[wp-docs] Upgrade instructions too hard?

[David Eads]

> Both suggestions are made to work around external problems.  Files are 
> deleted because people have a high tendency to upload files incorrectly 
> and incompletely.  Plugins are deactivated because so many of them do 
> things that pretty much guarantee that they will break whenever WP 
> internals change.  Personally, I use rsync and a few carefully selected 
> plugins and can upgrade all of my sites with a single button press. 
> That's not typical, of course, but it illustrates how easy WP is to 
> upgrade when you have the proper upload tool and don't use crackheaded 
> plugins. :-)

While I haven't been active on this list in a while, I must say I've 
been pretty happy with the ugprade process.  I've had far less problems 
upgrading WP than say, Mediawiki, which I've managed to break for days 
during upgrades on occasion.

However, I also tested the upgrade for each site on a server that 
mirrors my production server and essentially started from scratch, no 
overwriting.

That said, what about a command line or web based upgrade/downgrade 
script that does a full backup of db and site, disables plugins, and 
handles all the overwrite/delete issues gently?  The idea would be that 
it basically spits out a default themed WP instance with plugins 
disabled, but with all the old data so you can go back and start turning 
things back on and seeing what breaks.

Of course, a user who would use this probably knows enough to handle the 
upgrade pretty well on their own.  It would still be useful.  I'm tied 
up until late Feb so I couldn't work on this, unfortunately.

Seems like WP is experiencing the same sorts of growing pains as PHP has 
experienced -- it is used widely in a variety of environments by a 
variety of users with different skill levels, oftentimes users a bit in 
over their heads.  From a strategic standpoint, seems to me like the 
best strategy here is simply to continue support for the 1.5.x branch 
and *not* rush users into upgrading.  A user who is annoyed they aren't 
in a position to upgrade is *not* a user who is furious because they 
just nuked their beloved blog.

David
www.viewfromtheground.com