Title: Dev Chat Summary: 29th April, 2020
Author: annezazu
Published: April 29, 2020
Last modified: August 25, 2020

---

 [  ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/) [annezazu](https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/)
11:35 pm _on_ April 29, 2020     
Tags: [5.4.1 ( 8 )](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/5-4-1/),
[5.5 ( 87 )](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/5-5/), [dev chat ( 933 )](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/dev-chat/),
[meeting notes ( 227 )](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/meeting-notes/)   

# Dev Chat Summary: 29th April, 2020

[@francina](https://profiles.wordpress.org/francina/) facilitated the latest weekly
Dev Chat on this [agenda](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/29/dev-chat-agenda-for-april-29-2020/);
here’s the [Slack transcript](https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RQBWTW/p1588190604308200).

### **Announcements**

[@whyisjake](https://profiles.wordpress.org/whyisjake/) announced [the official release of WordPress 5.4.1](https://wordpress.org/news/2020/04/wordpress-5-4-1/).

The group took a moment to cheer this second release accomplished during the pandemic.
To quote [@whyisjake](https://profiles.wordpress.org/whyisjake/): 

> “Thank you all for helping get out this release. It’s an amazing example of the
> collaboration, dedication, and spirit of open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes
> software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be
> redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing 
> model, see GPL.. Releases like this really make the web a better place.”
> @whyisjake

### **Upcoming Releases**

Work is underway for WordPress 5.5 – and has been, since the branchbranch A directory
in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for 
each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any
minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor
versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch". at
5.4 RC2. This is prime time for you to actively develop, test, give feedback and
more. [@davidbaumwald](https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbaumwald/) has scheduled
the first bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements,
code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze,
only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version)
being the highest priority. scrub for [Tuesday, May 5, 2020, at 18:00 UTC](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20200505T1800)
and has already published it on the [meetings page](https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/).

### **Highlighted/Blogblog (versus network, site) Posts**

These posts need your feedback, as soon as you can get your thoughts together:

[5.4 Retrospective – Call for feedback](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/03/5-4-retrospective-call-for-feedback/)–
Deadline April 30

**Please focus your feedback on processes only. **Next week [@francina](https://profiles.wordpress.org/francina/)
will collect it all and publish a recap much as she did for 5.3.

So far, chat participants noted there hasn’t been a whole lot of feedback from 5.4–
why not? Speculation included:

 * the release went particularly smoothly, 
 * privacy concerns,
 * the state of the world,
 * some combination of the above! 

[WordPress 5.5: Call for Tickets](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/08/wordpress-5-5-call-for-tickets/)–
Deadline April 30

Please add the tickets you most want to see land in 5.5 to the comments of this 
post.

Of course, please remember that there are no magic bullets – nobody can guarantee
your ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug
tracker.’s inclusion in the next release. With that said, the team (which does include
you!) can only fix what we know is wrong. So please bravely share!

[Proposal: Core Team Rep Elections](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/17/proposal-core-team-rep-elections/)

 [@francina](https://profiles.wordpress.org/francina/) and several others admitted
they were confused about whether this post is for adding nominations or getting 
feedback on the idea of a nomination process ahead of a second post to come, to 
add nominations. After some discussion,  the group decided to ask [@jeffpaul](https://profiles.wordpress.org/jeffpaul/)
for a separate nomination post. He agreed, [and it’s up](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/29/nominations-for-core-team-reps/)!

[WCEU Online 2020 Contributor Day](https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2020/04/24/wceu-online-2020-contributor-day-update-times-registration-platforms-and-team-video-introductions/)

Thanks to the confusion around Team Reps, since that’s who works with the Contributor
DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before 
or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people
get together to work on various areas of [https://make.wordpress.org/](https://make.wordpress.org/)
There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus.
[https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/](https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/)
squads of every WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences
covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress
community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the
year and share the joy. [Learn more](https://central.wordcamp.org/about/)., the 
group tabled the discussion of WordCamp Europe Contributor Day until next week.

[REST API: Decision on Introducing a dashboard namespace](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/23/rest-api-decision-on-introducing-a-dashboard-namespace/)

In the words of the post, _“the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for 
the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, 
PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone
app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file
system”) [https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/](https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/)
team has decided on giving major features their own namespace. For example, wp-site-
health and wp-customize.” _This should help all sorts of people find these features
and hook into them a lot more easily.

### **Components Check-in**

[@garrett-eclipse](https://profiles.wordpress.org/garrett-eclipse/) announced that
Privacy + Multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network
of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables,
and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts).
See also **network**, **blog**, **site** will share a focus in 5.5 to bring the 
relevant tools to multisite. Teamwork makes the dream work!💥

[@azaozz](https://profiles.wordpress.org/azaozz/) has been investigating the best
way to update jQuery: [https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37110#comment:105](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37110#comment:105).
The work will take three WordPress releases and can start in 5.5. Please review 
his plan! 

[@desrosj](https://profiles.wordpress.org/desrosj/) is planning to update the [SimplePie library](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/36669)
and, possibly, [PHPMailer](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41750) in 5.5.
He welcomes your reviews and thoughts on both.

[@audrasjb](https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/) updated the group on Plugins&
Themes Auto-updates. This week the merge proposal goes live on Make/CoreCore Core
is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds
WordPress. — and patches on the tickets, too.

### **Discussions**

#### How long do we let a merge proposal percolate?

[@whyisjake](https://profiles.wordpress.org/whyisjake/) asked: in light of the auto-
updates work, how much time do we normally let a merge proposal percolate before
moving forward? A lively discussion followed, with resident historians [@azaozz](https://profiles.wordpress.org/azaozz/)
and [@jorbin](https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin/) chiming in and concurring:
it obviously depends on the proposal, but generally speaking, 1-2 weeks and a blog
post is reasonable.

#### What are the plans for 5.4.2?

[@asif2bd](https://profiles.wordpress.org/asif2bd/) asked when 5.4.2 might be released.
The answer: only if necessary.

If nothing major comes up in the next couple of weeks post 5.4.1, we’ll move onto
5.5. Now, [@desrosj](https://profiles.wordpress.org/desrosj/) did create a [5.4.2 milestone](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/milestone/5.4.2)
when it became clear 5.4.1 wouldn’t include a bundled-theme update, in case we need
it for backporting later. For now, there are no compelling reasons to do another
minor — but stay tuned! Things can always change. 

### **Friendly Reminder**

Finally, [@francina](https://profiles.wordpress.org/francina/) reminded the group
that you don’t have to wait for devchat to raise issues for discussion. In fact,
you should really start the conversation ahead of time.

Here’s how: 

 * Post something on the blog – async conversations starts
 * Schedule an extra meeting here or in the relevant channel and advertise it far
   and wide so people can attend
 * Post a recap in the blog
 * Rinse and repeat as necessary.  

Take care!

[#5-4-1](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/5-4-1/), [#5-5](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/5-5/),
[#meeting-notes](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/meeting-notes/), #devchat

[#dev-chat](https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/dev-chat/)

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# Post navigation

[← Nominations for Core Team Reps](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/29/nominations-for-core-team-reps/)

[CSS Chat Agenda: 30th April 2020 →](https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/04/30/css-chat-agenda-30th-april-2020/)