You've got it exactly *backwards*.<div><br></div><div>We *don't* want Themes arbitrarily supporting backwards-compatibility.</div><div><br></div><div>That is, Widgets have been around for years. Themes don't need to add "function_exists()" conditionals around calls to functions such as "register_sidebar()" and "dynamic_sidebar()".</div>
<div><br></div><div>My personal stance is that arbitrary backwards-compatibility must be limited to one prior major version of WordPress.</div><div><br></div><div>(Anything beyond that, and the backwards-compatibility must be thorough and complete, rather than arbitrary. And even then, there is a question of whether such Themes should be maintained in the repository, or made available separately for whatever niche of users still need them.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Chip<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Doug Stewart <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:zamoose@gmail.com">zamoose@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Chip Bennett <<a href="mailto:chip@chipbennett.net">chip@chipbennett.net</a>> wrote:<br>
> This Theme also needs to address appropriate backwards compatibility (e.g.<br>
> function_exists() calls around dynamic_sidebar(), etc.).<br>
<br>
</div>This is something I've been pondering -- why are we still enforcing<br>
back-compat for these sorts of things?<br>
<br>
Given the stated release goals/philosophy for core WordPress, why<br>
should theme devs be forced to support anything other than a single<br>
previous major dot rev? And how long has dynamic_sidebar() been in<br>
place? (Codex says 2.2 -- i.e., almost 4 years ago)<br>
<br>
So my question remains: why should a theme fail for neglecting this<br>
check? Are folks still running WP 2.1 out there? Are they INSANE? And<br>
is it not equally insane/enabling to allow them to continue to do so?<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
-Doug<br>
@zamoose<br>
<a href="http://literalbarrage.org/blog/" target="_blank">http://literalbarrage.org/blog/</a><br>
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