Drupal Core Updates

What's new with Drupal 8?

This week saw the commit of part one and two of the major menu-system rewrite in which menu-links become plugins. The original patch weighed in at over 600kb and was one of the remaining seven beta-blockers. Splitting it into five separate issues made reviews more forthcoming and this was evident with part one and two moving quickly from needs review to RTBC to ultimately being committed. Reviewers have now moved onto parts three through five.
There was a massive volume of commits this week with cleanups keeping the committers very-busy, lots of deprecated functions were removed and lots of procedural menu and form code was ported to the new Object-oriented approaches.

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

In the past week, we've fixed 3 critical issues and 8 major issues, and opened 5 criticals and 9 majors. That puts us overall at 107 release-blocking critical issues and 623 major issues.

Outstanding beta blockers

Outstanding critical issues in Drupal 8

Outstanding major issues in Drupal 8

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem-space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record, we could use your help!

• We need people to review Issue #2260457: Allow config entities to remove dependent configuration keys when dependencies are deleted. Uninstalling modules in Drupal 8 will remove any configuration that has a dependency on that module. This will keep your site working but at the moment the delete is a bit greedy! Two other related issues, #2212081 and #1881630 could use some work too.
• Issue #2268939: Config overrides not updated when config changes needs review.
• As mentioned aboveIssue #2256521: New plan, Phase 2: Implement menu links as plugins, including static admin links and views, and custom links with menu_link_content entity, all managed via menu_ui module has been split into five issues, three of which still needs reviews, API changes documented, a change record drafted, and existing change records that will need updates identified and updated to reference the issue.
• There are still 7 beta-blockers that need to be done to provide a stable data model and stable critical APIs (including a couple of the issues above), and 14 non-critical issues that significantly change the data model or critical APIs, and therefore can only be committed before the first beta is released. Please help move them forward!

More ways to help

Issue #1679344: Race condition in node_save() when not using DB for cache_field recently caused a Drupal.org outage. The issue already has a proposed resolution recommended in comment #24 — help out by reviewing the patch for either D7 or D8.

Additionally, there are a bunch of easy documentation issues which need some help moving forward. For each of these, there is a "Child Issues" sidebar. Look there for issues that are "active", "needs work", or "needs review":

• Issue #2269389: Make sure plugin developer info is discoverable
• Issue #2294117: Some @defgroup topics should be moved/renamed
• Issue #1908570: Update or create hook_help() texts for D8 core modules

As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

You can also help by sponsoring Drupal core development.

What's new with Drupal 8?

The past two weeks have seen steady progress on Drupal 8, with the release of drupal 8.0-alpha13, the Clearing of the RTBC Queue, the expected deployment of Semantic Versioning support on Drupal.org, the launch of the #D8CX initiative, and the announcement about the roadmap for Drupal Commerce for Drupal 8!

Updates to api.drupal.org

If you go to https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/8 you'll notice a few updates:

• A few months ago, we updated the landing page with a list of topics, which were mostly just stubs. Documentation has now been written for most of the topics that are linked from the landing page.
• There's a list of Services on the right sidebar, which you can filter by tag and name keywords — and each service has its own page, with appropriate cross-linking (list of code that uses the service on the service page, and if a service name is used in code, it should link to the service page)
• The Classes page now lists Traits as well as classes and interfaces
• For hooks like hook_form_FORM_ID_alter(), you can now see a list of functions that implement it (previously this only worked for hooks like hook_form_alter() where the function name was modulename_hookname(), but now it works for ALL_CAPS replacements as well).

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Last week, we fixed 1 critical issue and 5 major issues, and opened 2 criticals and 10 majors. That puts us overall at 97 release-blocking critical issues and 614 major issues.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem-space of one of these issues, and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record, we could use your help!

• We need people to review Issue #2260457: Allow config entities to remove dependent configuration keys when dependencies are deleted. Uninstalling modules in Drupal 8 will remove any configuration that has a dependency on that module. This will keep your site working but at the moment the delete is a bit greedy! Two other related issues, #2212081 and #1881630 could use some work too.
• Issue #2293773: Field allowed values use dots in key names - not allowed in config is nearly done, but we need to decide on the best of two paths forward, code review and commit.
• Issue #2268939: Config overrides not updated when config changes needs review.
• Issue #2256521: New plan, Phase 2: Implement menu links as plugins, including static admin links and views, and custom links with menu_link_content entity, all managed via menu_ui module needs extensive code reviews, API changes documented, a change record drafted, and existing change records that will need updates identified and updated to reference the issue.
• There are still 7 beta-blockers that need to be done to provide a stable data model and stable critical APIs (including a couple of the issues above), and 14 non-critical issues that significantly change the data model or critical APIs, and therefore can only be committed before the first beta is released. Please help move them forward!

