Wednesday, June 11, 2008

New versions of eZ Publish (4.0.1, 3.10.1 & 3.9.5) imminent

After my comment about following subversion commit comments to get an idea of what is happening with eZ Publish in my previous post, I realised it wasn't such a bad idea and added the RSS feed to my reader.

This morning I'm happy to report that the release trees for 4.0.1 & 3.10.1 & 3.9.5 have been created.

Nothing in the svn commits comments regarding 4.1. However this comment on my previous post has disturbed me:
I have been to a couple of seminars where we were recommended to wait for 4.1 before we upgrade to eZ4 (by eZ employees).
Anyone have details of why this is the case? With the launch of a 4.0 eZ site in the coming weeks I find this quite worrying.

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10 comments:

  1. Maybe I overlook something, but I think the recommendation have been to wait for 4.0.1/3.10.1 since there are some known bugs in 4.0.0 / 3.10.0.

    And when it comes to 4.1, 4.0.1(rc) / 3.10.1 and 3.9.5 will be out first.
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  2. Hi André R.

    The comment was about waiting for 4.1 not 4.0.1. I wasn't at the seminars mentioned so I have to take the commentors word for what was said but that seems to indicate that there are major issues with 4.0.0.

    It all comes back to communication, and clear communication from eZ, not second hand from staff or seminar attendees.

    I haven't seen any published warnings about issues with know bugs (apart from the STMP bug that is mentioned in the manual page). There is nothing on the download page to indicate that there are any issues.

    I am usually reluctant to use the first release of any software but in the case of eZ Publish I'm used to seeing much more frequent releases. Knowing that the project would run over a fair period I suspected that given the previous pattern of release frequency there would be a number of point releases in that time.

    Cheers
    Bruce
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  3. Hi Bruce,

    I can just share my own experience but I can tell you that we have been recommending users to upgrade to eZ4.0 very early !

    However, It is just make sense for the new projects starting now to recommend 4.1 ( and 4.0.1) as Andre mentioned that will have fixes for some of the bugs you know about.

    We should have had releases earlier but one bug was very time consuming. It happended already two years ago with the PHP reference bug and we had to deal with it.

    I hope we will meet at the conference finally to talk more about this ! :-)
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  4. Hi Bertrand

    Thanks for the info.

    I believe the long term bug is associated with the url_alias system but I'm unaware of the exact details of the bug, like how it is triggered or if it is limited to a specific setup. This would be great to know!

    It's great to recommend that projects hold off for the next versions, but it's difficult to sell to clients ( or internally ) when there is no clear roadmap for releases. Also these recommendations appear to have been made at the regional developer days and not somewhere thats open to all users. Those that didn't or couldn't attend find out if and when the info filters through.

    I hope these messages can act as catalyst for discussions about improving the communication about a truly outstanding product!

    Looking forward to catching up at the conference.

    cheers
    Bruce
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  5. Hi Bruce,

    It is an interesting situation, do you go for the known stable of 4.0.1 (now that the URL Alias bug is fixed) or do you go for the unknown 4.1 with the new microkernel.

    From a business point of view you have to go with the stable, tried and test release unless of course you need the extra speed/features of 4.1 and you have no choice.

    There are no guarantees when eZ Publish 4.1 will be released so to go for 4.1 product on a project with a fixed timeline like a 2-3 months with an unknown release date from eZ is not recommended.

    At the end of the day you need to make your own judgement call based on the circumstances of the project.


    Tony
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  6. Hi Tony and others

    Sorry to disappoint you, but 4.1 won't have a new micro kernel like you are mentioning. There's some brief information in June's share magazine, and also in Bruce's other blog article. For those who are expecting many kernel improvements in 4.1, get ready to be disappointed. At this point, I don't know about many more kernel improvements in 4.1, except for these:

    - http://issues.ez.no/12423: add seconds input to date time and time datatypes
    - http://issues.ez.no/12539: share compiled templates between site accesses
    - http://issues.ez.no/13009: custom validation methos in edit handlers

    IMHO the last one is currently the biggest enhancement feature-wise. It's based on the idea behind http://projects.ez.no/objectvalidation
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  7. Sorry about the confusion I have caused by mixing the versions in a previous comment!

    Andre R is right when he says the recommendation was to wait for 4.0.1.

    Tony has a good point when it comes to 4.0.1 vs 4.1:

    In my case I have been “selling” the upgrade internally by advertising for a new and better editor, so doing the upgrade without a new editor will cause quite a few disappointed users...

    Am I right in thinking 4.0.1 is “safe” and 4.1 is a bit of a gamble with regards to possible bugs/issues?
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  8. There will be a new version of the online editor based on TinyMCE bundled with eZ Publish 4.1, so no worries ;)

    However, as the Online Editor comes in the form of an extension, I did not mention it (again) in the list above. And eventually, AFAIK, the new OE will be compatible with 4.0 as well. So you can just use it on 4.0, without needing to upgrade to 4.1.
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  9. RC's for the maintenance releases are out now

    Cheers
    Paul
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  10. Hi Kristoff/Jagels,

    You are indeed correct we went through trunk today. Why did microkernel get dropped? Time pressures I guess.

    It really sounds like there are no massive changes in 4.1 which in one way is good but...

    Thanks for the update Kristoff it really helps :)

    Jagels, on your 4.1 project be wary of the new OE and test it fully (as if you would not) and expect it to break everywhere as this is a really new feature. I say this in a good way as the new OE is a brilliant thing, but it is really really new. That said, it is also a pitch winner ;-)
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