Nightly or Stable?
-
I’m just wondering if, when I download 1.5 at this point, whether it’s better to get the official release or the latest nightly. I am assuming that there may be few tiny bugs in the official Strayhorn that are ironed out in the nightly versions of WordPress 1.5, or have the nightlies already taken off towards 2.0 (thus making them less stable)?
Thanks and, as always, keep up the fabulous work!
-
Get 1.5 and wait for the official 1.5.1 bugfix.
Please do NOT use nightlies unless you really are prepared to bug hunt, bug fix and help out in every way possible.
podz — i think many a developper would love to bug hunt, bug fix and help out in every way possible. but it turns out to way too complex with the new subversion system. are you guys even remotely interested in having bug hunters?
The point I was also trying to make there way that 1.5 is now official.
For months we have had people downloading and using nightlies to get all the shiny new stuff, yet posting here when they hit a bug. This was despite being told not to use nightlies on a production blog. Both Craig and myself got to the point where we were not answering any posts about nightlies as it was unfair to official release posters, and my position on this is even firmer now – if it is the official Strayhorn Release, i will help. If it is a nightly – forget it, no help, you are on your own.But yes, WP does need bug-hunters. But bug hunters who are prepared to do just that and not suddenly post in caps here that their blog broke with a nightly – it has happened before, more than once.
As for cvs v subversion, I’ll confess the subtleties pass me by. I will say though that I have seen many times in the hackers list for requests that WP did move to subversion and although there will be a short period of transition it will be a positive thing for WP to do. We trust Ryan, Matt and other to writ the code that powers our sites, so I certainly trust them to choose the correct system for actually getting the code working in the first place.
Have you considered an email to the hackers list setting out any issues ?
no, i haven’t even considered emailing the hacker’s list. it is not documented that there is a hacker’s list. let alone how to subscribe to it.
don’t take the frustrated tone personnally or too hard, but more generally, the wordpress web site could be reworked some bit because finding any kind of relevant information on it is close to impossible. i’ve no clue who is managing this site, but i trust you’ll send a notice to whoever should read this.
a few examples of how the website could be made better:
1. in the search results, which are not always relevant, allow to see more than the best matches.
2. make the nightlies readily downloadable to php programmers which, like myself, do not hesitate to dig through wordpress code to find, diagnose and submit bugs when they experience problems.
3. make a changelog digest readily available to these same programmers. diagnosing a bug that just appeared is much easier if you know where recent changes occured in the wordpress code.
4. upload a new version of the 1.5 strayhorn or announce a soon to come 1.5.1 version.
5. make a email lists page, which lists all existing wp email lists and a link to each of their archives
6. either make it clear — in bold — to that an upgrade from 1.5 beta to 1.5 also requires to run upgrade.php, or change the latest wp installable without renaming it.
7. “it’s all in the codex” is not an answer. like 99% of users, i don’t read the codex except when there’s a direct link to the right page on it (e.g. template tags).
more generally, i think leaving wp in its current state is just nuts! the upgrade procedure from 1.5 beta to 1.5 got my eyes wide open, category template functions do not work as documented, links template functions do not work as documented either, i’ve yet to fully try the page template functions because i find them useless in their current state so i’ve no clue if they work, and the core of the theme system does not work as documented. i think i’m experiencing more bugs with the current 1.5 than with the 1.5 betas… but then, since i did not manage to get the latest wp version to check if they are corrected before i submit them (mantis search sucks), i do not even bother to submit them anymore.
hence, i insist on the nightlies: put a clear, bold warning message on the download page if needs be, e.g. ‘WARNING to clueless users: nightlies can break your blog and are not supported in the forum; use at your own risk‘, but for heaven’s sake don’t make it so hard to get the nightlies that you strip yourselves of occasional bug hunters. fyi, i did go to the subversion website. it is so miserably organized that i did not manage to find where to download the windows binary for subversion… all i found was an executable that installed documentation. ridiculous.
one more note: i am uploading the latest nightly at this very moment after having — finally — successfully downloaded svn. there’s no way an decently rational individual will clean up the .svn trash it piles up in every directory. you really want a clean, zipped nightly.