More ways to help

Issue #1679344: Race condition in node_save() when not using DB for cache_field recently caused a Drupal.org outage. The issue already has a proposed resolution recommended in comment #24 — help out by creating a patch for either D7 or D8.

Additionally, there are a bunch of easy documentation issues which need some help moving forward. For each of these, there is a "Child Issues" sidebar. Look there for issues that are "active", "needs work", or "needs review":

• Issue #2269389: Make sure plugin developer info is discoverable
• Issue #2294117: Some @defgroup topics should be moved/renamed
• Issue #1908570: Update or create hook_help() texts for D8 core modules

If you want to get started with the core development process, this is a great way to get your first commit in core!

You can also search the Drupal Core issue queue for issues tagged "Novice": the ones in the "documentation" component are especially good for new contributors.

As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

You can also help by sponsoring Drupal core development.

Note: We've renamed this post series to Drupal Core Updates since, well, you know, they weren't exactly weekly to begin with. (As always, contact xjm if you'd like to help write them!)

What's new with Drupal 8?

We may have been quiet for the past month as we prepared for -- and then recovered from -- DrupalCon Austin, but core development has been sizzling! (And not just because of the Texas climate.)

Photo credit: pdjohnson

DrupalCon Austin sprints

In addition to all the great sessions (videos below), summits, BOFs, and trainings, Austin included six full days of sprints on everything from Drupal 8 release blockers, frontend, and APIs, to D8 contrib initiatives like #d8rules, the Examples D8 port, and D8 Media, to Drupal.org itself. Nearly 500 sprinters and mentors got involved on the main Friday sprint day, and over 100 sprinters participated in the extended sprints before and after the Con.

If you were at the sprints, you might have noticed a few goofy sprinters decked in rabbit ears. :) These indefatigable contributors were working on some of the very last Drupal 8 beta blockers. During Austin, we managed to resolve six of these issues, but more importantly, we identified the path forward in all the beta blockers we didn't fix as well.

Done > Perfect

The past month also showed a shift in the community's outlook: It's time to get Drupal 8 done. We need to stop making large, non-essential changes, because every time we make more work for ourselves, we delay the release of 8.0.0 for hundreds of thousands of people. When we have a choice between doing something quickly and imperfectly, or slowly and perfectly, it's time to pick the quick, imperfect fix. A couple examples:

• Last month, we discovered that Drupal 8's new support for PHP INTL dates was badly broken. Instead of spending dozens of hours trying to resolve this issue before releasing a beta, we removed the feature. It did not exist in D7, and it can be added back for 8.1.0, or provided by a contributed module.
• In Drupal 8, comment fields can now be attached to any entity type, instead of just nodes; however, they don't work on entity types with non-numeric ID keys (contact forms are the only example in Drupal 8 core). Instead of holding up the release on making every fieldable entity type commentable, we settled for almost every entity type being commentable -- which is still a big improvement from D7.

Drupal 8.0.0 will not be perfect, but it will be powerful. And we have the chance to make it even better in 8.1.0 six months later. Think about which issues in the core queue might make sense as minor version targets, and help us work on Drupal 8 efficiently.

Photo credit: Michael Schmid. Help us battle Lord Over-Engineering!

Drupal 8 documentation updates on API.drupal.org

Lots of comprehensive API documentation has been added to the API.Drupal.org handbook page over the past month, thanks especially to API documentation maintainer jhodgdon and review efforts from core component maintainers. This overview page (and the detailed documentation linked from it) should provide a much better starting point for learning about Drupal 8. (See below for how you can help document the remaining API topics.) API.drupal.org has also recently added an automatic list of services provided in Drupal 8 core. For updates on Drupal documentation work, see This Month in Drupal Documentation.

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Last week, we fixed 9 critical issues and 10 major issues, and opened 4 criticals and 6 majors. That puts us overall at 92 release-blocking critical issues and 595 major issues.

2 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 11 of 172 beta blockers that must be resolved before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• #2238217: [Change record] Introduce a RouteMatch class

  The one reasonably approachable task in this week's top beta blockers is to complete the needed change record documentation for the recently added RouteMatch class. Help by writing a draft change record for the issue, and then update existing change records to also include an issue reference to #2238217 and to use the new API. (See comment #143 on the issue for a start.) Post links to the revision diffs for your change record updates so they can be reviewed by other contributors.

