[wp-hackers] 1.5.2 or on to 1.6?

[Dave Mussulman]

Matthew Mullenweg wrote:

> I wanted some community feedback on where we should go next with 
> development. There are basically two directions we could go right now, 
> one is to a 1.5.2 release which focuses on incremental changes and 
> improvements to the very-solid 1.5 base, or we could start working on 
> adding some major functionality changes for a 1.6 release. (I realize 
> this could happen at the same time, I don't think we should branch 
> development.)

Apologies if this message comes off as harsh.  I'm satisfied with 
WordPress and I understand how difficult managing a large OSS project 
can be, especially with a large surge of users/interest/development.  
That being said....

I started on WP with 1.2.1 when the 1.3 betas were out, and didn't 
upgrade/try them because I was still getting my feet wet.  Then, 1.5 
released and I figured I would lurk the hackers list and found out how 
the new release was.  I read about a few minor to major bugs and knew 
there would be a 1.5.1 release and decided to wait until that.  Then, 
after 1.5.1 there were quite a few bug reports noted immediately after 
the release, and I read a 1.5.2 release would quickly follow to address 
some of these.  I'm still waiting for that release (although checking 
the download site now I see a 1.5.1.1 release that I didn't see 
announced here -- come to think of it, I'm not sure I saw the 1.5.1 
release announced here either.)

I'm still at 1.2.2 waiting for a "very-solid 1.5 base."  New development 
and major functionality growth are important, but IIRC a few of the 
1.5.1 bugs were not 1.5 bug fixes but new features that were not tested 
well enough before a release (and are still awaiting a public release to 
fix them.)  So my two cents goes for splitting the trunk -- getting the 
claimed "very solid 1.5 base" (via 1.5.2 or 1.5.3 or...) and leave the 
new development for 1.6+ versions.  I'm not recommending dual 
development, but we should be quick on the 1.5 point releases to fix 
bugs, especially while 1.6 is in the roadmap stage.

I think you should solidify/freeze the 1.5 feature set, and aggressively 
resolve all of the bugs in that feature set, with multiple point 
releases if necessary.  Once that's done, 1.5 should be "very-solid" and 
you're free to put the new features in 1.6.  But don't hold back the 
existing fixes in a 1.5.2 release because you want to redo/refactor 
something else. 

I don't lurk the testers list (because I'm not testing the nightly 
builds,) so some of this might already be happening -- but I think the 
best development improvement in WP would be improving the WP release and 
testing practices.  This is especially true when looking at majorly 
restructuring how things work in 1.6.  Would a better 
pre-release/release-candidate for 1.5.1 have fixed some of the first-day 
bugs?

Dave