Django 1.8 alpha 1 released

As part of the Django 1.8 release process, today we've released Django 1.8 alpha 1, a preview/testing package that represents the first stage in the 1.8 release cycle and an opportunity for you to try out some of the changes coming in Django 1.8.

Django 1.8 is loaded with several major new features and a cornucopia of other improvements. Highlights include native support for multiple template engines, support for complex SQL expressions via the ORM, a formalized API for Model._meta , and new PostgreSQL specific functionality in contrib.postgres .

For full details, see the in-development 1.8 release notes.

Unlike in past release cycles where we permitted new features up until beta, this alpha milestone marks a complete feature freeze. Thus, this alpha should be much closer to the final release than in past release cycles. The current release schedule calls for a beta release in about a month and a release candidate about a month from then. We'll only be able to keep this schedule if we get early and often testing from the community.

As with all alpha and beta packages, this is not for production use. But if you'd like to take some of the new features for a spin, or to help find and fix bugs (which should be reported to the issue tracker), you can grab a copy of the alpha package from our downloads page. And as always, signed MD5, SHA1, and SHA256 checksums of the 1.8 alpha package are available.

The PGP key ID used for this release is Tim Graham: 1E8ABDC773EDE252.