Dev Chat summary – February 9, 2022

Start of the WordPress Developers Chat meeting on the Make WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel

Agenda. Summary from the previous week’s meeting

2. Announcements

3. Blogblog (versus network, site) posts of note

4. Releases update

Next minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. will be 5.9.1. Update from @audrasjb:

a) 5.9.1 TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. update
As per today and after 3 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. scrubs, we have 39 tickets in the milestone.

  • 17 are open and still in progress
  • 10 are closed as fixed (already committed and backported to 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". 5.9)
  • 12 are committed but reopened for backportbackport A port is when code from one branch (or trunk) is merged into another branch or trunk. Some changes in WordPress point releases are the result of backporting code from trunk to the release branch. to branch 5.9

22 tickets are already fixed, and 17 are still in the to do-list.

 b) 5.9.1 GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ update
Concerning Gutenberg, the 5.9.x project board

My understanding is that we currently have:

  • 14 items seem ready for core merge
  • 4 are waiting for review
  • 2 are in progress
  • 29 are still in the to do list. Given there is still some work on both side, a Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). (RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta).) this week seems a bit optimistic. Suggest an RC on next Tuesday (February 15, 2022), and final release one week after. Discussion followed.

c) Core-editor lead – this was discussed at the core editor meeting earlier today, no resolution as yet. Opportunity for volunteer.

No core editor lead for 5.9.1 as of yet:

  • WordPress 5.9.1 has a tentative release date on February 16th, 2022
  • We’re looking for release leads for Editor and Core

Volunteer needed:

  • at least someone to handle Gutenberg PRs merge
  • an experienced Gutenberg developer, someone with access to and experience of publishing Gutenberg packages
  • a specific volunteer from #core-editor at least for 5.9.1. The next point releases may be less focused on the editor 
  • could be someone who has the ability to publish package updates
  • need someone deeply involved in the editor side to help wrangle Gutenberg tickets for 5.9.1

Things are moving forward on Gutenberg side (report link above).

d) @sergeybiryukovt: a new PR is available for bringing back the temp backups feature for plugins and themes that was reverted from 5.9 due to some VirtualBox edge cases that should now be addressed. More eyes on the PR are welcome: https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/2225

e) Question relating to 5.9.1: is this going to be also a security and maintenance release or only maintenance?

@desrosj: Security fixes are never disclosed ahead of time, if there are any. When there are security fixes to include, the security team will work with other contributors on a need to know basis.

@audrasjb: this is not going to be added in the Make/Core RC announcmeent, but only on the final release announcement on .org/news. If we have any security fix in this release, the security bits will be added by security team members so that’s not something to care about for now.

Open Floor

  • @costdev: Ticket 55015 – Site Editor not working for TwentyTwentyTwo Child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/.. It raised an issue where the Site Editor fails to load for a TT2 child theme. The environment being used is Roots Bedrock, but the cause is that the bundled themes are stored in a separate directory to user-created/-installed themes. The issue: Core officially supports split directories, but this case has only been reported in one environment so far.The question: Opinions: Is this for Core to handle, or not?
    @sergeybiryukov: but core does indeed support multiple theme directories, so at a glance it seems like something for core to handle.

    In terms of how critical it is for 5.9.1, I’m not sure in terms of severityseverity The seriousness of the ticket in the eyes of the reporter. Generally, severity is a judgment of how bad a bug is, while priority is its relationship to other bugs., but if it’s for Core to resolve, then it’s a unintentional regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. in 5.9, so it should be considered for investigation and resolution in a minor. Otherwise, testing outside of the reported environment to verify that it’s in every case of split directories would be good, and possibly a retrospective update on one of the dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase.. If we’re going to fix it, then maybe include when we hope to have it resolved (i.e. minor6.0 or Future Release).

Next dev chat

The team publishes an agenda the day before the weekly dev chat, which will be open for additional items. If you would like to help write the dev chat summary for a future meeting, contact the Core Team Reps @marybaum and @audrasjb.

Props to: @marybaum and @webcommsat for leading dev chat, @webcommsat for writing the summary notes. Thanks to @marybaum, @audrasjb, and @costdev for reviewing the notes.

#5-9-1, #dev-chat, #meeting-notes, #summary