May 5, 2010
Welcome to the first Django 1.2 release candidate!
This is the third – and likely last – in a series of preview/development releases leading up to the eventual release of Django 1.2. This release is targeted primarily at developers who are interested in trying out new features and testing the Django codebase to help identify and resolve any critical bugs prior to the final 1.2 release.
As such, this release is not yet intended for production use, and any such use is discouraged.
Django has been feature frozen since the 1.2 beta release, so this release candidate contains no new features, only bugfixes; for a summary of features new to Django 1.2, consult the 1.2 alpha and 1.2 beta release notes.
While not a new feature, it’s important to note that Django 1.2 introduces the first shift in our Python compatibility policy since Django’s initial public debut. Previous Django releases were tested and supported on 2.x Python versions from 2.3 up; Django 1.2, however, drops official support for Python 2.3. As such, the minimum Python version required for Django is now 2.4, and Django is tested and supported on Python 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6, and will be supported on the as-yet-unreleased Python 2.7.
This change should affect only a small number of Django users, as most operating-system vendors today are shipping Python 2.4 or newer as their default version. If you’re still using Python 2.3, however, you’ll need to stick to Django 1.1 until you can upgrade; per our support policy, Django 1.1 will continue to receive security support until the release of Django 1.3.
A roadmap for Django’s overall 2.x Python support, and eventual transition to Python 3.x, is currently being developed, and will be announced prior to the release of Django 1.3.
As of this release candidate, Django 1.2 is in both feature freeze and “string freeze” – all strings marked for translation in the Django codebase will retain their current form in the final Django 1.2 release. Only critical release-blocking bugs, documentation and updated translation files will receive attention between now and the final 1.2 release. Note that Django’s localization infrastructure has been expanded for 1.2, and translation packages should now include a formats.py file containing data for localized formatting of numbers and dates.
If no critical bugs are discovered, Django 1.2 will be released approximately one week after this release candidate, on or about May 12, 2010.
In order to provide a high-quality 1.2 release, we need your help. Although this release candidate is, again, not intended for production use, you can help the Django team by trying out this release candidate in a safe testing environment and reporting any bugs or issues you encounter. The Django ticket tracker is the central place to search for open issues:
Please open a new ticket only if no existing ticket corresponds to a problem you’re running into.
Additionally, discussion of Django development, including progress toward the 1.2 release, takes place daily on the django-developers mailing list:
... and in the #django-dev IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. If you’re interested in helping out with Django’s development, feel free to join the discussions there.
Django’s online documentation also includes pointers on how to contribute to Django:
Contributions on any level – developing code, writing documentation or simply triaging tickets and helping to test proposed bugfixes – are always welcome and appreciated.
Jul 05, 2010