[wp-hackers] Custom Post Types and pending incompatibilities

[Mike Schinkel]

On Jul 13, 2010, at 3:51 AM, Rich Pedley wrote:
>> To take this a step further the fixing process could actually just
>> help the user tell your plugin which of the existing meta items
>> contain the info it needs.
> 
> Search on stored data and trying to match to your setup - not easy to accomplish. But I suppose it is no different to an import routine. Which i admit I hadn't thought about, so yeah it is making sense now.
> 
>> I would much rather the user experience revolves around a little
>> work to solve the differences between meta storage than just
>> "losing" all there content.
> 
> Thanks for clearing it up for me - sometimes things just don't seem right until things are pointed out (and sometimes even obvious things pass me by).

But even though it's like an import, it doesn't address the much more useful scenario of interoperability between the two. 

Let's say there were three Event plugins:  One focusing on interfacing with Facebook, LinkedIn, Meeting.  A second focused on helping me manage RSVPs and members.  A third enable payment process via all major payment processors.  The damn shame would be if they each decided, for no reason other than happenstance, to name their most basic data elements differently thus making them effectively incompatible. 

Interoperability is one of the key things to address IMO, and one of the main reasons I started the thread. Comparatively speaking, the value of export/import is trivial.

-Mike