Django 1.1 Roadmap

Django v1.1 was released on July 29, 2009 This page remains as a historical archive. The next development milestone is v1.2, which has a separate wiki page.

This document details the schedule and roadmap towards Django 1.1. All the details follow; here's the executive summary:

Update, April 18, 2009: Obviously we've missed the deadline. There are still a number of open issues to be fixed before 1.1 will be released; we don't want to put out a buggy Django! We'll update the schedule with a more firm date once we have it.

Update, July 21, 2009: Django v1.1 is now effectively complete. We haven't shut down the v1.1 milestone so that critical bugs can still be drawn to our attention, but there is nothing blocking the v1.1 release at this point. Release Candidate 1 (RC1) will be cut at some point in the next day or so, allowing translators to do their job on finalized strings. v1.1 final will be released approximately 1 week after the RC is cut.

What will be in Django 1.1?

Over 60 features were proposed for Django 1.1. After discussion by the development community, these features were categorized "must have", "maybe", or "no" -- see our official release process for more information on how this works.

Remember: see Version1.1Features for more details on each feature below; these are just summaries.

Must-have features

These are the features considered critical for the 1.1 release.

  • DONE: [Admin-03] Make the admin use a URL resolver. (Committed in [9739])
  • [Contrib-05] Message passing for anonymous users. (moved to 1.2)
  • DONE: [Contrib-12] Write-through cache session backend. (Committed in [9727])
  • DONE: [ORM-01] ORM aggregation. (Committed in [9742])
  • [ORM-03] Model validation. (moved to 1.2)
  • DONE: [ORM-06] Expression support in QuerySet.update(). (Committed in [9792])
  • DONE: [Test-03] Run Django test cases inside a transaction (speed improvements). (Committed in [9756])

"Maybe" features

Again, these are features that should be in 1.1. In most cases, they're actively being worked on by members of the development community and will be checked in if finished in time.

The following features have committers who'll take responsibility for getting the feature in; as such they can be considered a sort of "first-priority" of among the "maybe" features:

  • DONE: [Admin-01] Bulk-edit on changelist pages. (Committed in [10077])
  • DONE: [Admin-02] Integrate django-batchadmin. (Committed in [10121])
  • DONE: [Admin-05] ModelAdmin should allow for overriding of ForeignKey/ManyToMany options. (Committed in [9760])
  • [Admin-06] Read-only form fields.
  • [Admin-07] Custom FilterSpecs. (moved to 1.2)
  • [Admin-08] Make filters in admin changelists persistant. (moved to 1.2)
  • DONE: [Contrib-02] Improved customizability of django.contrib.comments. (Committed in [9890])
  • DONE: [Contrib-03] Integration of comment-utils. (Committed in [10122])
  • DONE: [Contrib-06] Honor REMOTE_USER provided by the server. (Committed in [10063])
  • [Contrib-07] Implement Atom Publishing Protocol. (moved to 1.2)
  • [Contrib-11] Signed cookies.
  • [Form-01] Selectable HTML output for forms/fields.
  • DONE: [ORM-14] Exclude fields in a SELECT (QuerySet.defer()). (Committed in [10090])
  • DONE: [ORM-15] Day-of-week filter for date/datetime Fields. (Committed in [9818])
  • DONE: [ORM-17] {% default %} clause for {% for %} loops. (Committed in [9530])
  • [ORM-19] Add support for database schemas.
  • [Template-06] Better template tag loading.
  • DONE: [Test-01] Follow redirect chains on the Test Client. (Committed in [9911])
  • DONE: [Test-02] Disable all e-mail sending for debugging. (Committed in [9793])
  • [View-01] Class-based generic views.
  • [View-03] Support for wsgi.file_wrapper for large files.

The following features were reviewed highly and are generally accepted as "wanted", but currently are lacking a "champion" to see the feature done. This means these features are likely to be included in 1.1 if finished, but are a sort of "second-tier":

  • [Contrib-01] Session-based form wizard.
  • [Form-02] django.forms.SafeForm - forms with built-in CSRF protection.
  • [ORM-09] Manager.update_or_create() and Model.update().
  • [ORM-10] QuerySet.select_for_update() method.
  • [ORM-11] QuerySet.cache() method.
  • [ORM-12] Allow the use of property() in fields.
  • [ORM-13] Support for DISTINCT ON queries with QuerySet.distinct().
  • DONE: [ORM-16] Native autocommit option for Postgresql backend. (Committed in [10029])
  • [ORM-18] Add signals to many-to-many objects.
  • [Template-01] Extend inclusion tag syntax to allow custom templates.
  • [Template-04] Clean-up of django.template internals.
  • [Template-05] Namespace support for template libraries.

