[wp-hackers] New on the list, want to clean up code...

[Stephen Rider]

Welcome to the list!

On Dec 10, 2008, at 8:28 AM, Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson wrote:

> of course I won't submit anything unless
> some of the senior developers have given me a go on it (not to  
> mention that
> first I need write access to the Subversion repository).

What you would be doing for starters is submitting patches to trac.  http://trac.wordpress.org/

> A couple of questions:
>
> 1. Is someone actually *against* a major code cleanup?


Certainly nobody is against increasing the efficiency of the code.   
The thing to be careful of is changing the _output_ of a lot of  
functions that people are accessing via plugin.  Plugin developers get  
annoyed (at best) when arbitrary changes are made to the output and/or  
parameters of existing functions.  If your efficiencies end up  
eliminating functions you might even go so far as writing "shell"  
functions replacing the removed functions -- that is, they aren't used  
by the new code except to the extent that some plugin or other might  
use them.  (If you do that, of course, mark the functions as  
"deprecated" so developers are more likely to notice they're using old  
calls....)

There have also been cases when new code actually changed the  
parameters and such of existing functions -- which just causes  
problems.  If you're really changing they way a function works, make a  
new function with a new name, and somehow work in backwards  
compatibility for the old function.

You may know all this -- sorry if I'm making bad assumptions -- but  
these things have happened, and I'd rather cut them off _before_  
they're coded then chase after behind them.

Overall, it sounds like a worthwhile project. :)

Regards,
Stephen


-- 
Stephen Rider
<http://striderweb.com/>