WordPress 2.5 Delayed. So What’s the Problem?
Posted by Kirk M on 12 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Wordpress
As many of you may already know, as of yesterday, the WordPress 2.5 release date has been pushed back by a week due to one of their developers being down with health issues and also that the developers can have enough time to finish off the release properly. That’s fine and dandy as far as I’m concerned since I never expected them to make the March 10th release date in the first place and although I’m not one of the developers per say, I have more than enough experience in the world of software testing to know that one of the things a company should not due is announce a specific release date for any given software– they’ll always miss it.
Unfortunately, that’s not fine for the average user since they can take these things to heart, even if the release date is stated as "tentatively". So here’s my take on it.
Time for WordPress.org to grow up (said with all due respect of course).
Don’t get me wrong here, I respect Automattic, all it’s endeavors and all the people involved, very highly indeed. What Matt and company have managed to pull off from a very shaky start is nothing short of remarkable and now, not unexpectedly, the company has come to a point where at least one of their software’s are becoming more mature than the company itself.
Points to ponder on WordPress:
First, the decision was made to delay then cancel version 2.4 outright so they would have more time to work on this particular major milestone (pick whatever reasons you like). This tells me that the developers simply bit off more than they could chew for the given amount of time between major milestones. Now they have to delay the release a week to finish it off. The mistake here in my opinion is not so much the delays so to speak but when it was first announced that they were going to pursue a regular timely release schedule which, in the world of software both paid for and open source, is something you definitely should not state. What you might call a good lesson in objectivity to be had here.
Secondly, An organized testing plan and testing script needs to be provided for those who are willing to run "the latest build/Trunk" through the wringer. Organized, scheduled and scripted test plans and regular "Bug Hunts" in order to find where the majority of the problems lie etc. I’ll use Mozilla as a comparison. For users signed up with their testing program, Mozilla provides all the above in order to make sure all the folks who are testing are on the same track. That does not mean that each tester has the same setup, not in the least, which is one of the many purposes of having testing scripts and "bug hunts" in the first place. If you ever wonder why Firefox works on so many different setups/platforms, this is the reason. They also provide Mozillazine Forums (wp-testers could loosely be compared) and Bugzilla (WordPress Trac fills this roll) for all "real time" problems and suggestions that crop up. As the WordPress software matures, WordPress.org needs to mature also rather than the organization ironically lagging behind their own software. WordPress could take a lesson from their open source cousin, Mozilla in this respect.
Thirdly, Automattic (Wordpress.org in this case) needs to take up some real control of their own "Media" as it relates to the users of their software. One of the biggest understandable mistakes users make of what they see in their Dashboard is that they may tend to believe that the news items that run along the bottom of the Dashboard actually have something to do directly with official announcements from the WordPress.org and/or the developers. The truth of the matter is, it doesn’t. Those news items come from WordPress Planet which basically amounts to a WordPress news aggregator and although some of those site authors listed in those news items may actually do some developing for WordPress in the likes of themes, plugins, advice and "how to’s" or may actually contribute to the WP code itself, they are not necessarily "the developers" and certainly not any sort of WordPress official announcements. The official WordPress developer’s announcements are listed within the area that currently states that the latest WordPress version has been released or the next beta is up for grabs. That’s it. Something that’s been sorely inadequate for too long now.
I can understand the confusion here since the article titles listed in WordPress Planet and hence within the Dashboard itself can be easily construed as official announcements and with version 2.5, the user will be able to easily choose another feed for that space or choose to have none at all. In light of that though, WordPress needs to be much more forthcoming in the official developer’s blog as how things are going with the next scheduled Milestone and security releases, incorporating organized test plans complete with scripted testing, bug hunt days etc plus a dedicated forum (not in the format of the current support forum but something more standard that people will recognize which is a whole other peeve altogether) for those who wish to keep their hands in the testing end of things during and between Milestone releases.
It may sound like I’m being overly critical here but this post, besides being an observance of a given situation–partially subjective I might add, is also based on my own professional experience. It’s time for WordPress as an organization to clean house and make the workings behind the software more properly organized and accessible especially on the site navigation and most certainly the testing end of things. And for those that don’t realize it, this is almost a classic example of the normal evolution of any young company as it moves up in it’s successes. The company behind the product almost always matures later than the product itself (and some never grow up at all. You can take that as you may). In my humble opinion, that is where WordPress.org happens to be right now. Great product with not so great organization behind the scenes.
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