Proudly Automatic Updates for WordPress

On 31/10/2013 By westiIn Development, Technology, WordPress

Sometimes I’m glad I don’t make rash bets, it saves me from losing them as much as I lose out from not winning them. The recent release of WordPress 3.7 with its built-in auto-update functionality is one of those things I nearly offered a bet on not happening many years ago :).

Back in the summer 2009 at the second UK WordCamp in Cardiff I remember chatting with Matt and one of the things we talked about the potential for auto-upgrades to happen one day. I was pretty sceptical, at the time we hadn’t even had the manual upgrade feature for a year yet, 2.7 was released in December 2008, and getting that working across all the different hosting platforms had been a fun experience.

I’m pretty sure I might have used the word “impossible” that day.

I’m immensely proud of the improvements we have made in manual update process over the past few years and very happy to have been proved wrong.

Major props go out to Dion, Nacin and everyone else who has contributed to this release.

The awesome Siobhan

If you read and reflect on one thing today let it be this one. I’m in awe of the amazing work the women in the WordPress community do and I’m saddened every time something like this happens. I’m glad that Siobhan felt able to write this piece and I hope that the community learns from it and we continue to build a better community.