• #2256521: New plan, Phase 2: Implement menu links as plugins, including static admin links and views, and custom links with menu_link_content entity, all managed via menu_ui module

  This massive (nearly 600 K) improvement to the Drupal 8 menu link API resolves or unblocks numerous critical issues while also supporting performance, DX, and multilingual improvements. The patch is developed from a sandbox:
  git clone --branch 2256521 http://git.drupal.org/sandbox/dereine/2031809.git
  Help this issue by:

  • Providing code additional reviews, since the patch is way too big for any one contributor to review in one sitting.
  • Proactively identifying things in the patch (or from others' reviews) that could be resolved in followup issues, filing those followup issues, and adding the appropriate code @todo and links to the followup issues.
  • Looking through the patch and issue to identify the complete, specific API changes it introduces, and adding these changes to the issue summary.
  • Checking for existing change records that will need to be updated for these API changes, listing the updates that will be needed in the issue summary, and editing the change records to add a reference to #2256521.
  • Drafting a new change record for the change.

  Check with Wim Leers, pwolanin, or dawehner so that you can align your efforts with their work on this patch.

• #2144263: Decouple entity field storage from configurable fields

  This issue is key to completing the Drupal 8 Entity Field API and is the culmination of work done across DrupalCons Portland, Prague, and Austin. The patch needs test failures resolved, architectural review, and (as above) identification of any needed change record updates. Coordinate with Berdir, plach, or yched to help further with this issue.

• #1825952: Turn on twig autoescape by default.

  Enabling Twig's built-in autoescaping of HTML-unsafe code will security-harden Drupal 8, and should eventually allow us to reduce complexity and improve perfomance in the theme layer. The patch introduces a SafeMarkup class that can be used to identify sanitized strings for use in templates, and all other strings are automatically escaped. Help with this patch by providing feedback to points raised in recent reviews (see comment #185), helping write thorough API documentation for the SafeMarkup class, or starting a draft change record. Contact xjm to help out with this issue.

Photo credit: Michael Schmid

More ways to help

• We're closing in on Beta 1!

  Only 11 beta-blocking issues remain, and we will probably be in the single digits by the end of the week. This means now is a good time to start looking at all the beta targets and especially issues with a beta deadline. (See Beta blocker deadline target what? for an explanation of these issue categories.) Keep an eye out for other issues that should have a beta deadline as well.

• #2148255: [meta] Make better D8 api.d.o landing page, linked to high-level overview topics, and put it in Core api.php files

  Help improve our Drupal 8 API documentation! The menu and routing topic needs review, and we also need first drafts for the REST, Migration, and Ajax documentation topic updates.

• #1971384: [META] Convert page callbacks to controllers

  We converted all of core to use our new routing system last fall, but eighteen different form and page controllers still need to be cleaned up to conform to our best practices. Currently, almost all of these patches need to be rerolled for PSR-4 and for other core changes. Note, however, that many of these patches have gone through multiple rerolls (mostly by novice contributors) over the course of more than a year, without sufficient review before the patches become stale. So, what these issues need most is 1-2 experienced contributors with an understanding of Drupal 8 architectural concepts who can manage the meta issue and its children, and provide thorough code review when new patches are submitted. If you can help out, start by reviewing those child issues still at "Needs review".

• #2016679: [Meta] Expand Entity Type interfaces to provide methods

  Drupal 8 core provides numerous entity types, but the full public API for each type is not easily documented or discoverable. To improve the developer experience, each entity type interface is being expanded with relevant methods for the specific entity. Most issues have a submitted patch, and what is most needed is architectural review of the proposed interface methods, including recommending which properties should instead be protected. If you have experience with one of the subsystems that still has an open child issue, or if you have a sound grasp on OO design generally, we could use your help to thoroughly review these patches so that the completed APIs are available for contributed module developers in a beta release.

As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

You can also help by sponsoring Drupal core development.

What's new with Drupal 8?

The past two weeks saw the Drupal community rally together to support each other and recognize the hard work involved in making Drupal awesome, starting with the launch of the Drupal Core Gittip Team and the news that Alex Pott had been hired by Chapter Three to work on Drupal 8 development full-time. It also saw some great performance improvements in Drupal 8 and a handful of Developer Experience improvements.

Drupal Core Gittip Team

On Friday, May 2nd, Cathy Theys (YesCT) and Alex Pott (alexpott) launched the Drupal Core Gittip Team, a new funding effort to allow companies and individuals to support the people who are regularly contributing their own time, without compensation, to Drupal Core development. (See their announcement and Team FAQ for more information.) A weekly contribution to the Core Gittip team is a great way for individuals and companies (and you!) to both help Drupal 8 and improve the long-term sustainability of Drupal Core development.

