[wp-hackers] Facebook API and WordPress Plugin Development - Insight / Best Practice

[Mike Schinkel]

On Nov 15, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 7:19 PM, Mike Schinkel <mike at newclarity.net> wrote:
>> If there is a conflict don't load the library and display an error message inside the admin for the administrator to see and take appropriate action about while plugins are in conflict.
> 
> That isn't a solution to the problem, because it doesn't solve
> anything, it just throws the problem back on the user.

Having WordPress enable loading of the latest version of a library would be a big win compared to what we have now.

It only throws back on the user in the edge case, not the general case.  The general case is  developers building libraries for use in WordPress would follow proposed best practices and make sure that all changes in new versions are backward compatible with plugins that use older versions. 

Users would ONLY get an error when the developer of the plugin didn't trust that the library developer would support backward compatibility and ONLY when there was a conflicting plugin that required a later version.

> The problem already is on the user, now, all you're doing is
> adding a bunch of extra code which will let you put a prettier face
> on failure.

It's not a "bunch" of extra code, it's a trivial amount of code.  

In the current case when there is an error the users just get a crashed site with no advice on how to fix it. With the proposed approach the user would get an error message that indicates the problem and what steps they could take to correct it.  

And you are saying telling users what went wrong and how to fix it has no value? 

> A true solution would let both plugins not conflict with each other in
> the first place.

Perfect is the enemy of good.  


On Nov 15, 2012, at 9:17 AM, Ryan McCue <lists at rotorised.com> wrote:
> That's why the latest version would be loaded, so only backwards
> compatibility would matter.
> ...
> If it can't load 1.1 and use it the same as 1.0, that's a backwards
> compatibility breakage.
> ...
> What specific implementation is that? When I say "no good way to handle
> it", I mean multiple versions of the same plugin.
> ...
> As in, you can require a minimum version, but you can't require a single
> version or a maximum version. That way, we can solve dependency versions
> quite easily.

So I'm confused why you made the points because what I proposed addressed the ability to load the latest version.

> In any case, this is all fairly off-topic of the original thread.

Yes, except Otto's suggestions to use Mark's plugin exposed this issue.  

But noted. I will follow up with a trac ticket instead of continuing the thread unless there are further replies.

-Mike