By Jeffro on June 17, 2009
So the WordPress development chat in the dev channel on IRC just took place and here is a brief rundown of the information presented within.
- WordPress 2.8.1 Beta aimed to be release by the end of this week
- WordPress 2.9 Target date is October 31st
- Some fixes to high impact bugs are in.
- Investigate lengthening RC periods depending on RC download numbers
- Promote upgrading to RCs more
- Note that we need help testing with the bazillion plugins in existence
The one thing I took out of the chat is the underlying problem that there are simply too few testers. There needs to be more testing on a scale that matches the kind of environments people use WordPress in when a stable version is released. The same core group of people testing each version are beginning to miss things that other people may have found otherwise. Also, more RC testing on established sites that have plugins would be great as it would provide early detection of plugins which might break due to the new version.
I believe the chat for next week will be focused on WordPress 2.9.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged beta, release, testing, wordpress |
By Jeffro on February 3, 2009
On January 31st, 2009 WordPres 2.7.1 beta was released on the WP-Testers mailing list. For those interested, you can download it here or if you would like to automatically upgrade from 2.7 to 2.7.1-beta1, change the version in wp-includes/version.php from 2.7 to 2.7.1-foo and then visit Tools->Upgrade as per Ryan Boren.
2.7.1 contains at least 65 completed trouble tickets with another 50 set for the 2.7.1 milestone. However, looks like most of those will be moved to the next milestone which is 2.7.2 or 2.8. If you are interested in fixing any one of the available tickets for this milestone, please visit the 2.7.1 status page and make your presence known.
No need to ask when 2.7.1 will be released to the public as it will be when it’s done. However, lets turn this into a bar game. Guess the DAY in which you believe 2.7.1 will be released to the public. My guess is February 9th. You win bragging rights if you either get the answer right on or are the one closest to the day without going ahead.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged 2.7.1, beta, wordpress |
By Jeffro on January 29, 2009
Hot on the heels of the recently released WordPress MU 2.7, BuddyPress 1.0 Beta 2 has been released to the public. Andy states that the release fixes hundreds of bugs since Beta 1 with most of those being fixed by the community.
We’re not quite done yet, so please test this beta as much as possible. Bugs should be reported on the BuddyPress Trac server, but you can also discuss potential issues with other users on the BuddyPress forums.
We’re three days later than expected with this beta. WordPress MU 2.7 was released yesterday, it made much more sense to sync up the release schedules to ensure there were no compatibility problems. The 1.0 release will now be February 12th, exactly two weeks from today.
I’m glad to see that BuddyPress and WordPress MU appear to be synchronizing their releases with the WordPress.org project. Keeping everything on the same page and release schedule I think will make things easier for end users of the software.
Posted in BuddyPress | Tagged beta, BuddyPress, release |
By Jeffro on January 28, 2009
The following guest post was written by Brad Williams of WebDevStudios.com
I’ve been developing with WordPress for a few years now and the projects I’ve been working on have started to expand into bleeding edge software. Bleeding edge software is defined as “technology that is so new (and thus, presumably, not perfected) that the user is required to risk reductions in stability and productivity in order to use it” ref. WordPress MU, BuddyPress, and bbPress are my three current tasks intertwined to work flawlessly together. Of course that doesn’t happen now does it? Is this the price we pay for pushing the bounds of WordPress development?
The Bitter: I’m creating a new BuddyPress focused website which requires an alpha install of bbPress on top of WordPress MU 2.7 beta. Installing beta software and alpha software on top of beta software makes my head spin just thinking about it. As you can imagine there are many bugs that still exist in all three packages, so why use them? The draw of utilizing bleeding edge functionality is too great to bypass for me.
The Sweet: Being at the “bleeding edge” of WordPress functionality is actually an interesting place to be. Many bugs I stumble across are active tickets in development Trac, which allows me to fix the issue for myself and also for the community. Helping out in the development of BuddyPress (or any open source project) is really thrilling, especially when you see the buzz surrounding it and how your code changes are helping.
Bleeding edge software development isn’t for everybody, but if you want to help these amazing open source projects grow it’s great to help out in anyway you can. If nobody used the software packages these projects would die, and thus the need for bleeding edge software developers exists and I’m happy to fill that role. Code on!
Posted in WordPress | Tagged alpha, beta, bleedingedge, software |