Sponsored Drupal 8 development

On Tuesday May 6th, Alex Pott announced that Chapter Three had hired him to work on Drupal 8 full-time, and that he would be using his Gittip income to support the rest of the Drupal Core Gittip team. This came a year and thirty-five days after he became a Drupal co-maintainer and nine months after he asked for the community's help to continue to support his Drupal 8 development work.

In response to Alex's announcement, Dries blogged about the investment case for employing a Drupal core contributor and Jennifer Hodgdon responded with the case for a small Drupal shop contributing to Drupal.

Contrib fundraising initiatives

Nick Veenhof announced that the Search API team were able to meet (and exceed!) their goal to fund the porting of Search API to Drupal 8 along with the next sprint date.

And, Wolfgang Ziegler (fago) announced the #d8rules initiative, an effort to get the Rules module ported to Drupal 8.

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Last week, we fixed 13 critical issues and 16 major issues, and opened 11 criticals and 12 majors. That puts us overall at 115 release-blocking critical issues and 545 major issues.

4 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 20 of 163 beta blockers that must be resolved before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• #2183231: Make ContentEntityDatabaseStorage generate static database schemas for content entities is a big patch to the Entity Field API which could use some code reviews and testing with your own custom content entities if you have them.
• #2224887: Language configuration overrides should have their own storage could use everything from code reviews to manual testing. In particular, testing #2224887 by creating translated configuration and importing/exporting the configuration changes would be very helpful (note that you don't need to be bilingual to test these: Drupal has a Lolspeak language that you can use for testing)
• There are two field API beta blockers that each need a champion to bring them home: Field instances should support cross-field-type, extensible, extra configuration for use cases like translation sync (which will support translation synchronization) and Let 3rd party modules store extra configuration in EntityDisplay (which will support contributed modules like Display Suite).

More ways to help

• We'd appreciate your feedback on helping us decide if and how to extend D6 security support 12 months past an 8.0.0 release so that everyone has a chance to migrate their old sites to Drupal 8.
• We're also looking for help reviewing all the issues tagged as "revisit before beta" and "revisit before RC": some of the issues in this list haven't been updated for over 18 months so they need triaging.
• The WSCCI initiative also needs help writing change records and documentation for all the menu changes from 7 to 8.

As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

You can also help by sponsoring Drupal core development on Gittip.

What's new with Drupal 8?

This week saw the release of Drupal 8 alpha 11 and two major patches - one adding PSR-4 autoloading support and another containing the Drupal 6 to Drupal 8 migration path.
The PSR-4 patch added PSR-4 support alongside PSR-0 but it is planned to remove PSR-0 support for module classes before the first beta. We will continue to support PSR-0 for external libraries provided by modules. For more information read the change record.
The Drupal 6 to Drupal 8 migrate path was a huge patch, congratulations to all those involved. For more information keep watching This week in Drupal Core and the Core group. You can take it for a spin with the latest version of drush and drush migrate-manifest.

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Just last week!

Last week, we fixed 12 critical issues and 16 major issues, and opened 10 criticals and 16 majors. That puts us overall at 118 release-blocking critical issues and 517 major issues.

7 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 28 of 165 beta blockers that must be resolved before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

How close are we to Beta 1?

It's the end of April, and we are down to just 28 beta-blocking issues. For context, here's how that count has changed over the course of 2014. We started 2014 with 140 known beta blockers and missing change records combined, with 123 of those issues still unresolved. We've identified additional beta-blocking issues along the way, so as we get closer, the picture becomes more complete. In total, we've already fixed 137 beta blockers and completed more than 70 missed change records. The 28 issues that remain are a fraction of more than 200 total.

That said, we need your help. Many of the beta blockers that remain include significant changes, and the community's support and focus on these issues now will pay off at DrupalCon Austin sprints and after. Or, help with one of the approachable tasks for beta 1 we shared last week. (Also see the "Where can I help?" section below.)

...So then when is Drupal 8 released?

We release the first Drupal 8 release candidate when there are 0 critical issues remaining. Right now there are 118 (including the 28 top-priority beta blockers). The number of criticals has been dropping steadily since DrupalCon Prague thanks to 900 Drupal 8 patch contributors during that timeframe alone. (In total, 2035 people have contributed to Drupal 8 patches over the past three years!)

That still looks like a lot of remaining criticals -- and it is. However, when we compare it to the total work that's already been done in the cycle, including more than 700 critical issues already fixed, it becomes clear we are in the final phase of Drupal 8's development. (Yep... keep scrolling...)

If you're as eager to build amazing things with Drupal 8 as we are, please devote what resources you can to resolving the remaining release blockers, or support the indefatigable contributors who continue to shape Drupal 8 directly.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• #2116363: Unified repository of field definitions (cache + API). Please help review this essential step to complete the Drupal 8 Entity Field API.
• #2183231: Make ContentEntityDatabaseStorage generate static database schemas for content entities is a big patch that needs your help and reviews to bring it home.
• If you have performance profiling expertise: Issue 2222719 could use your help (see comment #60).