Nightly builds will return. In the meantime, to avoid the .svn directories.
svn export http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunkTo see what has been fixed:
Myself I was using nightlies for about two weeks and never have any trouble with them. I did notice more trouble with the release than the nightlies itself. I was using to nightlies as a testing place so never did get too uptight about anything as I knew of the “use at your own risk”
Now I could be wrong on this but it seems to me as though this was written into the release strayhorn that files had to be deleted because all of a sudden that day that I switched from nightlies to Strayhorn I could not write over them on my server, I had done nothing to change permissions. Many threads have recommended the deletion of files so it is my belief that it has been written into Strayhorn. One thing I do not like myself that has been implemented is the application, opening of an external program for rss feeds but this is a personal note and easily overridden.
“… it seems to me as though this was written into the release strayhorn that files had to be deleted because all of a sudden that day that I switched from nightlies to Strayhorn I could not write over them on my server …”
That sounds more like a problem with your server than with WordPress, but it is a good thing, as overwriting files via FTP can lead to incomplete transfers.
7. “it’s all in the codex” is not an answer. like 99% of users, i don’t read the codex except when there’s a direct link to the right page on it (e.g. template tags).
Nobody ever said it was “all in the codex”. Many complain that there is not enough documentation, and now you say that 99% of users don’t bother reading it anyway. So, what’s the point of documentation then if only 1% of people bother reading it? I think that your assertion is a gross exaggeration.
7. “it’s all in the codex” is not an answer. like 99% of users, i don’t read the codex except when there’s a direct link to the right page on it (e.g. template tags).
You should try searching the Codex, or just try looking since “Template Tags” is right on the main page.
to macmanx: that’s precisely my point. you easily find the template tag help and related topics because:
http://wordpress.org/docs/template/
has direct and easily accessible links to them.
to moose in particular: don’t get me wrong, i’m just a little irritated by how complex and bug-prone the switch from 1.5 beta to 1.5 turned out to be.
i think the point is not so much to have lots of documentation. it is to make it task-oriented as opposed to feature-oriented, e.g. “How do I get the conversations related to this project?” as opposed to “What happens when I fill the search textbox and click the search button?”. and — more important still — it is to make it accessible via a dummy-proof contextual faq/howto that is available when you are looking for it, i.e. when you click on docs, on support, on download…
the codex makes this a lot better than the old wiki. but it is still missing a dummy-proof faq/howto that you can access from http://www.wordpress.org. and frankly, accessing the codex requires too many clicks.
As such, for instance, not:
* Stable Download
* Beta Releases
* Nightly Builds
* Subversion Access
* Download Counter »in downloads. But rather:
* Stable Download
– [XYZ] downloads so far…
* Nightly Builds
– Accessing subversions
– Report a Bug
* Installation support
– New installation
– 1.2.x to 1.5 upgrade
– 1.5 beta to 1.5 upgradeSimilarly not:
* Seach first _____ OK
in support. But rather:
* Search ________ OK
(X) Support Forum
( ) Documentation /* with link to codex */
/* and ideally, search in both without asking the user */
* Frequently asked questions
– Group 1 /* link to codex */
— Q1 /* link to codex */
— Q2 /* link to codex */
– Group 2 /* link to codex */
— Q3 /* link to codex */
…
* Known Bugs /* link to mantis */As for the ‘docs’, wouldn’t it not make more sense to let it point straight towards the codex?
—self moderated—
Stupidly, perhaps, I was under the impression that
run /wp-admin/upgrade.phpwas actually in thereadme.htmlfile included with WordPress…. lemme check… yup! There it is! It’s step number 3 under the “Upgrading” heading 🙂So, let me ask. How many people actually skim the
readme.htmlfile for instructions on installation and upgrading before coming to the support forum and complaining about how WP1.5 broke their damn blog? Are the 4 upgrade steps maybe 2 too many for some people?Why should 1 line of upgrade instructions be in bold? Obviously nobody reads the damn things – maybe ALL the lines should be in bold! I’ll bet that more than half the people who skipped reading (and performing) that 1 little line would not have come here for help if the forum address hadn’t been a link. It would have been too much effort to actually copy & paste or, heavens forbid, type, the address into their address bar.
Thanks for passing on your mood Bernardy 🙁
Ryan: yeah, i know that one. it is a fine bulk list of fixed bugs, but the following is a lot closer to what you would be looking for were you to pinpoint a bug that just appeared because of side-effects:
And I agree with the above – the Codex is the encyclopedia of WordPress knowledge. Ignoring it is just being willfully ignorant.
Thanks for the linkage. All I do is download the nightlies after their timestamp hits 23:30 and compare ’em to the previous one. Takes 3 minutes.
- The topic ‘Nightly or Stable?’ is closed to new replies.