[wp-hackers] Plugin Management issue...

[Jason goldsmith]

Unfortunately the argument that the plugin load order is random is
totally false.

The plugins currently have a very specific load order, they are loaded
in the order they are activated, at least that's what David said.

Whether that was intentional or a happy accident isn't relevant
anymore. There are developers who use the current order, so changing
that behavior for 1 or 2 developers may hurt the 1 or 2 other guys who
use it.

I totally agree that changing the plugin API willy nilly is not
conducive to encouraging development. I think the better solution is
to develop some way for plugins to specify that their loading should
be delayed until some other plugin loads. It allows plugin authors who
NEED this functionality to have it without the rest of the plugin
developers having to rewrite their plugins.

As Kitty also pointed out, filename load order is going to lead to
silly file names. WORSE it is going to lead to users saying, "I can
never remember what 000000111111.php does, so I renamed it to
SuperGroovy.php and now it broke."