Official definitions of "hack" categories.

[Christine]

Originally Posted by KirbyDE

@Christine
What should be the difference in adding a field to an existing table and adding a new table?
If Jelsoft ever decides to use the same field- or tablename you will run into problems ...

Personally I think DB modifications don't qualify as a reason for classifying a Hack as "Code Mod".

Don't most table-addition hacks use prepended or specific naming conventions (Like vbouncer)?

I haven't added many releases to know how common that is, but in the additions I have made, I always prepend the tables. Example was my persistent mark read system -- I prepended the table with rr as rrmarkread.

I agree that dB mods should be categorized as plugins, but am suggesting that the definition should be driven by vB policy on what they consider invalidating their support, not by the difficulty of making the change.

That way, folks looking to enhance their system (but not wanting to invalidate their support) will know to stay away from the category "code changes" (or whatever) as anything in there will be classified as requiring changes that vB considers 'hacks' to the core system.

That was where I was going with the 'adding a table' vs 'adding to a table' comment.

Does that make sense?