For a long while DotNetNuke has been having public betas, allowing you, myself, and everyone else to give the new versions a test run before it becomes an official release. Unfortunately, few people ever do download the betas, much less test it, but I am hoping that I can change your mind about this, this time around…
It is well-known that DNN serves as both a website framework, and a programming API. However, there are many modules that have been incorrectly using the database itself as an API, which was never intended. This basically means that if you make changes or reference the DNN database directly, your extension can possibly break on every single DNN release. The best practices in terms of an API perspective is to use the controller classes to access DNN data – not the database itself.
That’s not to say that you should never reference the database directly, it’s just not a best practice. There are numerous reasons that you might want to reference the database directly. However, the safest way to do so is to point to the views, and not the tables.
I said all of that to say this… The next version of DNN contains some database changes that will likely break some modules and other extensions out there. (Mostly related to the new localization features.)
If you run a DNN website and/or develop custom or commercial modules against DNN, this version should be tested against your extension NOW, before the release is made.
I would suggest doing it ASAP, as the release cycles are quite quick these days.
DotNetNuke Version 05.05.00 (beta)
Remember, there isn’t a company or developer around that can always accurately forecast and determine breaking changes for a product and ecosystem as large and diverse as DNN. (Though, it looks like you won’t see many, if any, in the core code moving forward. There will be more on that from someone else who is much more qualified to speak about it.) So, please don’t slouch on this. These are important changes, and an important release.