WordPress 4.3 was the first time I led a WordPress release. I’ll go over the things that went well, the things that didn’t go well, and what I’d do differently next time around. From selecting features, to the controversy Menus in the Customizer caused, to working on the release video. Join me for a behind the scenes look into creating a WordPress release.

1. Lessons from WordPress 4.3
WordCamp Switzerland 2015

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WordPress 4.3

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Schedule
April 29 Initial 4.3 meeting.
June 3 Merge window opens for any Feature plugins blessed for 4.3.
June 17 Feature plugin merge window closes.
July 1 Beta 1.
July 8 Beta 2.
July 15 Beta 3.
July 22 Beta 4.
July 29 Release candidate and soft string freeze (More RCs as necessary).
August 18 Target date for release of WordPress 4.3.

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👎

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Bad: Involvement
• Betas and RCs need more testing.
• Figure out ways for specialized testing like term splitting.
• Increase participation for bug scrubs.
• Lack of movement towards the end of the cycle.

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Bad: Feature Plugins
• No Feature Plugins ready at beginning of 4.3.
• Site Icon should have been done as a Feature Plugin.
• Have a core mentor involved much earlier.

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Bad: Menu Customizer
• Feature Plugin wasn’t complete before merge window.
• Shouldn’t relax standards to make a deadline.
• Merge proposal could have been proof-read.
• Merge proposal could have been written differently.

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Menu Customizer
• Merge? Seems more like a coup d’UI.
• I believe the complete customizer should be flushed down the
drain as it is utterly slow and very unpleasant to work with.
• That’s kind of crazy pants.
• Worst idea yet.

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Menu Customizer
• I am embarrassed in behalf of these two developers.
• Its a (sic) absurd and idiot idea that should have never gotten into
the customizer.
• Another “wonderful” decision by the team. It’s nice to be dictated
to, by people who don’t care at all about the actual users.
• I’m starting to see how at least some core developers are
becoming so arrogant and refusing to really listen to users.

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Bad: Other
• Completely changed features after Beta 1.
• Freeze/RC 24h before release did not feel good.
• Get dev-notes written up earlier.

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👍

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Good: Features
• Better Passwords went really well.
• People’s reactions to keyboard shortcuts: ”DAMN, that's
amazing!”
• Really happy about list table changes!

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Good: Other
• Solid crop of guest committers.
• We had some epic traction on Formatting component. Those
tickets are usually very problematic.
• Touch and small screen usability improved significantly!
• Shared taxonomy terms are dead.

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Project Management Triangle
Quality
Scope
TimeBudget

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Stable.

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On Time.

21. Konstantin Obenland
@obenland
konstantin.obenland.it

22. Questions?
Automattic?
Themes?
WordPress.org?
WordPress.com?
Hooks?
Actions?
Filters?
Getting started?
PHP?CSS?
Germany?
Travel?
Contributing?
Documentation?
WordCamps?
Plugin Development?
Languages?
Translations?
SVN?
Core?
Cain & Obenland?
Default Themes?
Trac?
Template Tags?
_s?
Underscores?
Themes API?
Feature Plugins?
Code Formatting?