Today’s topic is WordPress 3.7, auto updates and quick iterations.
3.7 released in October and 3.8 will be released in December. Is that a good/reasonable release schedule?
It’s possible that this kind of release schedule will create more diligence as far as custom theme developers in keeping the standards and prevent “hacked” versions of themes.
A rapid release cycle is a discussion about how they’re going about building WP so instead of everyone contributing to 1 branch of the code that will hopefully get rolled in and become the new version, they’ve decided to approach it via plugins.
They rapid release approach is an approach that changes the model for how they construct software and how they collaborate to build software.
Auto updates: it’s less about HOW things get built, it’s much more about how things stay updated for customers. Right now the auto updates are really related to security updates, small patches.
The “dot” releases ( ex .1 and .2 versions) are security releases and not functionality changes. Moving from 3.6 to 3.7 is a functionality difference. People will have to move from 3.7.1 or 3.7.2 to 3.8
34,000 people had been on the previous release and they did the auto upgrade to the release candidate 1, and no one had to roll back. The code was looking to see if anything broke, and nothing did. They aren’t looking at small things such as plugins and widgets, but making sure everything is functioning properly. The code appears to be stable long with the update process.
If you use standard plugins that are well maintained, there typically won’t be many problems. Problems arise when people are using themes and plugins that are several years old.
Whatever technology you’re using, just pay attention to ratings and # of downloads and how often they update the technology of the theme or plugins you’re using.
Keep in mind you have the ability to turn off auto updates. If you choose to allow auto updates, it’s imperative you have good, current backups of your files and database and NOT stored on the same server as your production server. Of course you should be doing regular backups anyway, but especially if you’re allowing auto updates. We talked about his on EP47 – Backing up WordPress regularly and before an upgrade – WPwatercooler – August 12 2013
VaultPress is an excellent option for storing your backups. There are 3 pricing tiers you can chose from.
A few more WordPress 3.7 features:
- Stronger passwords built into core.
- Improved search results
- More global support (Language packs)
- Read more here
Other Mentions:
[LISTATTENDEES event_identifier=”ep58-wordpress-3-7-auto-updates-and-quick-iterations-oct-22-2013-5-5264da51″ show_gravatar=”true”]
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