More ways to help

• Help with the approachable tasks for beta 1!
• In particular, the taxonomy/term/% Views conversion (issue #1857256) needs a before-and-after EXPLAIN for the queries generated.
• As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

What's new with Drupal 8?

Configuration system changes

Over the past month, a lot of work has gone into the configuration system. With the addition of a separate module install/uninstall step for the config import process, it's finally possible to properly synchronize configuration changes with module installations or uninstallations. You can now transform a site installed with the Minimum install profile into a site using the Standard install profile by importing configuration (the case we've long said will be our indicator that CMI "works"). (Watch this screencast to see it in action!)

Additionally, after thorough discussion, the active storage for the configuration management system has been moved into the database by default. This means existing Drupal 8 sites will likely need to be reinstalled (or otherwise migrate the active configuration). Read the change record on active configuration in the database for details on why this decision was made.

Now is the time to start really testing CMI deployments. Spin up a dev site, make a copy of it, and test synchronizing complex configuration system changes between the two. See if the system behaves as you expect (and report the problems you find!) For an overview of the outstanding work being done on the configuration system, see #2187339: [meta] CMI path to beta.

NYC Camp at the United Nations

The third annual NYC Camp was held at the United Nations. (Yes, that United Nations, with the flags.) In addition to numerous sessions about Drupal 8 (check out fmitchell's session on 30 Drupal 8 API functions you should already know), we held several days of Drupal 8 core sprints. Media contributors also sprinted on Media for Drupal 8; read their sprint status report for more information. Finally, Drupal Association executive director Holly Ross worked on a Drupal 8 patch got her first Drupal core commit credit! Are you next? :)

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

We're in the last stretch of Drupal 8's alpha phase. We've fixed over 130 beta-blocking issues, including 9 in the last week, plus written more than 70 missing change records. The last 28 beta blockers include some difficult issues, but consider some of what we've already accomplished since the beginning of 2014:

• The removal of the variable subsystem after 18 months.
• The rearchitecture of configuration synchronization to support the minimum viable usecase after 16 months.
• The removal of the legacy menu router after nearly a year.
• The removal of widely used cache-breaking functions including drupal_set_title(), drupal_add_css(), drupal_add_js(), and theme().
• The removal of all stale hook_update_N() implementations and the modification of update.php to require Migrate for major version upgrades instead.

(And of course so much more.)

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• #2116363: Unified repository of field definitions (cache + API) converts remaining usages of the deprecated field info API to use methods from the entity manager, and is therefore critical to stabilizing the Entity Field API for the beta release. This significant (~150 KB) patch needs thorough code review from contributors familiar with Drupal 8's entity and field systems.

• #2183231: Make ContentEntityDatabaseStorage generate static database schemas for content entities is an even larger (~250 KB) beta-blocking patch for the entity system that allows the entity system to automatically create the necessary database tables for entities, resolving numerous different issues. This is another significant change and needs lots of thorough review from as many people as possible.

• #2198429: Make deleted fields work with config synch needs review of the patch's architecture and functionality. Deleting a field is a significant operation, because the site has to go on to purge all the field instance data for entities that have the field while leaving those entities intact. Drupal 7 includes a lot of code to support this functionality, and in Drupal 8, there's additional complexity since this purge needs to happen when a deleted field is staged and synchronized to another environment.

• #2124749: [meta] Stop using request attributes as a storage mechanism for other services covers a collection of issues to improve the developer experience around Drupal 8's use of Symfony's request attributes (a public property on the request object that can be used for context-specific information about the request). This context information is not easily discoverable for contributed module developers, and, in some cases, using it adds to the apparent verbosity and complexity (e.g. in the replacements for the common D7 functions menu_get_object() and menu_get_item()). The numerous sub-issues for this meta issue are intended to weed out misuses of the request attributes and provide clear public APIs for others. Help discuss the developer experience and architecture in the numerous child issues for this meta.

More ways to help

• We've put together a list of approchable beta blocker and beta target issues from the tasks remaining after our two back-to-back sprints on the beta at Szeged and NYC Camp.

• #2216437: Entity labels are not in-place editable on "full entity page" (prime example: node title) is a critical regression in Drupal 8's new in-place editing feature. The patch to resolve the issue needs JavaScript code review.

• As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

What's new with Drupal 8?

The past three weeks saw some exciting progress on Drupal 8, in part due to the hard work of everyone who went to DrupalDevDays 2014 in Szeged, Hungary. It also saw the release of drupal-8.x-alpha10.

