[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #10142: Add metadata support for taxonomy terms

[WordPress Trac]

#10142: Add metadata support for taxonomy terms
-----------------------------+-----------------------------
 Reporter:  sirzooro         |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |      Status:  reopened
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:  Future Release
Component:  Taxonomy         |     Version:
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  needs-patch      |     Focuses:
-----------------------------+-----------------------------
Changes (by boonebgorges):

 * keywords:  needs-patch 2nd-opinion => needs-patch


Comment:

 All things being equal, it's incorrect to say that unifying terms and
 posts will improve performance and usability. Regarding performance (to
 echo johnjamesjacoby), it'd mean converting lots of the taxonomy component
 from what are currently straightforward relational MySQL queries to
 terrible meta queries. The caching bit is a red herring: the taxonomy
 component already has good caching built in (arguably more powerful than
 what's in posts); all that would be accomplished by combining the two is
 that we'd be able to reduce the amount of code required to implement
 caching. However, performance *without* caching would probably greatly
 decrease, given the huge amount of data that would be moved to a single
 set of database tables. Regarding dev usability: for the foreseeable
 future, the developer-facing APIs for terms vs posts will remain so
 distinct that it all but eliminates all potential API simplification that
 might come from merging the database schemas.

 In any case, all of this is beside the point of the current ticket. Adding
 metadata to taxonomy terms is something that we can and probably should do
 today, without worrying about long-term plans for term storage. If we
 decided to merge terms and posts at some point down the road, we'd have to
 write a migration routine anyway. If anyone is interested in pursuing a
 data-type-merging project - be it terms, or comments, or users, or
 whatever - I urge you to create a proof-of-concept, and then to run some
 thorough benchmarks and post them somewhere (like a blog post) for
 discussion.

--
Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/10142#comment:139>
WordPress Trac <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/>
WordPress publishing platform