Blogged

Re: MT 3.16 (A request guised as a mild complaint)

As it says at the bottom of this and just about every other page of this blog, Waveflux is powered by Movable Type. I came to MT as a desperate refugee from the hand of hand coding, and I’m still learning just what it is that I want from a blogging platform. That said, MT has done pretty much everything I’ve asked of it thus far, and I’m quite happy with it. I like it so much so that I paid for a license, granting me (one) access to technical service and (two) the right to feel fairly smug. And - though this has little to do with the operation of the platform - I like the fact that Mena Trott is really cute.

There is this one bothersome aspect to the MT experience, though, and I was reminded of it today as I upgraded to MT 3.16. There’s been a steady progression of upgrades coming out of Six Apart Central lately, and that’s all to the good. I try to upgrade as soon as possible, because it’s the prudent thing to do and it also makes my kick-ass hosting provider very happy. But the upgrade procedure itself is a stone drag. Replacing the same damned and cryptically-named files time and again is awfully tedious. And then you have the permissions, of course, which must be correctly set. You can feel the life draining out of you as the procedure drags on. And when you’re done, any pleasure over completion of the upgrade is muted by the certainty that contemptible spammers are devising new ways to bombard your comments and trackbacks…which by itself means still more upgrades.

It’s better to have upgrades than not, of course. And you have to applaud a announced recommitment, such as Mena made this week, to the basic principle that quality ought to be a feature of any product:

In retrospect, in our desire to get 3.0 and 3.1 out to market, we lost track of our commitment to quality. We learned through this process that shiny features aren’t worth a damn unless they work well. With Movable Type 3.16, we believe that we’re getting back to the quality of code that our users had grown to expect. Even though it’s just a point release, I believe it’s a turning point for Movable Type as a professional product.

Integrity and cuteness. You have to like that…but we’re getting away from the request I wanted to make.

Is there any way to automate the upgrade process and so make it less onerous? Some program that would compare files and determine which were actually needed and upload them? Surely this is within the capabilities of the wizards at 6A and their freelance peers in the MT community-at-large. It would prove a boon to users everywhere, and one that would be well worth paying for.

How much, exactly? Well, I’d cheerfully pay ten or fifteen bucks for such a upgrade manager. (I’d less cheerfully pay twenty.) And I cannot be the only user willing to pay for not having to manually change plugs and points.

The bottom line is that Six Apart wants MT to be considered a professional program instead of an enthusiast’s toy. That alone mandates an automated upload procedure.

So, uh, Mena: if you were at all flattered by my earlier compliment, could you look into this upload thing? I’d appreciate it.

Oh - about version 3.16 itself? Uploaded. Working fine. Thanks for asking.

P.S. - Mena posts a history of 6A.

© 2005 Philip Barron.  Log in  Monitored by SiteUptime