[development] low hanging fruit for Drupal 6: variable defaults

[Gabor Hojtsy]

Earnie Boyd wrote:
>> Ernie, I am fine with this solution too for Drupal itself.
>>
>> BUT locale module will require a list of variables and their default 
>> values defined somewhere, so we will need to do that ourselfs in this 
>> case. It seemed to be odd to do this as part of the hook_locale() 
>> introduced today, but if hook_settings() seems to be overcomplication, 
>> then we need to go that way. I thought that if
>>
>>  - we can save extra typing and value passing on variable_get calls
>>  - we have a hook to reuse when we need a list of variables
>>    to present for localization
>>
>> adds pluses over just using constants.
>>
>> Sure, only using constants for default variable values could be make 
>> variable usage better, but I think a hook do more just by being a 
>> central place and not a set of unrelated constants.
> 
> What if you used get_defined_constants() to return an associative array 
> of constant names?  You now have a key to translate the default with.  
> We could go further and add some namespace rules to the naming of 
> constants like DRUPAL__ for Drupal core constants and MY_MODULE__ for 
> module specific namespace.  How does this sound?

Erm, how would we know that MY_MODULE__ constants are all variable 
defaults? There are numerous constants in Drupal already. Look into 
bootstrap.inc for example: we have CACHE_, WATCHDOG_, LANGUAGE_. Or 
common.inc has SAVED_, file.inc has FILE_. You get the idea. Unless you 
especially propose the double underscore to signify "constants defined 
to be variable defaults", we can confuse a lot of constants with being 
connected to cache.module, saved.module, file.module (if these exist in 
the system).

I don't think a naming standard helps here. As I have said, I am fine 
with constants, go use them! It still helps possibly multiple defaults, 
which is a possible place to go wrong in Drupal, and repeat unnecessary 
code.

Gabor