/docs/releases/1.0-alpha-2.txt

  1================================
  2Django 1.0 alpha 2 release notes
  3================================
  4
  5Welcome to Django 1.0 alpha 2!
  6
  7This is the second in a series of preview/development releases leading
  8up to the eventual release of Django 1.0, currently scheduled to take
  9place in early September 2008. This releases is primarily targeted at
 10developers who are interested in testing the Django codebase and
 11helping to identify and resolve bugs prior to the final 1.0 release.
 12
 13As such, this release is *not* intended for production use, and any
 14such use is strongly discouraged.
 15
 16
 17What's new in Django 1.0 alpha 2
 18================================
 19
 20Django's development trunk has been the site of nearly constant activity over
 21the past year, with several major new features landing since the 0.96 release.
 22For features which were new as of Django 1.0 alpha 1, see :doc:`the 1.0 alpha 1
 23release notes </releases/1.0-alpha-1>`. Since the 1.0 alpha 1 release several new
 24features have landed, including:
 25
 26``django.contrib.gis`` (`GeoDjango`_)
 27    A project over a year in the making, this adds world-class GIS
 28    (`Geographic Information Systems`_) support to Django, in the form
 29    of a ``contrib`` application.  `Its documentation`_ is currently
 30    being maintained externally, and will be merged into the main
 31    Django documentation prior to the final 1.0 release. Huge thanks
 32    go to Justin Bronn, Jeremy Dunck, Brett Hoerner and Travis Pinney
 33    for their efforts in creating and completing this feature.
 34
 35Pluggable file storage
 36    Django's built-in ``FileField`` and ``ImageField`` now can take advantage of
 37    pluggable file-storage backends, allowing extensive customization of where
 38    and how uploaded files get stored by Django. For details, see :doc:`the
 39    files documentation </topics/files>`; big thanks go to Marty Alchin for
 40    putting in the hard work to get this completed.
 41
 42Jython compatibility
 43    Thanks to a lot of work from Leo Soto during a Google Summer of
 44    Code project, Django's codebase has been refactored to remove
 45    incompatibilities with `Jython`_, an implementation of Python
 46    written in Java, which runs Python code on the Java Virtual
 47    Machine. Django is now compatible with the forthcoming Jython 2.5
 48    release.
 49
 50There are many other new features and improvements in this release, including
 51two major performance boosts: strings marked for translation using
 52:doc:`Django's internationalization system </topics/i18n/index>` now consume far less
 53memory, and Django's internal dispatcher -- which is invoked frequently during
 54request/response processing and when working with Django's object-relational
 55mapper -- is now significantly faster.
 56
 57.. _GeoDjango: http://geodjango.org/
 58.. _Geographic Information Systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
 59.. _Its documentation: http://geodjango.org/docs/
 60.. _Jython: http://www.jython.org/
 61
 62
 63The Django 1.0 roadmap
 64======================
 65
 66One of the primary goals of this alpha release is to focus attention
 67on the remaining features to be implemented for Django 1.0, and on the
 68bugs that need to be resolved before the final release. Following this
 69release, we'll be conducting a series of development sprints building
 70up to the beta and release-candidate stages, followed soon after by
 71Django 1.0. The timeline is projected to be:
 72
 73* **August 14, 2008: Django 1.0 beta release.** Past this point Django
 74  will be in a "feature freeze" for the 1.0 release; after Django 1.0
 75  beta, the development focus will be solely on bug fixes and
 76  stabilization.
 77
 78* August 15, 2008: Sprint (based in Austin, Texas, USA, and online).
 79
 80* August 17, 2008: Sprint (based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and online).
 81
 82* **August 21, 2008: Django 1.0 release candidate 1.** At this point,
 83  all strings marked for translation within Django's codebase will be
 84  frozen, to provide contributors time to check and finalize all of
 85  Django's bundled translation files prior to the final 1.0 release.
 86
 87* August 22, 2008: Sprint (based in Portland, Oregon, USA, and online).
 88
 89* **August 26, 2008: Django 1.0 release candidate 2.**
 90
 91* August 30, 2008: Sprint (based in London, England, UK, and online).
 92
 93* **September 2, 2008: Django 1.0 final release.** The official Django
 94  1.0 release party will take place during the first-ever DjangoCon,
 95  to be held in Mountain View, California, USA, September 6-7.
 96
 97Of course, like any estimated timeline, this is subject to change as
 98requirements dictate. The latest information will always be available
 99on the Django project wiki:
100
101    http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/VersionOneRoadmap
102
103
104What you can do to help
105=======================
106
107In order to provide a high-quality 1.0 release, we need your
108help. Although this alpha release is, again, *not* intended for
109production use, you can help the Django team by trying out the alpha
110codebase in a safe test environment and reporting any bugs or issues
111you encounter. The Django ticket tracker is the central place to
112search for open issues:
113
114    http://code.djangoproject.com/timeline
115
116Please open new tickets if no existing ticket corresponds to a problem
117you're running into.
118
119Additionally, discussion of Django development, including progress
120toward the 1.0 release, takes place daily on the django-developers
121mailing list:
122
123    http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers
124
125...and in the ``#django-dev`` IRC channel on ``irc.freenode.net``. If
126you're interested in helping out with Django's development, feel free
127to join the discussions there.
128
129Django's online documentation also includes pointers on how to
130contribute to Django:
131
132    :doc:`contributing to Django </internals/contributing>`
133
134Contributions on any level -- developing code, writing
135documentation or simply triaging tickets and helping to test proposed
136bugfixes -- are always welcome and appreciated.