Drupal Developer Days Szeged

DevDays Szeged was a landmark for the Drupal 8 release cycle. Participants marveled at how productive and well-organized the event was, and core maintainers commented they'd never seen such momentum in the RTBC queue. During the week-long sprint, 19 beta blocking issues were fixed (with three more RTBC) and every single missing change record was written. Outside core, sprinters also made significant progress on everything from the Search API module for Drupal 8 to Drupal.org itself. A robot doll, chocolates, bunny ears, stickers, and Drupal-ified Hungarian folk music also made it the event of the year. (Szeged slide show)

Alpha 10 released; Alpha 11 due Apr. 23

Alpha 10 was released on March 19th, just before Drupal Dev Days. Some notable changes include:

• Drupal now requires PHP 5.4.2 or higher.
• modules and installation profiles only require .info.yml files
• the logo, site name and slogan have been converted from special theme variables into a block

... for the full list of changes, see the alpha 10 release notes.

These alphas are provided to give you something more stable to work off of than having to chase HEAD every day.

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Core momentum increased again in March, with a new all-time record of 51 criticals fixed over the month. In fact, we've nearly recovered to the level of known technical debt we had as of feature freeze a year ago. :P There's still a long ways to go, so help us focus on the most important issues and on releasing a sound Drupal 8 beta.

Our steady progress toward that first beta release continues as we divide the outstanding beta blockers into actionable sub-steps. Among March's fixed criticals were over 30 beta blockers, more than half the total, showing the community's tight focus on unblocking this milestone.

Note that the number of beta target issues (which are issues that would be good to resolve for the beta, but are not critical enough to block it) continues to increase. As we get closer to beta, it's important to also pay attention to these issues, so we'll be highlighting beta targets more in the coming weeks.

Last week, we fixed 25 critical issues and 24 major issues, and opened 15 criticals and 29 majors. That puts us overall at 118 release-blocking critical issues and 486 major issues.

16 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 28 of 142 beta blockers that must be resolved before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• At Szeged, we had an important Developer Experience (DX) discussion about Drupal 8's use of request attributes (#2124749) and its impact on frequently used public APIs. To move forward, we need more feedback on the recent discussion (see @effulgentsia's writeup in comment #32).
• For the D8 Menu system, the most critical critical issue is #2227179: Step 2: Wrap the existing logic of accessing menu links into a plugin manager, part of finalizing the API for declaring default menu links. This is the #1 API that contributed modules interact with, since most modules add links to their administration pages, and therefore it's very important to get the developer experience and architecture right. Help review the current patch and the overall proposal.
• In the Configuration system, Add a separate module install/uninstall step to the config import process is the next step to making Configuration synchronization stable and reliable. The patch needs review.
• And, finally, much of the remaining beta-blocking work in the Entity Field API hinges on Introduce StorageFieldDefinitionInterface in the Entity Field API.

More ways to help

Love Drupal and want to help out, but not a coder or unsure where to start? From breaking things (for science!), to designing things; from summarizing issues to writing documentation, there's lots of ways you can contribute! And, there are more than 125 mentors willing to help you!

Our current priority is updating the documentation for Drupal 8. Rich, helpful documentation for Drupal 8 is incredibly important: it's a great way to market Drupal to potential clients, it saves you from writing as much documentation for your existing clients, it empowers new users, site builders, developers, and themers to learn and solve their problems; and, with all the changes that have happened since Drupal 7, it's pretty useful for seasoned Drupal veterans as well!

The documentation team is working on updating:

• the Core module handbook,
• the help module's pages, and
• the new developer documentation on the api.drupal.org landing page for D8.

... for more information, visit the #drupal-docs channel on IRC or jump into the documentation issue queue.

As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

What's new with Drupal 8?

Two big news items this week for our intrepid testbots! First, RTBC core patches are now automatically retested every 24 hours to ensure they don't go stale and to avoid regressions and commit conflicts. Hooray!! Additionally, the 8.x testbots have been upgraded to PHP 5.4, which means Drupal 8 now officially requires PHP 5.4.2 or above to install. Woot! In addition to this allowing us to remove some legacy cruft regarding magic quotes and other things that are no longer relevant in PHP 5.4, there is also active discussion going on about how best to use 'traits', a new languge feature of PHP 5.4. Upgrade your dev environments accordingly!

Major headway was also made in removing the legacy router system, with the commit of Issue #2107533 by tim.plunkett, dawehner, pwolanin, Berdir: Remove {menu_router} -- a major milestone for the beta release, and anecdotally a big reduction in automated test times -- and Issue #2177041 by dawehner, Berdir, jibran: Remove all implementations of hook_menu. This thankfully resolves a rather confusing situation in alpha 9 where both hook_menu() and hook_menu_links_default() existed at the same time, duplicating each others' code.

