I started the development of the next incarnation of DataMapper ORM: version 2.

Most of it will be rewritten, while I try to keep the API unchanged as much as possible. But some things are going to change, will be removed, or will be introduced.

Some of the items already part of the design:
- full support for Core and Reactor 2.0+
- exceptions instead of show_errors()
- support for extending the DataMapper library
- support for model base classes ( a extends b extends c extends DataMapper )
- per model configuration caching and cache expiry
- entirely implemented as a third-party package
- different way of working with extensions
- non-core functionality is now an extension (p.e. validation, transactions)
- extensions are autoload on call
- new relationship type: belongs_to “I have the FK”, now has_one/has_many means “You have the FK”
- no more simple relationships, and restructured advanced relationships to make them easier to use
- support for multiple primary keys for a table
- no more fixed ‘id’ key column
- large reduction of the “Reserved Names” list
- all (public and protected) DataMapper methods and properties for internal use are now prefixed “dm_”

You, who uses DataMapper in you applications, can probably come up with a much longer list of issues, features or improvements.

If so, please let me know, here, or on DataMappers new place on the web: https://github.com/WanWizard/Datamapper2/issues

I love to hear from you.

Great news :]
I’ll dig through the source later on and give you my pointers (I’m sure I’ll find some).

Edit: Oh and a quick suggestion/topic before I head to bed: Soft deletion maybe?

Soft deletion is already on the todo list.

A few new orms have been released in the past few weeks (NitroOrm and GasOrm come to mind). It would be super cool if you guys could all collaborate on a single orm. I know that this is easier said than done, but from an end user point of view, having one single awesome orm, would be better than 3 being independently developed.

DataMapper2 is on github, DataMapper1 is on bitbucket.

I’ve put them there to enable collaboration when I took over the project. But I haven’t seen much of it. I guess it’s the same as with CI itself. Lots of people fork it, but hardy anyone contributes…

I would if I could WanWinzard, but relations do my head in :]

Well, at least I have one user.

Is no one else using it? Or is everyone happy with the current functionality?

The lack of response worries me a bit…

It could be any reason, such as this being announced in the forums or during the weekend or whatever.
Just get the announcement blogged around and maybe add a notification into the v1 documentation :]

I do think it’s because of the CI forums being partly inactive.

Wonderful news!
I’ll start testing it out at once and hopefully give you some useful feedback.

Thank you WanWizard for continuing the development!

Dennis Rasmussen - 06 November 2011 05:15 PM

Just get the announcement blogged around and maybe add a notification into the v1 documentation

Thanks for the tip, I’ve put a notice on the v1 docs site. Now find a suitable blogging platform.

I’ll ask some people to tweet it some time.

Anyway I’ll get back to you later this week, cause I’ve had a really bad couple of days (friend died), so can’t really get things done at the moment, but would love to dig into your source and give you a hard time ;]