[wp-testers] Permalinks, Plugins, and Mod Rewrite

[Dan Milward]

I have a question about how to best utilize permalinks and plugins 
together. I was reading through Matt's blog about optimization and and I 
know that nobody wants a plugin or a widget that might slow down a site 
too much. Thus...

# 1)  If I make a plugin that will ultimately generate thousands of 
unique items is it acceptable to create re-write rules in the plugin 
database for each item - or would this slow the given site down too much.

This would mean that our plugin creates a permalink structure like:
http://site.com/podcast/pod-cast-name

as opposed to  http://site.com/podcast/?podcast_id=8

# 2)  One option would be to create a slighter more convoluted permalink 
structure for instance:
http://site.com/podcast-page/pod/pod-cast-name

/pod/ would be there so that we can avoid having to create re-write 
rules for each item and to avoid conflicts with subpages of the podcast 
page.

BUT I personally prefer the shorter permalink structures like in #1 - it 
seems more search engine & more human friendly.

But then on the other hand I'm being told that #1 would potentially slow 
down any site with too many pod casts and cause conflicts with subpages 
of the podcast page, possibly making them impossible to access. I'm 
using pod casts as an example - I have no intention of making a pod cast 
plugin :-P

Is there a good way to achieve #1. Is it true that things would slow 
down too much or is that just paranoia.

It is one thing for WordPress to use friendly URLs but what about 
plugins. This should be easy but its not. Whatever I work out I will add 
to the docs so that nobody need ever think about these types of serious  
hard to answer questions ever again

Ciao,

Dan