[wp-hackers] WP Developer Edition

[Brian Layman]

> Sort of like "physician, heal thyself".  But I think WP is taking on new 
> dynamics as a mainstream app.  The challenge is to accommodate
bleeding-edge 
> developers as well as pedestrian-level users.

Oh, agreed.  I just don't think maintaining two products instead of one
(doubling the testing requirements if nothing else) is the way to do it.

> One thing I've learned when adding non-request-specific features is to
always 
> include an "off" switch.  Perhaps some features could be toggled on
install. 

Definitely an idea worth investigating.  A more sophisticated first time
install that could activate and deactivate required features sounds quite
interesting.


> This would maintain version singularity while letting users opt out of
stuff 
> they don't want.
Good idea.

> So you're suggesting having the plug-in add/remove tables on 
> activation/deactivation?  I'm curious how other plug-ins do this.  Anyone
know 
> of any examples? 
Sure. As mentioned, some plugins do this already.  It's pretty much the same
thing as what many themes do with metadata.  And it's a heck of a lot better
than having people go in and tweak the DB themselves.  Imagine a plugin
that's linked with a GeoIP table.  A complete plugin isn't going to have the
user go out get all of the data and import it into the database.  It's going
handle it all and should have a way to remove that large amount of data too.
But you wouldn't want it to remove it when the plugin is simply disabled.
It should be a separate function.  With that in mind, maybe you now have a
foundation for your "Advanced WordPress Master Suite" of plugins.