It has been three years since Nette 2.0.0 was released. It was a groundbreaking version that concluded several years of development and introduced features that are indispensable in Nette development today.
- Dependency Injection
- NEON format
- Debug Bar extendable with custom panels
- Unobtrusive JavaScript validation in forms
- New API for extending Latte
- New structure of namespaces and classes
- Introduced the database layer Nette Database and NDBT
- And a completely rewritten documentation
Coincidentally, at that time, major version twos of significant frameworks such as Zend and Symfony were also released. It's worth mentioning that unlike these frameworks, Nette did not abandon users of its previous versions. It did not draw a thick line between versions but instead tried to preserve compatibility as much as possible. For example, users received a tool that replaced old class names with new ones in their source codes, etc.
PHP 5.2
The 2.0 series still supported PHP 5.2, including PHP 5.2.0, which was indeed painful. This version of PHP was one of the less successful, yet Debian had it pre-installed, and conservative administrators refused to upgrade it.
Interestingly, since 2010, Nette was written purely in PHP 5.3 with all its
features like namespaces and anonymous functions. The (two) versions for PHP
5.2 were created using a machine converter. This converter not only replaced
class names with non-namespaced variants but also managed to rewrite anonymous
functions and handle various other differences, such as the inability to use
func_get_args() as a function parameter, etc.
Example of code in PHP 5.3:
/**
* Caches results of function/method calls.
* @param mixed
* @param array dependencies
* @return Closure
*/
public function wrap($function, array $dependencies = null)
{
$cache = $this;
return function() use ($cache, $function, $dependencies) {
$key = array($function, func_get_args());
$data = $cache->load($key);
if ($data === null) {
$data = $cache->save($key, Nette\Callback::create($function)->invokeArgs($key[1]), $dependencies);
}
return $data;
};
}And the converted code for PHP 5.2:
/**
* Caches results of function/method calls.
* @param mixed
* @param array dependencies
* @return NClosure
*/
public function wrap($function, array $dependencies = null)
{
$cache = $this;
return create_function('',
'extract($GLOBALS[0]['.array_push($GLOBALS[0], array('cache'=>$cache,'function'=> $function,'dependencies'=> $dependencies)).'-1], EXTR_REFS);
$_args=func_get_args(); $key = array($function, $_args);
$data = $cache->load($key);
if ($data === null) {
$data = $cache->save($key, NCallback::create($function)->invokeArgs($key[1]), $dependencies);
}
return $data;
');
}Dependency Injection
Looking back, the most significant contribution of Nette 2.0 was Dependency Injection. But as the old saying goes:
Dependency Injection is no simple matter. It really isn't. It's a concept not everyone is well-versed in.
DI replaced the previously used object Service Locator and its static version, the Environment class, completely overturning the way applications were designed. It brought a qualitative leap to a new level. Therefore, rewriting an application that used Environment to Dependency Injection is extremely challenging, as it essentially means redesigning it better and from scratch.
End of Life
The first day of the year 2014 saw the release of Nette 2.0.14. Yes, it was a neat coincidence 🙂 This marked the end of the 2.0 series, and the series entered a one-year phase of critical issues only, where only severe bugs were fixed. Today, this phase is ending. A few days ago, Nette 2.0.18, the definitively last version of this series and also the last version for PHP 5.2, was released.
So farewell and goodbye!
(The 2.1 series now enters the *critical issues only phase
. During 2015, only severe bugs will be fixed.)*