Change Queries or Add New Ones, Which is Better?

[amykhar]

The one thing I'm finding is that so many of my hacks modify existing queries in order to save additional queries, that I'm stuck modifying source files.

Do you think it would be better to do additional queries rather than modifying existing ones?

For example, lets say I add a field to the thread table. Would it be philosophically a better idea for me to leave the existing insert query alone and then do an update query in my plugin to update the field?

This means I can make the mod with no source code mods, but it does add a query.

Or, am I going to be stuck releasing two versions? One as a plugin with updates and the other as a resource-conserving code mod?

Amy