[wp-hackers] Any way to bypass $wp->query_posts()?

[Otto]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Nathan Rice <ncrice at gmail.com> wrote:
> With that said, in this case, and in many others, he does routinely cross
> over from "strong but polite disagreement" to "insulting ridicule".

Text is not a particularly expressive medium. Let's keep that in mind.

> Personally, if I asked HOW to do something, I wouldn't typically expect to
> be told how stupid I was for wanting to do that particular something. If you
> know how to do it, just tell me how, and move on. This thread is 30+ emails
> long, and he still doesn't have an answer. You've spent more time arguing
> about the "why" than it would have taken to just tell him the "how".

If somebody asks me how to do X, then I think it is a reasonable
question to ask them why they want to do X.

You often have to look past the question and see the real goal in
order to help out. One of the most commonplace questions I see on the
support forums is "how do I get posts to display on a page?" It's very
simple to tell them to write a Page Template, but it's also not
particularly helpful to them to do so, since most of the time they
just want to make a list of posts from a particular category show up
on a page, and showing them how category archives are built-in already
is a much more helpful answer. See, if you only answer the person's
question, then you may actually not be helping them.

However, a certain percentage of the time, asking somebody "why do you
want to do that?" is seen as an insult in some way, like I'm
questioning their intelligence or calling them "stupid" or something.
I'm really not. I'm just seeking deeper information.

This is one of those sorts of questions, as I see it. Somebody is
saying they don't want the posts query. But in the context of
WordPress, I can think of no legitimate reason to do that. Every
reason I can think of has better solutions. So I'm trying to grasp the
deeper reasons behind the question itself, and offer alternative
solutions. In this case, the solutions were rejected, so I did the
only thing I could: Attempt to probe for more information in an effort
to better understand the problem. This is not an insult or ridicule,
or at least it's not intended as such. It's just an attempt to better
understand the issue.

-Otto
Sent from Memphis, Tennessee, United States