[wp-hackers] Grab a seat. On Delaying 2.2, separating tables

[Jamie Talbot]

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Robert Deaton wrote:
> I believe that we should take the time now, before a release of
> WordPress is made with these database schema changes, to fix the
> issue. I think that the categories table needs to be resplit into a
> link categories table, a post categories table, and a tag table, each
> set up to handle their own specific job instead of throwing them
> together with legacy fields.

I'm strongly in favour of your idea Robert and am on the record as being strong against the current
implementation.  I believe the schema we have now will damage WordPress' credibility among
developers.  In my eyes it's a very poor design choice.  It doesn't matter that the end user doesn't
know the difference - those who come into contact with the codebase will.

The issues with the structure now in use were debated strongly on trac[1], but unfortunately Matt
went and committed the changes anyway, without ever really addressing them.  Comments from ryan[2]
and rob1n[3] seem to suggest they also have their doubts.  In fact, I haven't seen one comment from
anyone who is in favour of this monolithic design.  It seems like a unilateral decision, the main
argument for which was "We already have API that we can reuse" - never mind the huge amount of
changes that have since had to be made anyway.  With the addition of the bitfield, we now have
another horrendous hack to go along with 'link_count > 0'.

Unfortunately, I suspect that all of this will be dismissed with "It's there and it works, so why
bother changing it" and "We have a public deadline, we should stick to it".  Neither of these
arguments hold water.

Jamie.

[1] http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3723 (my comments as 'majelbstoat')
[2] http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3723#comment:42
[3] http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4148#comment:2 (at the bottom)

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