1.2.1 -> 1.2.2 Diffs

This is a Big Deal. When the 1.2.1 security upgrade came out with similar instrux (roughly, “Upload the changed files. Don’t overwrite anything you need.”) I thought it was just because the devs were in a real hurry to get the fix out, and that the next upgrade would have proper instructions. I was too optimistic by half — this sort of upgrade instruction is unacceptable.
At a bare minimum, you need to include, IN THE INSTRUCTIONS, a changelog that indicates what files were changed. I can scan that list to see if it has files I’ve modified, and from there I can figure out for myself what I have to do to merge my changes back in. As it is, I need to check this version in to source control and have it diff the files for me in order for me to find the problems.
I’ll check it in anyway, cuz I have system and process for that. But most users don’t, and you’re doing them no favors by throwing out a new release and telling them simply to replace their existing app with it. That may be barely tolerable for a product in beta, when communicating with beta testers who are supposed to be working on the stock, uncustomized product. It is completely unacceptable for a minor upgrade of a general-release application, to users who have systems in production.
While I appreciate all the hard work that’s going in to the product, this is a major flaw in your development process. I’m starting to think twice about betting a bunch of sites on this app. The refactoring you’re doing may minimize the impact of this approach in the future, as most of my mods may be restricted to templates, but today it just blows.
</rant>

Diff your tree against 1.2.1. Apply that as a patch against 1.2.2. Resolve conflicts. Done.
If you need such a detailed changelog, you should be doing your own diffs.

Ryan, read it again. I DO my own diffs. Most people can’t or don’t . If you think that the only people who modify the WordPress presentation layer, which is full of code that you might change to fix bugs, are also people who use CVS or Subversion and know how to diff and merge, you’re sorely mistaken.
I don’t need “such a detailed changelog”; as you point out, I can and do generate one myself. I need a basic idea of what changed. If you fixed security bugs in a handful of functions, in a couple of files, and dind’t touch the presentation parts, I feel good about just updating those files, rather than blowing away my entire installation and painstakingly re-implementing all my customizations — which is what your installation instrux tell users to do.
Since I know what I’m doing, I can ignore your crappy instrux and do the right thing. I’m asking you to give useful instructions for people who DON’T already know how to do the right thing, but who have found that they can hack the PHP, just as they used to do with HTML, and make some cool changes. Telling them to just blow away their site and install the new code is just wrong.
Macman’s comment was actually helpful — thank you, I can see some changes made in the last few hours, and some made months ago, so that gives me a good starting place to browse. Consider putting those instrux in the upgrade instrux.

Glad to be helpful. 🙂 I still recommend that anyone making non-trivial changes to WP files learn how to use diff and patch (or their equivalents). Porting changes forward by hand is tedious and error prone, especially when you forget what you’ve changed.

Hey, guys, let’s get serious for a moment. For the average WP user this whole thread is almost impossible to understand; except there is something missing in the upgrade instructions. And if the number of WP users is getting close to 30,000 (it was around 25,000 about two months ago!) everybody should keep in mind that the silent majority is NOT the geek type. Don’t be misled by this very small but very loud group of users, who are very active on this forum – creating an impression that all the WP users are born coders, linux/unix users etc.
So, don’t bother to post all kind of fancy geek-terminology and stuff that is totally useless for the majority. On the other hand keep always in mind that the increasing popularity (read: numbers) is due to those people who are almost afraid to post here anything because of this attitude.
Let me describe the average user of any kind of blogging tool. S/he got a computer with the obligatory windoz, then got caught by the world wide blogging mania, so learned somehow to download, to use a FTP client (not always, LOL), and is struggling with the basic HTML tags, not to mention CSS. Actually they are a bunch of very grateful people for this software, just don’t alienate them saying they have to do all kind of wierd “diff” and “patch” things to be able to upgrade. And don’t tell me either ’tis a free stuff, write yourself the docs’… I use many free software that has instructions written in normal human language.
The other option is: put on the main page “ONLY FOR GEEKS – non-coders, non-hackers are not welcome”.

Indeed, this whole thread is predicated on someone hacking files. The upgrade instructions are not targeted at those who change core WP files. I again suggest that someone help develop a document targeted at those who do. That document could describe managing and porting changesets with the appropriate tools. Those who don’t change files can ignore that document as well as this entire thread.

rboren, if you can’t write a document explaining diffs and such to people like me who have made minor changes to php files, what makes you think anyone else will be capable of doing so? aren’t most of the docs writers non-coders? and macmanx’s suggestion is no good as i can’t remember precisely which files i’ve modified.
at the moment i have two choices:
1. upgrade to 1.2.2, possibly breaking trackbacks and defaulting all my posts back to draft mode, and definitely losing a couple of cosmetic changes i made to the post page.
2. stick with 1.2 (having already held off installing 1.2.1 for precisely this reason) and upgrade when 1.3, since i don’t mind the hassle of redoing stuff if there’s new features on offer.
2. is looking like the best option at the moment, but i appreciate everyone’s help on this.