[development] Getting rid of core hacks for drupal upgrade tohappen. Need tips on the process.

[FGM]

Dipen,

I'm working on very much the same predicament these days, except it's a 
slightly more recent version than 5.2 but with much the same problem 
(upgrade to 5.22 then 6). Maybe we could both save some time by working 
together on our respective problems with similar scripts/methods, and 
possibly come back to the community once we're done on how we did it. ? Feel 
free to contact me directly if this is of interest to you.

I'm answering on the dev. list because others might indeed be currently in 
the same predicament and we could probably all benefit from pooling our 
ideas on such problems, which are likely to become more frequent overall, 
since D5 was the first version which saw significant for-hire developments, 
most of them likely to have much the same kind of issues. And going out of 
support when D7 is released, real soon now :-)

Frederic G. MARAND
OSInet

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "nan wich" <nan_wich at bellsouth.net>
To: <development at drupal.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [development] Getting rid of core hacks for drupal upgrade 
tohappen. Need tips on the process.


Indeed, I have to echo this sentiment. Many years ago, in a previous life, I 
was a systems programmer on large IBM mainframes. It was quite common 
practice then to hack the operating system. There were a few "hooks" but 
many times those were simply inadequate to do what some people thought were 
good ideas.

As time went on, it became a major challenge (as in hassle) to update the 
operating system. Some companies had armies of systems programmers just to 
maintain these hacks. I don't know if any ever actually sat down and figured 
out if they were really worth what they were spending to keep those hacks in 
place.

But I did when I went to a new job where the system hadn't been updated in 
four years and new computers that were on order (it could take 2 years then) 
made it mandatory to do so. As I began working on the hacks that were in 
place - and poorly documented, if at all - I realized that some were really 
not worth keeping and others could be reworked in such a way that they used 
real hooks.

All through this process I kept hearing "we've always done it that way." On 
the day we cut over to the new operating system (it was a big deal then), I 
had a tee-shirt made that said "We aren't going to do it that way any more."

Words to live by: "NO core hacks!"
More words to live by: "No PHP pages!"
It's not just words to live by - it's religion.


Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, 
Jr.


________________________________
From: Yuval Hager yhager at yhager.com<mailto:yhager at yhager.com>

So before you dive in, if you are in position to, consider to make this a 
make
D6 or break decision to the customer.