Joomla 1.6 was released yesterday, somewhat earlier than expected, which is an odd thing to say since we waited so very long for it. Although the filename for the download is "Joomla_1.6.0-Stable-Full_Package.zip," it's not stable by a long shot.
I will be testing this first release over the coming days and weeks with a variety of v1.6-compatible third-party extensions to see how everything functions together. When, and only when, I'm comfortable with how everything works together, and I'm confident that there aren't any security issues, will I begin using v1.6 for client websites. It could easily be several more months, and several patches in, before I'm happy with everything.
And yet, despite those cautious sentiments, I am super excited about v1.6's completely revamped user permissions system, aka the "ACL", because as I have said in earlier blog postings, the ACL enchancements will provide many exciting new opportunities to not only improve and streamline our clients' internal operations, but also their interactions with their customers.