Agenda for Apr 1st 2010 dev chat

• Status and schedule update – All
• Core plugin status update – Peter
• Update on WordCamp SF core contributor activities – Jane
• GSoC update.- Jane

Updated GSoC info just sent out to wp-hackers, copying here to make sure no one misses it.

We’ve gotten a handful of applications already for GSoC, but they are largely terrible in format, with students pasting the template in and just posting a link to wp-hackers archives or their own blogs. To prevent this from happening anymore (since it means the students just get an email from me telling them to fix their apps), I’ve updated the application template to be very clear on what to include and what not to include. Any student planning to apply to GSoC, please get the new template to submit your application:

http://codex.wordpress.org/GSoC_2010_Application_Template

Also, I’ve updated the Ideas list after a conversation with Matt (Mullenweg) about priorities, so it’s worth looking to see the couple of new things. Of note, I’ve removed the widgets repository idea, since it has clearly caused some kerfuffle, and that’s not something a student project should have to deal with. Likewise, Ryan removed the user roles project idea, which also has too many politics around it for it to be a good fit for a student. Newly added project ideas include things like progress bars for plugin installation, ajax paging in the admin, column sorting, mega Trac ticket attacking, etc. The updated list is at:

http://codex.wordpress.org/GSoC2010.

Note: a lot of students are asking about ideas from this list. That’s awesome. However, we expect more than a hundred applications, and probably only around 10 slots. Therefore, if you propose an idea from the list, and 20 other students propose the same idea from the list, your chances go down. If you love one of the list ideas, great: apply for it. You may also want to apply for an idea of your own creation, just to up your chances that it won’t be a duplicate idea. If you do this, make sure each project idea is submitted in a separate application; don’t put them both in one. Also, indicate in each application that you have submitted a second idea, and identify which one would be your first choice.

Don’t forget, we have scheduled IRC chats with potential mentors to let you bounce ideas around and get some live feedback that will help improve your applications. These chats will be held in #wordpress-gsoc on irc.freenode.net at the following dates/times, the first of which is a few hours from now:
Wednesday, March March 31 at 20:30 UTC (4:30pm eastern)
Saturday, April 3 at 21:30 UTC (5:30pm eastern)
Wednesday, April 7 at 20:30 UTC (4:30pm eastern)

Thanks, and good luck!

Post about to go up on the dev blog (we should really rethink calling it that, since this is where the actual dev blogging happens these days) about GSoC. Applications open today. We’ve created a new IRC room, which anyone is welcome to join: #wordpress-gsoc. Hopefully this will keep the dev chat clear so that it can stay focused on 3.0 progress. I’ve set up three scheduled chats in the #wordpress-gsoc channel for students to come in and ask questions of mentors, but they may pop in at any time, so feel free to lurk. The scheduled chats will be:

• Wednesday, March March 31 at 20:30 UTC (4:30pm eastern)
• Saturday, April 3 at 21:30 UTC (5:30pm eastern)
• Wednesday, April 7 at 20:30 UTC (4:30pm eastern)

An aside: A student wrote to me, bummed out because some had told him that his idea was not appropriate for WP/GSoC. Now, there will be students who suggest things that aren’t appropriate. However, this student wasn’t one of them. The problem was that the person who gave him feedback gave a personal opinion of the project, which the student took to be an official WP opinion. Remember, most of these students are new to the WordPress development community and don’t know who’s who. If you respond to student questions, please identify your role, so they can take it with the right amount of weight. If you’re telling them their idea is no good, especially, make sure to point out that you are a contributor, but that the ultimate decision on projects will be by the mentors listed here. There may be projects that don’t sound so awesome to everyone, but remember that it’s on the mentors and lead developers to make the final decisions on GSoC projects based on what they’re willing to oversee and what will be the most useful to the project at large.

I just moved WP.org plugins SVN and Trac to a new server. What does this mean for you?

1) If your DNS resolver doesn’t honor TTLs, you may see a “down” message for http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org and you may get an error message when committing to http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org

2) Core WP trac shouldn’t be so slow anymore. About 80% of the resources on the server were being used by plugins core + trac. I plan on moving core WP trac to a new server soon-ish, but in the mean time, it should be much snappier.

3) The SVN server version is now 1.5 instead of 1.4 (yes, I know – still behind. May upgrade later)

4) I may have completely broken something I don’t think I have, but if you find plugins SVN or trac completely broken, please let me know here!

Have you guys seen what Andy Peatling has done for BuddyPress plugins using groups? I’m in love with it.

Full size: http://twitpic.com/1b0joi/full

I’ve been clearing out the dark corners of Trac over the last few days. I went through about 150 tickets, maybe 200, mostly in the Unassigned milestone, and closed about a third and triaged most others.

Current counts: Unassigned – 65. Next release: 462 (3.0 plus 2.9.x). The 3.1 milestone has 80. Future release has 737. Total open tickets are 1349, about 40 tickets less than we had at the start of the week. I think a nice goal would be to reduce ticket counts week after week.

Don’t be afraid to jump in and triage. As I’ve mentioned before, I think it would make sense for 3.1 be kept relatively clear for now, and try to clear out and triage as much of the unassigned and future tickets as possible. A better sense of order would be good to have.

The work on the ideas forum has been very helpful. I think it can embolden us to push ideas without much traction there, just as we push support questions to the forums. That can keep many enhancements and feature requests from rotting in a future release as many do now.

Suggest Agenda Items for April 1st 2010 dev chat

Meeting notes for 3/25/2010, added live:
* Feature status and schedule update – all. rboren: Menus have firmed up, no more changes to how things are stored, just UI changes. Still need accessible version. Need to get lighter header done johnonolan working on patch this weekend. Multiple post thumbnails not done, markjaquith has been slammed with work, will try to finish over weekend, if not, punt. Schedule: have missed the beta period beginning, need to get menus done first.

* Inline documentation of the twentyten theme – demetris. Referenced post at http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/agenda-for-mar-25th-2010-dev-chat/ and second argument on function, which had no documentation. We need to document functions.php. http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12695  phpdoc in functions.php, and conversational elsewhere, maybe. jorbin will take a first pass tomorrow.

* Front end AJAX endpoint – best solution discussion (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12400) – dd32. “wp-ajax.php will be removed for various reasons (#12400). The consensus was stronger for better education, not a new file.”  code from rboren: admin_url(‘admin-ajax.php’, ‘http’) forces http.

* Menus – Ryan http://wpdevel.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/new-menus-wireframe.pdf Will be following the new wireframe. Need to finish before beta. Jane will do revised more detailed wireframe on Friday, pthdnbr will take lead on code.
*Code sprint at WCSF – Jane Monday and Tuesday after WCSF at Pier 38. Hacker Days/Code Sprint. Details to come.

* Information provided for update checks from multisite installs (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12672) – denis de bernardy
* Making the agregate stats data public – denis de bernardy Privacy vs. utility.

Ideas Forum Update

I went on a tear and obsessively went though every single thread in the ideas forum. It went from having about 2900 threads when I started a couple of months ago, to having about 1700 when I got sucked into it this week, to about 120 now. It’s very close to being useful again, and I just need some help on the last round of threads that are a bit over my head technically to know the right way to resolve them.  Using the more tag here so that this won’t take over wpdevel, but if you want to help, click through, please!

Agenda for Mar 25th 2010 dev chat

• Feature status and schedule update – all
• Inline documentation of the twentyten theme – demetris
• Front end AJAX endpoint – best solution discussion (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12400) – dd32
• Menus – Ryan
• Information provided for update checks from multisite installs (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12672) – denis de bernardy
• Making the agregate stats data public – denis de bernardy