[development] Hook ordering

[Scott McLewin]

Karoly Negyesi wrote:
> In Drupal 6 I would like to see a hook registry -- mostly 
> autodiscovered, but if you want ordering, then you can say "my 
> implementation of hook_nodeapi is to be run before module 
> this,that,foor,bar". Available in my sandbox,
I don't know which sandbox is yours and didn't see 'knegyesi', 'negyesi' 
or 'karoly' under 
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/.  So, 
without looking at the code...

I've found more of a need to say 'this hook must run after module 
this,that,foo,bar'.  I figure you were not actually implying that the 
two ordering options were going to be limited to 'before' and 'first', 
but I didn't want to leave the open assumption.  Overall the registry 
would be helpful.  I've encountered a number of cases where I needed to 
make sure one of my hooks ran after the hooks for other modules, and 
hacking the system weight is only something I'll do as a last resort and 
for a module that won't leave a deployment that I manage.

>
> All nice and dandy. But, the next step would be to request for "I want 
> to be the first for hook_foo". What am I to do if two module asks for 
> this? Die a horrible death? Disable the offending modules? This code, 
> quite obviously will run on the modules page.
I agree that is a challenge, since the person who picked the 'first' 
ordering may not run with the particular module combination that an 
arbitrary site builder/admin will install.  I like the current pattern 
of hook_load() and friends as being 'first' for a module that defines 
its own type.  How about leaving that in place and only allowing 
'before' and 'after' designations in the proposed registry?

Scott