Incessant Mailpoet updates will drive you crazy

  • fuzing

    (@fuzing)


    1 year ago

    We’re 19 days into April and Mailpoet has publicly updated this plugin 4 times this month already (i.e. twice per week). Plugin developers who believe high update frequencies in lieu of adequate testing is acceptable are in for some shocking news. This is not about CI/CD (ie. new features with the occasional bug) – check out the change logs. As the maintainer of around 1,000 WP sites I resent having to perform updates ad-nauseam because companies like you, frankly, clearly have no idea how to develop robust software. Disgraceful!!

    Update 2……. it’s 4 days after update 1, and there’s yet another Mailpoet update (changelog reads “minor fixes and updates”). 8 updates in 30 days, and 6th for the month (this update written 04/25/2023). I love being a guinea pig!

    Update 1…….. it’s 1 day later and there’s another Mailpoet update, purportedly fixing another bug (likely creating another one) ……… I can’t wait to back up the sites that I manage, and re-apply another kludged version, for the 7th time in 30 days (5th time this month).

    For those who say “just set this plugin to auto-update”…….. I’d remind you of the fact that some of the largest names in the WP plugin eco-system have cause legions of websites to crash or “brick” when their updates fail.

    Mailpoet’s QA and final review process is also clearly lacking/absent. A drill-down to show “who” is actually releasing to production shows dozens of different names (i.e. no final arbiter, and no accountability)…….. this is a well-known anti-pattern in the world of software dev, and shows there is simply no process for formal approval of releases for this plugin. These guys/gals seem to be taking the adage “move fast and break stuff” to a new level…… except they’re doing this at everyone else’s expense.

    • This topic was modified 12 months ago by fuzing. Reason: Updated due to incessant plugin bug fixes
    • This topic was modified 12 months ago by fuzing.
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author MailPoet

    (@mailpoet)

    11 months, 3 weeks ago

    Hi @fuzing,

    Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback from a unique position of a large scale site maintainer. We understand that your users’ sustained operations are your top priority and that, as part of keeping your users safe, you may manually review new updates. 

    I want to clarify that we are committed to providing quality software, and aim for rapid response  through continuous delivery to provide our users with the most up-to-date and reliable software possible and minimize any disruptions. When necessary, frequent updates enable us to quickly address issues and provide bug fixes, improving the overall stability of the site. I acknowledge that the week of April 17 was extraordinarily busy with three releases, and we apologize for any disruptions this may have caused. Most existing users would not have been impacted, but we chose to err on the side of caution. Nevertheless, unplanned releases are rare, and as you can see, we are otherwise pretty good at sticking to weekly releases.

    We take quality very seriously. Every change and release is manually reviewed by a peer developer and a  dedicated QA specialist. Additionally, we make heavy use of code checkers and extensive unit, integration, acceptance automated test suites to ensure high software quality. Our engineers also rotate in doing releases performing the gatekeeper duty, which ensures that everyone on the team is familiar with the process.

    We understand that some users may prefer a less frequent update schedule. We appreciate your feedback and will continue to work towards improving our processes to provide the best possible experience for our customers.

    Thank you for your understanding and support.

    Thread Starter fuzing

    (@fuzing)

    11 months, 3 weeks ago

    Thank you for responding, but I take issue with your assertions. In fact, you state as much in your own documentation, claiming “We stick to this weekly release schedule regardless of what needs to be released”…….. this is the same flawed logic as saying “we do 3 day sprints”…… WHY? (perhaps you’ve watched too many episodes of Silicon Valley, which is not how quality software is developed). Many of the other assertions are simply dated and/or false. Most reputable companies are backing away from CI/CD (except into testing/staging), because they understand the issues it creates for their customers. Many of your assertions relating to high-frequency releases for products like Chrome (nightly/weekly) relate to canary/dev builds that are targeted at developers, not the general public. Your assertions regarding Firefox, Facebook, Yoast, Elementor, Jetpack are simply false – you might want to check your facts. Firefox is monthly, while the others release in an ad-hoc manner (Elementor, frequent – Jetpack, reasonable).

    I’d recommend that you read this: https://hbr.org/2019/01/the-era-of-move-fast-and-break-things-is-over

    And this: https://tonyvzampella.medium.com/move-fast-and-break-things-had-enough-yet-d80335149132

    In it, there’s a great quote…… “The Break Things ideology finds us scaling incompetence and only becoming competent when necessary, on the customer’s dime”

    Luminaries from the software world have also referred to the process of strict software release scheduling as “asinine”, “robotic”, and “counterproductive”. See comments from Donald Knuth and Linus Torvalds.

    Continue to outsource your testing to your customers (which is what you are doing)…… at your own peril!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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