[wp-hackers] Re: 2.0.10 and 2.1.3 Release Candidates

[Scot Hacker]

From: "Robin Adrianse" <robin.adr at gmail.com>

> Personally, I don't know how upgrading could be easier... you just  
> upload
> the new files over the old files, and run wp-admin/upgrade.php.

> You can avoid this altogether by using SVN, and switch'ing to the  
> new branch
> when a major release comes out.

Easy in principle. In reality, few users have svn access. And believe  
it or not, most people (yes, most) are intimidated / confused by  
FTP.  And if you take a look at the public upgrade instructions:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress

your average user is understandably intimidated. Especially when you  
factor in the instructions that people should deactivate all plugins  
and then re-activate them one by one. And that they back up their  
database before proceeding. I've never followed these steps, and have  
never had things break, but people do take the instructions at face  
value, which means the process is a *lot* more involved for them than  
it probably needs to be.

People are afraid they're going to break something, or don't have the  
time or skills to go through all the steps. I actually had what I  
thought was a very internet-savvy user confess that he had not  
upgraded from 1.2.x or something because the instructions made it  
seem like if he didn't do everything exactly right he'd break his blog.

... Or we could have a one-click option in Dashboard that would  
require no skills or time to operate. A lot of people out there are  
spending 30 fearful minutes upgrading WP, when it could be 30 seconds.

The downside is that inevitably, an automatic upgrader is going to  
break a few blogs with unexpected configurations, and there's going  
to be heat from that. Still, I think it would be better than the  
current situation, which is that people aren't even trying to upgrade  
because it seems too complicated.

./s