The next release of FLOW3 will be 1.0 beta 1 – that's no big news anymore. However, as we had to adjust the original schedule, you might ask yourself when the first beta version will be available. In order to get a realistic release date, we now ask for feedback by those who already gathered experience with the current Git master version of FLOW3.
Direct work on the FLOW3 feature set had to take a back seat for a while as we were quite busy with the development of TYPO3 5.0 and the launch of the T3CON11 website. Both projects were very helpful for finding the weak spots in the current FLOW3 alpha and identify some API changes and missing features we'd like to see in the first beta release.
The work on TYPO3 continues to be very intensive over the next weeks, but since some companies and individuals already started using FLOW3 for customer projects we don't want to unnecessarily postpone the FLOW3 final. Today I updated the roadmap for the FLOW3 Base distribution and attached some tentative dates to the next planned versions. Please don't nail us on June 17th for the first beta release – we're aiming for it, but a few factors can still change the date.
In the FLOW3 mailing list I sent a call for feedback. I'd like to ask those who are familiar with the current (not yet released) version of FLOW3, what features, concepts, API changes are still missing for 1.0 beta 1. And "beta" from my understanding means that basically all features we plan for the final release are there, API's won't change unless really necessary. It also means that the code still contains bugs, might not be as performant as you wish and documentation is not complete. After maybe three beta releases, which gradually improve stability and performance, we'd publish a release candidate which contains no known bugs anymore.
The FLOW3 team is aware of several open tasks, but what I'd love to know now is your assessment – what's missing? Please answer in the related thread in our mailing list, in the comments of this post or – if you spotted a bug – just file it in our issue tracker.
Dmitri Pisarev | 21.06.2011
Thanks for the update! FLOW3 rocks! We have started using it extensively already and it is great!
a.berl | 26.05.2011
+1 @andras
Andras Szepeshazi | 12.05.2011
Thank you Robert, I was looking for this piece of information for quite a bit of time now. Please, please, pretty please, you being one of the core devs, try to update the official flow3 site as well with that kind of info.
I took flow3 to a testdrive quite a while ago (at about alpha 9-10), and was very happy with the results (outside of performance, which I understand should not be a concern at alpha stage). So I tried to spread my positive impressions around. But today, if I try to generate a buzz about flow3 among any quality-of-code oriented enthusiasts, it always ends up with the feedback: this project is probably dead.
Quite rightly so, as flow3.org still advertises: "We plan to release FLOW3 1.0.0 beta 1 on February 18th.
Yes, beta. Merry Christmas! :)"
While I realize what a huge amount of effort developing this framework is, I think that lapse of releases can be better handled than lack of communication about lapsing releases.
Wishing you the best and hoping for a June beta,
Andras