[wp-hackers] Plugin Management and Autoupdate System

[Mark Jaquith]

On Jul 30, 2006, at 8:18 AM, Dave W wrote:
> I think the whole max version should be wiped out. A plugin usually  
> breaks
> when the user isn't using a recent version that doesn't have  
> feature that
> the plugin uses. Most times I see a plugin that only works for 2.0  
> and it
> doesn't work for 1.5. As long as the basic API for plugins doesn't  
> change
> much, it won't be necessary to have.

WP 2.1 is going to break plugins with some of its database changes.   
Incomplete API leads to deep-reaching plugins which will break when  
things change.  But this isn't something that a plugin author is  
likely to know ahead of time, so I agree that a max version header in  
a plugin is of little use.  I HATE how Firefox disables things, and  
wouldn't want that kind of behavior in WordPress.  However, such a  
check could be done on server side.  That is, when a new WP version  
comes out and an old plugin is found to be broken, it could be  
flagged appropriately on the update server, and the plugin could be  
disabled, or a notice put up (assuming that its brokenness doesn't  
kill the wp-admin, as is sometimes the case).

--
Mark Jaquith
http://txfx.net/