parts/django/docs/releases/1.2-beta-1.txt
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+===============================
+Django 1.2 beta 1 release notes
+===============================
+
+February 5, 2010
+
+Welcome to Django 1.2 beta 1!
+
+This is the second in a series of preview/development releases leading
+up to the eventual release of Django 1.2, currently scheduled to take
+place in March 2010. This release is primarily targeted at developers
+who are interested in trying out new features and testing the Django
+codebase to help identify and resolve bugs prior to the final 1.2
+release.
+
+As such, this release is *not* intended for production use, and any
+such use is discouraged.
+
+This document covers changes since the Django 1.2 alpha release; the
+:doc:`1.2 alpha release notes </releases/1.2-alpha-1>` cover new and
+updated features in Django between 1.1 and 1.2 alpha.
+
+
+Deprecations and other changes in 1.2 beta
+==========================================
+
+This beta release deprecates two portions of public API, and
+introduces a potentially backwards-incompatible change to
+another. Under :doc:`our API stability policy </misc/api-stability>`,
+deprecation proceeds over multiple release cycles: initially, the
+deprecated API will raise ``PendingDeprecationWarning``, followed by
+raising ``DeprecationWarning`` in the next release, and finally
+removal of the deprecated API in the release after that. APIs
+beginning the deprecation process in Django 1.2 will be removed in the
+Django 1.4 release.
+
+
+Unit test runners
+-----------------
+
+Django 1.2 changes the test runner tools to use a class-based
+approach. Old style function-based test runners will still work, but
+should be updated to use the new :ref:`class-based runners
+<topics-testing-test_runner>`.
+
+
+Syndication feeds
+-----------------
+
+The :class:`django.contrib.syndication.feeds.Feed` class is being
+replaced by the :class:`django.contrib.syndication.views.Feed` class.
+The old ``feeds.Feed`` class is deprecated. The new class has an
+almost identical API, but allows instances to be used as views.
+
+Also, in accordance with `RSS best practices`_, RSS feeds will now
+include an ``atom:link`` element. You may need to update your tests to
+take this into account.
+
+For more information, see the full :doc:`syndication framework
+documentation </ref/contrib/syndication>`.
+
+.. _RSS best practices: http://www.rssboard.org/rss-profile
+
+
+Cookie encoding
+---------------
+
+Due to cookie-handling bugs in Internet Explorer, Safari, and possibly
+other browsers, Django's encoding of cookie values was changed so that
+the characters comma (',') and semi-colon (';') are treated as
+non-safe characters, and are therefore encoded as ``\054`` and
+``\073`` respectively. This could produce backwards incompatibilities
+if you are relying on the ability to set these characters directly in
+cookie values.
+
+
+What's new in 1.2 beta
+======================
+
+This 1.2 beta release marks the final feature freeze for Django 1.2;
+while most feature development was completed for 1.2 alpha (which
+constituted a freeze on major features), a few other new features were
+added afterward and so are new as of 1.2 beta.
+
+
+Object-level permissions
+------------------------
+
+A foundation for specifying permissions at the per-object level was
+added in Django 1.2 alpha but not documented with the alpha release.
+
+The default authentication backends shipped with Django do not
+currently make use of this, but third-party authentication backends
+are free to do so. See the :doc:`authentication docs </topics/auth>`
+for more information.
+
+
+Permissions for anonymous users
+-------------------------------
+
+If you provide a custom authentication backend with the attribute
+``supports_anonymous_user`` set to ``True``, the ``AnonymousUser``
+class will check the backend for permissions, just as the normal
+``User`` does. This is intended to help centralize permission
+handling; apps can always delegate the question of whether something
+is allowed or not to the authorization/authentication system. See the
+:doc:`authentication docs </topics/auth>` for more details.
+
+
+``select_related()`` improvements
+---------------------------------
+
+The ``select_related()`` method of ``QuerySet`` now accepts the
+``related_name`` of a reverse one-to-one relation in the list of
+fields to select. One-to-one relations will not, however, be traversed
+by a depth-based ``select_related()`` call.
+
+
+The Django 1.2 roadmap
+======================
+
+Before the final Django 1.2 release, at least one additional
+preview/development releases will be made available. The current
+schedule consists of at least the following:
+
+* Week of **March 2, 2010**: First Django 1.2 release
+  candidate. String freeze for translations.
+
+* Week of **March 9, 2010**: Django 1.2 final release.
+
+If necessary, additional beta or release-candidate packages will be
+issued prior to the final 1.2 release. Django 1.2 will be released
+approximately one week after the final release candidate.
+
+
+What you can do to help
+=======================
+
+In order to provide a high-quality 1.2 release, we need your
+help. Although this beta release is, again, *not* intended for
+production use, you can help the Django team by trying out the beta
+codebase in a safe test environment and reporting any bugs or issues
+you encounter. The Django ticket tracker is the central place to
+search for open issues:
+
+    * http://code.djangoproject.com/timeline
+
+Please open new tickets if no existing ticket corresponds to a problem
+you're running into.
+
+Additionally, discussion of Django development, including progress
+toward the 1.2 release, takes place daily on the django-developers
+mailing list:
+
+    * http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers
+
+... and in the ``#django-dev`` IRC channel on ``irc.freenode.net``. If you're
+interested in helping out with Django's development, feel free to join the
+discussions there.
+
+Django's online documentation also includes pointers on how to
+contribute to Django:
+
+    * :doc:`How to contribute to Django </internals/contributing>`
+
+Contributions on any level -- developing code, writing documentation
+or simply triaging tickets and helping to test proposed bugfixes --
+are always welcome and appreciated.
+
+Development sprints for Django 1.2 will also be taking place at PyCon
+US 2010, on the dedicated sprint days (February 22 through 25), and
+anyone who wants to help out is welcome to join in, either in person
+at PyCon or virtually in the IRC channel or on the mailing list.