WordPress 2.1 “Ella” Arrives
WordPress 2.1 “Ella” is finally here. It’s been over a year in the making, and I’m extremely relieved that she has finally shipped!
Retrospectively, 2.1 took far, far too long to ship. The development wasn’t appropriately front-loaded, so we were still jamming stuff into it in December. We had a lot of trouble putting a stake in the ground. That’s going to change for 2.2. WordPress 2.2 will arrive in 4 months. We’re listening to user suggestions in the Ideas forum, and we’re going to make some goals early on. We’ll brainstorm and code like crazy for 2 months. At that point, anything that isn’t in will be deferred. Next is one month of bug-fixing, tweaking, and optimization. Then we put out a release candidate and have one month of public testing. And then we ship and start doing it all over again.
At least, that’s the plan. 
Until then, go download Ella. We think you’ll like her. There are too many new features to list, so I won’t even try. If you’ve been using WordPress.com, you’ve had a sneak peek. If not, you’re in for a treat.
No thanks.
I’m not installing 2.1, either for myself or anyone who I work for, until it’s ready. Like around 2.1.5 or so.
2.0.x isn’t going away. There were plenty of people who waited until a few 2.0.x releases were out until they upgraded from 1.5.x, and I suspect there will be plenty who will wait it out a bit. The good news is that 2.0.x will continue to be maintained, unlike 1.5.x, may she rest in peace, so there’s no security-related reason to upgrade to 2.1
2.2 is scheduled for 4/23 - that’s in 3 months!
The wp-cache plugin doesn’t work in 2.1
Mark, you make WordPress great!
So where’s the diff?
I’m guessing there is too much changed to expect that. Oh, well, as easy as it has been to do these diff upgrades, mustn’t grumble about a major release like this taking a bit more effort.