[wp-hackers] absolute URLs in plug-ins and custom types

[Shasta Willson]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
>
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-move/
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-migrate/
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/automatic-migration/
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ezmigrate/
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sitepush/
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/strategery-migrations/
> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpressdeploy/
>
>
> There's a couple dozen more. Do none of these existing tools work?

With all due respect, most of the above have less than a handful of
reviews.  (There was one which had 17.) If I'm going to let someone
else's code muck about in my database, I'd like to be using something
from a very reputable source -- ideally the folks who made the
software that database is designed to run. This is not a third party
puzzle like integrating with Google Maps.  This is core to WordPress'
utility as a CMS.

The argument that its fine seems to be "well, it is, and change is
dangerous, and it's not that hard to work around."  Those are valid
arguments in software development, and I concur that change is
dangerous, but I think some of the pros underestimate the issues it
creates for newer folks to WP, even if they are competent devs.  This
is a domain knowledge issue, not one of programming skill. For those
deeply steeped in WordPress the solutions may seem obvious, but after
three years of hanging around the forums and building sites, I've
learned new things in this thread.  This knowledge is NOT well
documented for the great unwashed masses of WordPress developers, and
after all, one of the selling points for WordPress is supposed to be
that it's easier to work with than building a site with Ruby (or even
Drupal.)

Finally, in addition to the use-cases already mentioned, there is one
that I don't think anyone mentioned.  Because of WordPress' success, I
am seeing more web site owners who want to migrate to a WordPress CMS
from an existing site.  In virtually all cases those users expect to
bring their existing content on line when the site goes live, which
means the content has to be pre-loaded on the development server and
tested along with the rest of the site.

- Shasta