Magento UK Development

Varien have uploaded the latest release of Magento version 1.4.0.0-alpha1.

Notice the introduction of the term ‘Alpha’? Thankfully the team at Varien have realised that Magento required some form of labelling to define the Stability Status of each release. If you’ve spent any time around the Magento forums you’ll quickly notice how each new release brings along its own headaches for store owners. With the new Community Edition Release Process developers will be able to easily see the stability of each release based on its suffix:

Stability Status explanation:

• Alpha – A suffix of ‘alpha’ means that this is a preview release of the upcoming version. It is not recommended in any way to be used in a production environment and we do not make any guarantees that any of the features, functionality, API or code will be available in the stable release of this version and as such no business decisions should be made based on this release. It is released as a first look into the upcoming version and might include major bugs and issues. It is intended for the use of developers and testers that want to have insight into the core development of Magento.
• Beta - A suffix of ‘beta’ means that this is a more mature release than the alpha releases for this version. It is not recommended in any way to be used in a production environment. Since it is a more mature release there is a better chance that features, functionality, API and code will not change in the stable release of this version, but this is not guaranteed and no business decision should be made based on this release. Developers, testers and users are encouraged to test this release in a non-production environment and provide feedback on any issues they might find. Extension maintainers and developers are encouraged to test their extensions for compatibility with this release.
• Release Candidate (rc) – A ‘rc’ suffix means that the release is getting closer to being stable. It is not recommended to be used in a production environment but all features and functionality are locked in for this version. Code and API might change slightly to accommodate for bugs or issues that are found in this release. Developers, testers and users are highly encouraged to test this release and provide feedback on any issues they might find. Extension maintainers and developers are highly encouraged to test and update their extensions as needed for compatibility with this release.
• No stability level specified – If a release version number is not followed by any suffix from the above this means that this release is production ready and stable. We still highly recommend testing your site on a non-production environment before upgrading your live installation directly. All extensions should be updated to be fully compatible with this release.

1.4.0.0 Is the first release to feature a suffix, so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes to go from alpha through to Beta, RC and then Stable.