[wp-hackers] Category Trackback

[Matt Mullenweg]

Shelley Powers wrote:
> Hmmm. Did Luca get the idea from these conversations? Reason why I ask
> is that sometimes others might want to try some coding themselves, but
> chat about look and feel with other coders, first. That doesn't mean
> we don't want to do try the work ourselves, rather than have others do
> it.

I'm pretty sure the code was a result of the conversation between Tara and 
myself regarding the idea and my thoughts on the best way to implement it. 
The discussion on everything is still open, and if you think there is a 
better way to implement it please reply to my suggestions.

> And exactly what do you mean, 'solid WP fasions"?

Oftentimes patches come in which can't be integrated for any number of 
reasons, arranged roughly from most important and common to least:

* Bad HTML
* Specific to one person's installation (ie, relies on files or functions 
not included with the patch)
* Requires database changes but does not include updates for upgrade.php 
and install.php
* Breaks something else
* No user interface when one is needed
* Relies on register_globals
* Doesn't support localization
* Not a diff
* Addresses a problem in an old version that has already been fixed
* Requires higher version of PHP than we support or esoteric extension
* http://wordpress.org/docs/developer/coding-style/

The larger the patch, the higher the chance it violates more of these. 
This doesn't mean that the idea dies, it just means that to implement the 
functionality from the patch I have to go through the code and tidy it up 
myself, send it back to the patcher with a detailed critique, or just 
write it myself. All three of those take roughly the same amount of time.

Occassionally a patch comes in that could be applied directly to the 
source with no changes whatsoever. I love these! I still apply the patches 
manually so as not to miss any possible problems (particularly with 
regards to security) but it's a pleasure rather than a chore.

So that was a very long answer to a pretty simple question. Something 
implemented in a solid WP fashion is code that is like the good code in 
WordPress, poetic.

-- 
Matt Mullenweg
  http://photomatt.net | http://wordpress.org
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