[development] Solving the dev->staging->live problem

[Adrian Rossouw]

On 09 Aug 2008, at 2:31 PM, Gina Beisel wrote:
> I am also plagued with the same issues. I think it would be  
> extremely beneficial to separate what makes a site go from content.  
> They data is so mashed up it is hard to know what ports and what  
> does not.
> gina

Actually, I think it would be beneficial for us to discuss this  
problem on the list, even if it doesn't make it into core per se.

We need to consider this kind of flexibility in our API's. so that we  
can make it simpler (or even possible) to do this without
having to patch Drupal, or manipulate data dumps with external tools  
(that don't have access to such things as the _schema
hook and any other semantics we might have, or can put in place to  
help solve this problem).

Perhaps we could then build a module or something for Drush which  
could handle the dumping and merging of these partial
data sets in a clean manner. It could use the schema information to  
'understand' what it's importing / exporting.

Anyone have any thoughts on the matter (as I know we have ALL been  
bitten by it before).