• Fabien Potencier
• about 1 year ago
• Community
• 16

Two years ago, we were about to release symfony 1.0. Since then, we have released symfony 1.1 in June 2008 and symfony 1.2 just two months ago. The 1.1 version of the framework was a major upgrade with a lot of changes to the internals. The 1.2 version finished the transition from the old form system to the new one with the new admin generator, and of course also came with its batch of other goodies.

Some time ago, Tim Ariyeh wrote a tweet about what he thinks about the latest releases:

"I think it's time we all admitted that symfony 1.2 should have been 2.0, and 1.1 should never have happened."

He is quite right, sometimes, you make mistakes. But this is now history and I'm quite happy with the state of symfony 1.2. The internals of symfony are rock solid, well decoupled, and easy to extend. We now even support Doctrine natively. The documentation has also been updated accordingly with a new book, and a lot of new cookbook tutorials.

What?

First, don't expect big revolutions for symfony 1.3. The 1.3 release will be an evolution of the actual code base, made of polish, small enhancements, and optimisations. That means that one of the most important goal for symfony 1.3 is compatibility with 1.2. We will try to ease the process of upgrading as much as possible. According to the symfony website statistics, symfony 1.2 is already, and by far, the most downloaded symfony version. And the Jobeet tutorial, which is based on symfony 1.2, has generated more than one million page views in less than two months.

The core team have already some ideas for symfony 1.3, but we also want to involve the community in the process. We have opened a user voice page where you can add your own ideas and vote for the ones you want to see implemented:

When?

The 1.3 release is targeted no sooner than November 2009. Releasing 1.3 later will give time for everybody to enhance what we have today:

• the users will have time to learn all the great symfony 1.2 features compared to symfony 1.0
• the core team will have plenty of time to make symfony 1.3 rock solid
• the documentation team will have time to write even more tutorials and blog posts
• the plugin developers will have plenty of time to upgrade their plugins to 1.2 with confidence that their work will still be relevant for 1.3.

How?

As for any symfony version, a release manager will drive the release. For symfony 1.3, Kris Wallsmith will be in charge.

The release cycle will be splitted in three phases:

• Phase one - Feature brainstorming: As I said before, we will use the user voice page to allow anybody to participate in this phase. The core team will then decide what to include in the release.
• Phase two - Development: The features are developed during this phase.
• Phase three - Release process: During this phase, the code enters a feature freeze status, and we will publish several betas and RCs to fix as much bugs as possible before the final 1.3 release.

For symfony 1.3, phase one will end up at the end of February 2009, phase two at the end of August 2009, and the release is scheduled for the end of November 2009.

And as always, during phase two, we will update the "What's new?" and UPGRADE page in real-time, and we will publish posts and tutorials in the "Living on the edge" section of the blog to keep you informed on the status of the release.

Comments

• 

  #1 ivojto said 21 minutes later

  great idea about making feedback page .. I have a couple of ideas (especially things that I have in rails but not in symfony)

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  #2 Altrano said 35 minutes later

  very nice...

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  #3 Lucas Stephanou said about 7 hours later

  Fabien,

  2 days left a make a post about it, and is very close to that you talk today.
  I bring my point of view about some polish that can be made.

  please, take a look when you have a time

  http://blog.lucas-ts.com/programacao/how-will-be-symfony-13/

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  #4 [MA]Pascal said about 17 hours later

  Since 1.0 will reach end of maintenance at 01/2010, is there any plan for the 1.3 branche to become the new 'entreprise' version ?

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  #5 BenLeTibétain said about 20 hours later

  @[MA]Pascal

  I ask the same question :)

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  #6 lloyd27 said about 21 hours later

  I appreciate the work behind Doctrine, but please keep Propel as the default ORM.. :)

  Or maybe, using "symfony generate:project", the system should ask to pick one or the other for the initial configuration..

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  #7 Teclliure said 1 day later

  There will be an direct upgrade path between 'enterprise' versions ? Or we must go throught 1.1, 1.2 ... versions ?

  My company implemented some medium sized applications and make all the process in one stage should reduce costs to our partners

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  #8 Pablo said 1 day later

  Other than performance and future support, I don't know if there are other reasons to make Doctrine the default ORM. anyone?

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  #9 Robin Kunde said 2 days later

  When can we expect the full documentation for the new form framework that is now half a year old?

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  #10 fabien said 2 days later

  @Robin Kunde: The form framework is documented in the form book and in the jobeet tutorial. If you are talking about more advanced stuff, we are working on it. And if you want to help, you are more than welcomed.

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  #11 lazymanc said 4 days later

  @Pablo isn't that two very good reasons?

  What have the Romans ever done for us? :)

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  #12 Matthias said 5 days later

  About PHP: Even though it's a bit early to speak about it I think 1.3 should run on php 5.2.x (at least keep compatibility). I'm happy with php 5.3 for sf 2.0 in the next year. :-)

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  #13 Fabien said 5 days later

  @Matthias: symfony 1.3 will run on PHP 5.2 for sure.

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  #14 mohamed said 8 days later

  MAKE IT EASIER, MAKE IT FASTER.

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  #15 Ian said 26 days later

  Very cool. I like it!

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  #16 Paolo Mainardi said about 1 month later

  I really like SF 1.2, but the form framework at the end it's not great like the rest of Framework, it's less smarter, less DRY and overcomplicated.

  I hope to have a revamped and more simpler Form Framework, really i don't like tons of code for simpler task, like put a marker on label for required fields.

  Thank you very much for your great work!