Today I will share some dialogues on WordPress 3.0. But first, let me share some reflections I had this weekend.
I have a friend I’ll call Mr. A. His brother worked several years for a bank. In fact, he rose to a very high position (i.e. vice president). Yet when I asked how his brother was, I learned a starling discovery.
Guess what?
He spend 6 months in a federal prison, for stealing bank money. Yet he had several financial investments and is living on easy street, once he got out.
At the same bank, there was a university professor who taught business courses. This professional got his doctorate in business, at a state school. But he wished to make a career change.
Off he went and worked at the same bank. He rose through the ranks and became the bank president. Yet he never stole any money. From what I know, he’s probably in the same lucrative financial position, as Mr. A’s brother.
What causes one person to be greedy and another to obtain success, through their own efforts?
There’s a lesson here somewhere.
WordPress 3.0
Here’s some dialogue I have had with colleagues regarding WordPress 3.0
Mr. J:
“We need to wait a couple of weeks, to maybe even a couple of months, till the plug-ins catch up to the newer updated version. WordPress 3.0 allows for multi-user blogging giving us an opportunity to expand the education site, to become a community blogging site for the field of education. This could take advantage of the interactivity of users and allow them to create their own blog. Driving a lot more traffic and create an environment, where we can niche the site to those in your target market. Just a thought.”
Randy:
“It was released yesterday, and they had 3 release candidates tested, before the final version. I did release it yesterday on XXX (after doing a backup), and didn’t notice any plug-ins broken. I then updated the learning website, and didn’t notice any plug-ins broken. If any plug-ins are broken and I didn’t catch it – blame me. I have noticed a great speed improvement, with the new release.”
Mr. R:
“So far I have resisted pushing the upgrade button. I’ll give it another week then I’ll take the plunge”
Randy:
There’s two items to consider. You need to first do a backup. In case of any failure, you restore two items:
- The high level directory
- The MySQL database.
Now let’s look at release specifics:
They have gone through 3 release candidates before doing a final release. Release candidate is defined by Wiki at en.wikipedia.or…. It says it’s a “(RC) refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. In this stage of product stabilization, all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more beta cycles with no known showstopper-class bug.”
The RC versions have bee spread across a period of a few months (I.e. 3 – 4 months).
There are over 1200 bugs fixed in version 3.0
We have about 30 + plug-ins in the golf site. Nothing appears to be broken, after I did a backup and install.
About 40 – 50% of plug-ins in the educational site are also present in the golf site.
It’s a balance act and I have been a software engineer. At Motorola, I’ve been responsible for releases of software build with Java, SQL Server, Oracle, and .NET.
After a while, you develop a sense when a version is a solid “final” candidate and when you should wait “until the cows come home.” Usually, it’s somewhere between the two extremes.
