help
107 =======================
109 In order to provide a high-quality 1.0 release, we need your
110 help. Although this alpha release is, again, *not* intended for
111 production use, you can help the Django team by trying out the alpha
112 codebase in a safe test environment and reporting any bugs or issues
113 you encounter. The Django ticket tracker is the central place to
114 search for open issues:
116 http://code.djangoproject.com/timeline
118 Please open new tickets if no existing ticket corresponds to a problem
121 Additionally, discussion of Django development, including progress
122 toward the 1.0 release, takes place daily on the django-developers
125 http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers
127 ...and in the ``#django-dev`` IRC channel on ``irc.freenode.net``. If
128 you're interested in helping out with Django's development, feel free
129 to join the discussions there.
131 Django's online documentation also includes pointers on how to
132 contribute to Django:
134 http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/contributing/
136 Contributions on any level -- developing code, writing
137 documentation or simply triaging tickets and helping to test proposed
138 bugfixes -- are always welcome and appreciated.