Speaking of alphas, Drupal 8 alpha 10 is coming up on March 19! Here's the commit schedule around then: https://groups.drupal.org/node/412343

Drupal 8's migration path is making great headway in the sandbox, and with a two new maintainers and an initial patch to update the migrate API with the latest changes (note: this patch is both huge and needs reviews!) the hope is that the bulk of the Drupal 6 => Drupal 8 migration path will land soon!

And in BREAKING news, just as this was being posted, Issue #2148255 by jhodgdon: Make better D8 api.d.o landing page and put it in Core was committed, which now makes the Drupal 8 API landing page look like this:

Hot damn! Headings and stuff! Of course, now we need to actually write the docs behind those links. ;) If that sounds like a fun way to learn Drupal 8 to you, check out the child issues here: https://drupal.org/node/2148255

And finally, headed to DrupalCon Austin? Check out the Drupal 8 extended sprint schedule for DrupalCon Austin and book your travel plans accordingly!

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Overall, beta blockers continue on a downward trend, with a big dip over the past two weeks, although beta targets are increasing as various issues get de-scoped from holding up beta1. Missing change records remain relatively flat-lined. It'd be great to have those cleaned up once and for all so we can stop tracking them. :D

In terms of the overall Drupal 8 release, here's what our trajectory on all critical issues across the board looks like:

Last week, we fixed 4 critical issues and 12 major issues, and opened 6 criticals and 4 majors. That puts us overall at 120 release-blocking critical issues and 483 major issues.

2 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 36 of 121 beta blockers that must be resolved and 13 change records that must be written before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• [meta] CMI path to beta has several really thorny child issues that are the most likely to hold release of beta 1, so all hands are needed on deck to help move these issues forward. The most important issue at the moment is #2201437: [META] Config overrides and language. Help by reviewing the sub-issues and the overall proposed architecture.

What's new with Drupal 8?

This week (fortnight) saw the release of Drupal 8 alpha 9. Each release brings us that little bit closer to a beta. Some of the highlights from this fortnight include:

• Remove all Simpletest overrides and rely on native multi-site functionality instead - issue 2171683. With this, each test run creates its own site inside sites/simpletest - eg sites/simpletest/13455678 - with its own settings.php and some apache files for security sake. This means that our testing is running in a real site, instead of a psuedo site with overloaded globals and various other workarounds.
• The direct callability of theme() was removed in favor of building render arrays consistently. It has been renamed to _theme() and is for internal use only. Build render arrays instead of using _theme() in your code so you don't break caching, assets and JavaScript states, amongst other things. For more information see the change record.

And speaking of change records, just a reminder to check your patches for API changes and be sure to write your change record, these are now required before the issue is committed.

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Last week, we fixed 11 critical issues and 14 major issues, and opened 4 criticals and 9 majors. That puts us overall at 116 release-blocking critical issues and 484 major issues.

5 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 51 of 124 beta blockers that must be resolved and 14 change records that must be written before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• #2198429: Remove deleted fields concept blocks critical work on dependency management and configuration synchronization. If you have expertise on the configurable field system, the configuration system, the batch API, or large deployments and data deletions in general, please weigh in on this issue.
• #2114707: Allow per-bundle overrides of field definitions This is a current key blocker for entity API work, and needs review.
• Anything that helps us unblock testbot testing on php 5.4 -- see this issue list of php-fpm issues.

More ways to help

• If you use PostgreSQL, please help with #2157455: [Meta] Make Drupal 8 work with PostgreSQL. These issues are critical to make Drupal 8 shippable for postgres, and they block adding automated test coverage on postgres that will help prevent further regressions.
• #1938068: [Meta] Convert UnitTestBase to PHPUnit. These issues are a great chance to familiarize yourself with PHPUnit and make Drupal 8's test suite cleaner and faster. Help with reviews on the child issues!
• We REALLY need documentation help for the Block API.
• As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.

What's new with Drupal 8?

It's been a remarkable couple of weeks for Drupal 8, with several landmark changes, a global sprint, and a surge in core issue queue activity.

Global sprint weekend

The second Global Sprint Weekend was held January 25-26. Over 400 sprinters participated at 39 locations on six continents, with others participating remotely in IRC. Some quick core issue queue statistics from the sprint timeframe:

• 80 new Drupal 8 core issues created
• 553 Drupal 8 patches submitted
• 2468 comments posted on 646 Drupal 8 issues
• 113 Drupal 8 issues RTBCed

A huge thanks to everyone who participated, and especially to the sprint organizers and mentors who helped make it happen.

