#196862 by Damien Tournoud, et al: Replace COUNT(*) queries with SELECT 1 ... LIMIT 1 queries when all that's required is a check for whether rows exist.

- Patch #394594 by Berdir: additional conversion to the new database abstraction layer plus clean-up.

- Patch #147310 by c960657: added tests for private files, fixed a problem with private files and minor improvements.

- Patch #394594 by ksenzee: converted most of the user module code to the new database abstraction layer.

#369964 by yched and bjaspan: Refactor field validation and error reporting. Field API no longer coupled to Form API. Hooray.

- Patch #273137 by pwolanin, David_Rothstein, chx, et al: split navigation to user and administration menu. Will require follow-up patches.

#330983 by recidive and boombatower: Rename users/users_roles tables to user/user_role for consistency.

- Patch #361683by Barry, Yves, Karen, Moshe Weitzman, David Strauss, floriant, chx, David Rothstein: initial field API patch. More work to be done, but ... oh my!

- Patch #201122 by c960657, Moshe Weitzman: never write anonymous sessions, unless something has been written to . This is an important performance improvements -- as long as you use modules that use  carefully. It might be good to report some analytics about this in the performance settings page so administrators can see if there is a 'broken' module.