[wp-hackers] Simplicity in 2.next

[Sam Angove]

On 2/8/06, Ryan Boren <ryan at boren.nu> wrote:
>
> Yes, changes that we know will affect plugins should be announced.  Of
> course, most of the incompatibilities we don't know about until a plugin
> breaks.
>
> After announcing, attentive plugin authors will have the opportunity to
> add compatibility to their plugins.  Plugins that are not fixed by the
> author after a certain time will be fixed by a gardener prior to release
> so that the user isn't left with broken bits.

I'd prefer not "announced" so much as "sent directly as an email alert
at the RC stage", and with information phrased not as "the user system
has been overhauled" but as "if your plugin uses the $user_level
global, it is now broken." Maybe personalized with specific details of
things found by the magic deprecated-function scanner script.

A web-accessible version of said script would also be nice. Like the
W3C validators.

Letting plugin authors use a file upload system a la
addons.mozilla.org -- rather than jumping through hoops emailing Matt,
*learning how to use Subversion* etc. -- would greatly spur adoption.

Anyway, not much point talking about it. Build it and they will come... ;)


[Sorry if this sends twice. Gmail is misbehaving.]