FLOW3 1.0.0 alpha 1 released

Categories: Development Created by Robert Lemke
The FLOW3 Core Team is proud to announce the first alpha release of FLOW3!

After 2.5 years of development we are delighted to release FLOW3 1.0.0 alpha 1 which marks the beginning of a series of alpha releases during the coming months.

FLOW3 1.0.0 alpha 1 can be downloaded.

This release already contains most of the features and APIs we had planned for the final 1.0.0 release. That means you're invited to start your own experiments with FLOW3 based applications without the fear that the concepts and interfaces will change again overnight.

What's New?

A nice point to try and write about in the first set of release notes! ;-)

Of course everything is new, including, for the first time in a PHP framework, Dependency Injection and Aspect-Oriented Programming support. Equally important features are the Caching Framework (supporting among others File, APC and Memcache backends), transparent Object Persistency (which stores objects in our PHP-based JSR-283 content repository), the ground-breaking template engine "Fluid", the File Monitor (which detects code changes and flushes caches automatically) and much much more!

What's Especially New?

In preparation for this release we have been busy improving the user experience of FLOW3. The default distribution now comes with a nice welcome package which helps you take the next steps towards your first FLOW3 application. Furthermore we have integrated a documentation browser which allows for offline browsing of the included package manuals making it easier to find your way around. During the last 3 weeks the team has addressed almost 80 tickets covering usability improvements and bug fixes and are hard at work fixing the remaining outstanding tickets.

Since FLOW3 requires PHP 5.3, which hasn't yet seen a final release, our team has created installation instructions for most platforms to help lower the barriers for trying out FLOW3 today.

Alpha

As an alpha release, FLOW3 1.0.0-alpha1 is naturally not recommended for production use. Be warned: It's a bit slow, eats more memory than is perhaps healthy and has not yet undergone a full security review. However these issues will be addressed in the upcoming alpha releases and we're confident that FLOW3 1.0.0 Final will be a rock solid framework which performs well in production environments (maybe that'll be FLOW3 1.0.1 ...;-)).

Next Release

The features and issues addressed in the next alpha release mainly depend on your feedback and our needs for TYPO3 5.0. One thing we can already say is when the next release will happen: FLOW3 1.0.0 alpha 2 is scheduled for 1st of July 2009, so get stuck in now and make your feedback count!

A Word of Gratitude

Many people have contributed to FLOW3 with ideas, design, testing, money, code and espresso. A big thank-you goes to the TYPO3 community and the members of the TYPO3 Association who made the development of FLOW3 possible at all.

Your Feedback

We want to hear your opinions! What's your experience with this release? What went well, what didn't? What features are you missing? Join our discussions in the mailing list, IRC channel and twitter.

Get into the FLOW3!

Your FLOW3 Core Team

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About FLOW3

FLOW3 is a PHP based application framework which introduces modern development principles such as Dependency Injection, Aspect-Oriented Programming and Domain-Driven Design to the PHP world. Its main goal is to take the burden of infrastructure coding off the developer and let him focus on the actual business logic. It is well suited for all kinds of standalone PHP applications as well as plugins for the upcoming version 5 of TYPO3.

Most popular PHP frameworks are in fact code libraries which put the responsibility for the overall concept on the developer. Although FLOW3 can be configured to fit most tastes, it comes with a set of intuitive conventions which allow for developing an application from the ground up in no time.