In reply to mark k..

@mark k

In properly managed sites no one just upgrades a plugin directly on production and first they test the upgrade on staging.

Here's the problem with your logic. You're thinking like a dev.

The other 99.9% of the world (myself included) simply do a backup and roll the dice.

I work for a medium+ sized company that spends thousands every month on the web (excluding my salary). I run 7 web properties for them (including a compete gut and redesign on one of them currently), a CRM (hosted by the vendor), social media, email marketing, PPC, etc, etc, etc. If anyone honesty believes I have the time for staging for a plugin upgrade - they're nuts.

Unfortunately, there are almost no real end users (I mean end users whose real business has nothing to do with WP - devs and those that make their living from WP don't count) participating in these kind of discussions. I just choose work over sleep most times and I've been using WP since the very beginning (in fact I used PHP Nuke before it).

And in properly maintained site the push from wordpress.org just do not work as no one will let a web server to write into its plugins directory.

Again, I choose to roll the dice. I figure if it's important enough that WP/Automatic/whoever wants to push it ASAP I need to trust them to make it happen and keep our sites secure.

and as such the admin has to be able to “own” the code.

I can assure you, I "own" the code. I'm the only employee that has a clue about any of this. My career hinges on there not being any catastrophic issues. I'm fine with that - I like living on the edge. :)

Devs don't really understand their clients' businesses (and most don't seem to care as long as the whiz-bang part of things work) and business owners understand the tech side even less. That needs to change.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining here. I now officially have my 100% DREAM JOB and have no intention of changing. It would just be refreshing if devs really tried to see how the other 99.9% of the WP ecosystem works. It might not be pretty but it works(ish).