Special cases

As is to be expected, a few features don't fit so easily into any of the hard categories:

  • [ORM-05] Sharing of selected_related() data in memory, and/or an ORM identity map.

    The scope of this feature is a bit nebulous, but it's under discussion on django-developers. If consensus is reached and the feature can be implemented in time, it'll get into 1.1.

  • [Form-01] Selectable HTML output for forms/fields.

    This feature is similarly not fully-scoped, though this one has a reference implementation so it's further along. However, there's a fair bit of controversy about the particular proposed implementation. Again, consensus is the issue here; discussion is ongoing.

  • [View-02] Add RequestContext by default in render_to_response.

    This proposal is strongly controversial, with multiple +1 and -1 votes. As such, consensus seems unlikely; a middle-ground approach will need be found, which likely pushes this out of scope for 1.1.

Rejected/deferred features

The remaining proposed features were rejected or deferred for a variety of reasons; see Version1.1Features for a complete list of these rejected features and reasons for rejection or deferral.

GeoDjango

1.1 features for GeoDjango are being coordinated on the wiki and the GeoDjango mailing list.

Schedule

Django 1.1 is beyond deadline at this point. It will be released as soon as it is in good enough condition to be released. Please help contribute to resolving any issues on the list of open tickets.

The complete schedule follows. Note that dates are plus or minus a couple of days as needed:

January 15, 2009 "Major" feature freeze for 1.1; work phase ends, and any major incomplete features will be postponed.
February 23, 2009 Django 1.1 alpha.
March 23, 2009 Django 1.1 beta. Feature freeze; only bug fixes will be allowed after this point.
April 2, 2009 Django 1.1 rc 1. and string freeze
April 13, 2009 Django 1.1 final

We'll hold a series of Sprints to work on 1.1 starting in late December; stay tuned to the Sprints page and/or the django-developers mailing list for details.

Process

Each feature on the list (both "must-have" and "maybe") will have a "lieutenant" (a term stolen from the Linux community) and a committer assigned. It's OK if this is the same person, but it's better if not: one committer can keep an eye and commit from patches from a number of trusted lieutenants. See Version1.1Features for the current list of lieutenants and committers.

James Bennett, as the release manager, will be in charge of keeping the schedule. He'll keep track of who's working on what issues so that bug reports can be efficiently routed; he'll also nag, cajole and (if necessary) berate developers who are in danger of missing deadlines.

How you can help

The only way we'll meet this deadline is with a great deal of community effort. To that end, here's how you can help:

  • Read the guide to contributing to Django and the guide to Django's release process.

    These guides explains how our process works. where to ask questions, etc. It'll save everyone time if we're all on the same page when it comes to process.

  • Work on features from the list above.

    The joy of Open Source is that nobody gets to tell you what to do; you can scratch whichever itch you like. However, if you work on items not on the list of 1.1 features, you should expect that your patch won't get checked in until after 1.1.

    Get in touch with the lieutenant/committer for the feature you'd like to work on and help out. Or just find open tickets and start submitting patches!

  • Attend a sprint (in person or in IRC).

    We'll have four or five sprints between now and March. Lots of work gets done at sprints, and there's usually someone around willing to help new developers get started.

  • Organize tickets.

    • Feature tickets should go in the "1.1 alpha" or "1.1 beta" milestone.

      Which one? Well, major changes must be made before the alpha, and minor feature changes before the beta. So "major" feature additions go in the alpha milestone, and minor additions in the beta one. If you're not sure, then the feature is minor.

      Bugs are not to be part of these milestone; any bug is a candidate for fixing and should be left un-milestoned. The exception is bugs in features added for 1.1; those should be in the "1.1" milestone.

  • Test the release snapshots (alphas, betas) against your code and report bugs.

    We need lots of testers if we're to have a bug-free release. Download a snapshot or an SVN checkout and give it a try!

Last modified 15 years ago Last modified on Jul 29, 2009, 2:53:48 AM
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