Beta 3 is almost ready to be released, with two new important features: a regression testing engine that Jerome is developing which will allow us to thouroughly test new releases, and a new built-in caching system.
We already had a few caching objects lying around, but were missing an appropriate hook where to plug the cache. We now have the hook, and a sketch of the supporting WP plugin to configure the cache engine. The results are not so bad, as the speed with caching enabled is 8x the speed without caching, which should make us faster than wp-cache (did you have any doubt?).
What spurred us into action is an interesting thread on the wp-hackers mailing list (take the time to read Jason Hoffman's messages as they are worth it), and particularly a phrase by Matt which we hope won't hold true for long. :)
Take it easy with those announcements! I just finished the regression testing framework last night but there is still a lot of work to do setting up test cases. It certainly won't be ready for beta3.
I know it won't finished for beta3, but it was worth publishing. As you have noticed in CVS, the cache engine needs work too. :)
What's the target date for beta3 release? Can the cache system be wrapped and ready to go by Monday? I think we have addressed all outstanding bugs so far.