Plugin to preview 3.0 features?

I've started to plan a plugin Area51 for 2.x which would allow opting in to some feature ideas for 3.0 (particularly front end).

The good: Gives site owners early access to features. Gets features in front of more devs so they can get sharpened before core integration.

The not so good: If significantly popular, this creates a less predictable base on which to build 3rd-party plugins. E.g. plugins for 2.0 can basically assume the Aalborg theme will be mostly the same as 1.12, but potentially not for sites running Area51.

Would Area51 be just a way to cheat around the requirements of SemVer?

How would plugin devs feel about this?

  • Well, I can't help mentioning that 2.0 final isn't even out yet and it might be enough time to think about 2.1 and 3.0 once that's finally accomplished...

    The question is if such an Area51 plugin would break 2.0 (2.X) 3rd party plugins. If this would be the case, using the Area51 plugin on a production site with Elgg 2.X would make no sense - and this might reduce the risk of people relying on stuff that might no be implemented in 3.0 in exactly the same way (or implemented at all). And it surely would be wrong to ask 3rd party plugin developers to make adjustments to their plugin to get them compatible with the Area51 plugin (not core devs asking but rather users of the plugin asking the plugin devs!).

    The point is that it should be made clear in any case that the intention of such an Area51 plugin would be for testing, to have a preview and it would be a "use at your own risk and don't use on a production site thing".

  • Re 2.0, I think we can release RC1 any time now; that process is still too long and tedious. We're thinking ahead because the feature freeze for 2.0 has been long. We're not making the mistake of 1.9 where we kept delaying to add big stuff.

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