This is often the case with software. Each major release cycle sees lots of new features being added, with minor released dedicated to security issues and major bugs (often causes by the previous major release). Rarely do we stop and spend a big chunk of time dealing with the minor things – the poor wording or the minor bugs.

On the WordPress Trac there are 947 tickets reporting a bug and that have no current patch. 36 have been triaged and are due to be in the next release – the remainder are, as yet, untrained. There are 1945 tickets with a patch, 145 of which are due in the next release. What this tells us is that there’s plenty to do – plenty of backlog. And none (or very little) of this is to do with the “next big thing” that most of the time will be spent on.

Although my previous job wasn’t related to WordPress, but with a retailers Point of Sale system, things were no different there. A lot of minor bugs had built over time. The consequence, was that nobody felt good about the software – it felt flaky and inconsistent. So, I put together a software release just for fixing these things. All the effort of a major release but in fixing all of the most minor issues (and consequently, a lot of work done). I called it Project Roundhammer, referencing the fact that it was used to “soften the edges” (and as a nod to the same named Operation is Space, Above and Beyond).

We could do with a Roundhammer for WordPress. Months of time and hundreds of people dedicated to improving the stability and reliability of the software. That can’t be such a bad idea, can it?