Backwards-incompatible changes

As Django is still in pre-release mode, we haven't yet committed to maintaining backwards compatibility in any APIs. Although we're keeping such changes to a minimum, Django developers should be acutely aware of these changes.

Of course, once we reach our first official release, we'll be strongly committed to backward compatibility.

This page lists all backwards-incompatible changes to Django so far, and the proposed backwards-incompatible changes.

Changes already made

Moved mod_python handler

As of [169], using django.core.handler as a mod_python handler is deprecated. Use django.core.handlers.mod_python instead. We will be removing django.core.handler for Django's first release.

Changed ordering syntax

As of [292], syntax used for order_by (in the database API) and ordering (in models) has changed.

Example of old ordering syntax: order_by=[('foo', 'ASC'), ('bar', 'DESC')]

Example of new ordering syntax: order_by=['foo', '-bar']

The old syntax is deprecated, and we'll stop supporting it for Django's first release.

Refactored meta.py

As of [378], django/core/meta.py has been converted to a package, django/core/meta/. If you're using a version of Django from before [378], make sure to delete django/core/meta.pyc and django/core/meta.pyo, if they exist. The existence of those files doesn't pose any known problems, but it's best to clean things up.

Changed edit_inline and edit_inline_type behavior

As of [440], using edit_inline_type in your models is deprecated, in favor of a less-redundant approach that uses edit_inline itself.

Example of old syntax: edit_inline=True, edit_inline_type=meta.TABULAR

Example of new syntax: edit_inline=meta.TABULAR

We'll stop supporting the old syntax for Django's first release.

Upcoming changes

Model syntax

This is the big one. Model syntax will be changed dramatically before Django's first release. See #122 for full information and discussion.