This week I have been working on the next major version of Doctrine, 1.2. This version will possibly be the last 1.x version before we really begin to push 2.0 hard.

The 1.2 release should be a decent release for you all and I think it has some interesting features that should really spark some growth in the community around Doctrine. Here are some highlights.

Highlights

• Major cleanup, removing deprecated methods, removed accessor string support for performance fix
• Option to disable cascading saves by default for performance improvement
• Changes to migrations to better handle migrating multiple databases
• More configuration options
• Configure a child Doctrine_Query class to use
• Configure a child Doctrine_Collection class to use
• Refactored hydration implementation to be completely driver based
• Write your own hydration drivers to process query statements
• Refactored Doctrine connections to be completely driver based
• Write your own connection drivers for Doctrine
• Other small changes and improvements across the code base

Doctrine Extensions

All the above changes lend themselves well to creating extensions and behaviors for Doctrine. This has led to the creation of the Doctrine extensions repository.

You can now write standalone code bundled as a Doctrine extension that can be dropped in to an extensions folder and loaded by Doctrine. So now when you all write custom behaviors and custom extensions you can make them available for other people to use and drop in to projects.

I have started the repository by committing the Sortable behavior which was contributed by a Doctrine user on our trac. So whoever you are, if you would like to maintain this extension please contact me.

Follow 1.2 Development

If you want to know more about Doctrine 1.2 you can read the What's new in Doctrine 1.2 document which will be kept up to date as we develop and change things in 1.2!

CAUTION Some of the implemented features in 1.2 are still being discussed and debated so they may change or be completely removed if decided so. If you have any input or suggestions on the provided features, let us know ASAP.