Quoting Khalid Baheyeldin <kb@2bits.com>:
On 6/5/07, Mark Fredrickson <mark.m.fredrickson@gmail.com> wrote:
Flame war aside, I think there are some good points in this thread. Perhaps someone can clarify two points:
1. Is it kosher to add columns to other modules' tables? E.g. Is it ok for comment to add it's statistics to the node table. Similarly, I could imagine the stats module would want to add summary information, and perhaps other modules as well.
If one module is core and one is contrib, then it is not kosher (IMO). Actually it is not the sanctioned way of doing things, but no one stops a module author from doing this or a site from having their own "schema fork". There are consequences when upgrading, and they should be prepared to live with their decisions.
But it may be a reason to begin to collaborate with each other and agree to combine module functionality if both modules are contrib modules.
If both modules are from core, then why not? We avoid the performance issues caused by having two tables, and are actually more normalized that way.
I agree. Earnie