#wptybee update!

Thursday

  • The core commit team (+me) talked with the people working on the WordPress mobile apps via audio skype chat after several attempts at video were an utter failure due to bandwidth issues. All agreed that we needed to build a stronger tie between the web app and the mobile apps. To that end, the mobile app devs will start attending our weekly dev chats to stay up to date with new developments (heh), and will occasionally post updates here on this blog to keep everyone aware of mobile app news. We’ll also get the UI group involved in mobile app UI/usability testing where appropriate. A link has been added to the Extend submenu on .org that goes to a page listing all the mobile apps and their sites, to raise visibility.
  • Huge Tracfest. Sifted through awaiting review and future release tickets, talked about ways that we could improve the triage/bug gardening process. Trac-ity Trac-ity Trac-ity.
  • BBQ dinner brought over by Gerald of Gerald’s Pig and Shrimp BBQ (though there was no shrimp). His business is closed for the season and he doesn’t usually cook for such small groups in the off-season, but he let himself be sweet-talked into it because he has a WordPress blog. Running Kubrick! He came over with a truck full of meat, black eyed peas, lima beans, rice, and fried okra. It fortified the guys for…
  • All-night continuation of Tracfest.

Friday

  • We started out the day by talking about ways to improve the plugin repo submission experience, possible ways to promote good/safe plugins and de-emphasize abandoned ones that no longer work with current version, and infrastructure that could help with these goals. We also had a knock-down, drag-out fight over the best way to deal with plugins whose authors have abandoned them if someone else wants to step up to take over. I say this not to imply there is dissension in the ranks of the core leadership, but to show that this is a group of passionate people with strong opinions about the best way to do things to further the WP project. If you’ve ever been bummed because half the core team didn’t agree with you and shot down your idea, at least take heart that we’re all in the same boat! :)
  • Licensing. We committed to reviewed every licensing ticket opened by hakre or anyone else on Trac. We got through all of them, and wound up with a list of what to do about them/assigning people to make whatever patches were deemed necessary. Also see Mark’s post from last night, related to one of them.
  • Improving updates. Talked about things like partial updates, language packs, compatibility checks, notifications, memory leaks, etc.
  • Unit tests. We need more stuff. Also, Peter is going to write up Mac and Windows instructions for getting the test suite running.
  • Tracfest.
  • Lost time to tangents not directly related to either 3.1 release or the topics on the agenda for 2011 vision due to vocal minority/people who are convinced that their needs are more important than anyone else’s. I’m supposed to be savvy enough not to come right out and say things like that, but it’s been a long week, and lets face it: if half the core team didn’t lose so much time to the handful of people who loudly demand attention on wp-hackers, twitter, etc, we probably could have had 3.1 launched by now.
  • Regained better humor (lowered due to said time suck of tangents) by invading ##wpchat and being silly. Sorry guys, for the interruption. At least our bandwidth was bad enough that we weren’t there for long! :)

Saturday

We have a long list of things to get through today. May try to enforce a period of social media silence and make everyone close twitter etc so we can’t be distracted as outlined above. If we don’t answer you about something today, please don’t be offended — we just really need to get a lot of work done, and we only have one day left to do it.

In the meantime, since the internet connection has made doing a live town hall impossible, we could at least try to record one and post it. Feel free to post questions you’d like us to answer on video in the comments. You can ask of the general team, or ask someone specifically (people here include Matt M, Ryan Boren, Mark Jaquith, Peter Westwood, Dion Hulse (dd32), Andrew Nacin, Daryl Koopersmith, Pete Mall, Austin Matzko (filosofo), Mike Adams (mdawaffe), John Ford (aldenta), John James Jacoby (jjj) and me).