[TYPO3-announce] Announcing the first alpha release of FLOW3

[Robert Lemke]

Dear TYPO3 community,

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 via http://flow3.typo3.org/download

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 ...  
Check out http://flow3.typo3.org/get-involved/ for ways to get  
involved and get in touch.

Get into the FLOW3!
Your FLOW3 Core Team

---
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.