Removal of the variable subsystem

Right on the heels of the Global Sprint Weekend, the last patch to convert variables to config or state was committed, and within a day the old variable subsystem was removed. This was the culmination of a year and a half of work by more than 80 contributors, and an incredible milestone for the Configuration Management Initiative.

Removal of the 7.x to 8.x upgrade path

At DrupalCon Prague, core maintainers agreed to stop using update.php for major version upgrades in favor of providing data migration from Drupal 7 (and Drupal 6!) with Migrate in core. So, last week we fixed Issue #2168011: Remove all 7.x to 8.x update hooks and disallow updates from the previous major version. Now the core codebase is as committed to Migrate as we are. ;) See Drupal 7 sites can no longer be upgraded to Drupal 8 with update.php for more information.

Now that hook_update_N() implementations will no longer be added for data model changes from Drupal 7, core patch contributors should keep an eye out for patches that might require migration updates instead. For details, read: No more 7.x to 8.x hook_update_N() -- file Migrate issues instead.

Change record drafts

It's now possible to create drafts of API change records, and a draft change record will be required before any API change is committed starting February 14. More information on the new feature and change record process: Change records now needed before commit.

On January 31, in preparation for this change, core contributors reduced the missing change record count from 40 to 20 in 24 hours. We actually halved this long-outstanding documentation debt within a single day. Amazing work!

Theme system conversions

Core theme system contributors have been busy the past several weeks, converting numerous theme functions to Twig and removing all calls to theme() outside drupal_render() (and some automated tests). This important theme system cleanup has been ongoing for more than seven months and blocks a beta release.

Additionally, after lots of work on these issues, joelpittet joined the theme subsystem maintainer team. Thanks Joel!

Where's Drupal 8 at in terms of release?

Last week, we fixed 14 critical issues and 24 major issues, and opened 5 criticals and 16 majors. That puts us overall at 132 release-blocking critical issues and 473 major issues.

11 beta-blocking issues were fixed last week. There are still 51 of 115 beta blockers that must be resolved and 12 change records that must be written before we can release a Drupal 8 beta.

Here's a quick look at our progress on criticals and beta blockers in January:

We tied our previous record of 48 criticals fixed within a single month, but this time while posting fewer new ones than that. ;) Great work!

We fixed a grand total of 37 beta blockers in January, putting us past the halfway point for the beta! We also made great progress on cleaning up the API documentation debt of our outstanding change records -- from over 50 at the start of the month to 19 at the end (and just 12 as of today)! That said, we also identified 20-odd additional beta-blocking issues over the course of the month, so it's important to keep our focus on these top-priority issues.

Where can I help?

Top criticals to hit this week

Each week, we check with core maintainers and contributors for the "extra critical" criticals that are blocking other work. These issues are often tough problems with a long history. If you're familiar with the problem space of one of these issues and have the time to dig in, help drive it forward by reviewing, improving, and testing its patch, and by making sure the issue's summary is up to date and any API changes are documented with a draft change record.

• #2114707: Allow per-bundle overrides of field definitions. This entity system issue blocks work on performance as well as some key architectural changes.
• #2002134: Move TypedData metadata introspection from data objects to definition objects is an entity system DX issue that also impacts several important contributed modules.
• #2080823: Create API to discover content or config entities soft dependencies and use this to present a confirm form on module uninstall. Dependency management for configuration entities is the one remaining blocker in CMI without a solid plan. Help us architect this crucial part of the configuration system.
• #2054011: Decide on built-in support for internal URLs blocks a lengthy chain of menu system issues.

More ways to help

• #2173655: Refactor theme() to _theme(); make it a private API to discourage module developers from circumventing the renderable build system is a straightforward critical with several straightforward followups to get the theme system beta-ready. Help with this issue by providing a script to rename the function where needed (a regex is provided in comment #5), rolling an updated patch, and reviewing the next submitted patch carefully to ensure the function is renamed correctly everywhere.
• #2188771: [meta] Block API documentation . Drupal 8 has a harder-better-faster-stronger Block API that makes core blocks far more flexible and developer-friendly than they've been in previous versions of Drupal, but near all documentation for it is outdated, confusing, or missing entirely. Help on some of the many documentation issues listed in this meta.
• We're down to a mere 12 committed patches with missing change records. (Several of these are related to the Block API, above.) Help us write and review these by February 14 so that we can give contrib a valentine with no strings attached. ;)
• As always, if you're new to contributing to core, check out Core contribution mentoring hours. Twice per week, you can log into IRC and helpful Drupal core mentors will get you set up with answers to any of your questions, plus provide some useful issues to work on.