Title: Question
Last modified: August 18, 2016

---

# Question

 *  jlksadj
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/)
 * Nice effort on the 7.2 but in the weblog it says that this is pretty close to
   release ready and in only a few moments I’ve found some significant errors.
    
   b2rss.php doesn’t validate. Why? Because document type isn’t included. the whole
   trackback and pingback seems to be broken very seriously. I’ve trackbacked and
   pingbacked and nothing seems to work. Plus I seem to be running into all sorts
   of other stuff every time I turn around. I think I’ll go back with the last release
   of b2 and wait until you guys get these bugs figured out.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Moderator [Matt Mullenweg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/matt/)
 * (@matt)
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23773)
 * If you could give some more specifics as to percisely what version you’re using
   and steps to recreate the problems you describe then it would be much easier 
   for us to track down the problems you describe. I’ve been using .72 for weeks
   now and it’s rock solid.
 *  [Michael Heilemann](https://wordpress.org/support/users/michael/)
 * (@michael)
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23776)
 * trackback and pingback seem to work great for me…
 *  [bill](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bill/)
 * (@bill)
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23779)
 * I’m using the version downloaded from:
    [http://wordpress.org/beta/wordpress-072-beta-2.tar.gz](http://wordpress.org/beta/wordpress-072-beta-2.tar.gz)
   which is listed as being pretty solid. I had installed b2 and really liked it
   and then found out about this fork and installed it over b2. Luckily, I had not
   posted anything yet because it fried the few test posts I had put in but . . .
   you know, it’s beta software so if it had been important I should have backed
   up the db (Linux RH9, MySQL4, PHP4.x, Apache2). The b2rss.php simply didn’t validate.
   I had been testing out b2 with an RSS feed reeder called Sharp Reader and it 
   was working fine. I installed WordPress and it started telling me it couldn’t
   read the file. So I attempted to validate the document via w3c and it said it
   couldn’t validate it because there was no document type. I inserted the document
   type as the leading line of output in the b2rss.php file and it then validated
   fine. From searching here on the site (after finding out the documentation was
   out of date <g>) I discovered that the syntax for including links to trackback
   and pingback was different. I read the suggestions here and the closest I could
   come to making anything work was that both backtrack and pingback would report
   the same number of backtracks and pingbacks as the number of comments and that
   when you clicked on either of those links you went to the comments page with 
   no reference to pingback or trackback links. I tried using comments_popup_link()
   as suggested and replaced teh comment var with trackback and pingback calls (
   which was what was suggested on this forum if simply activating pingback and 
   trackback didn’t automatically generate them) but not much help. Like I said,
   nice little package but I don’t have time to debug it. I thought I would throw
   this out there to you in case you haven’t run into it. Actually, I don’t have
   time to debug it because there’s no comments in the code and what documentation
   exists is out of date leaving me the options of learning exactly how the program
   works down to the last detail or bailing on it and going back to b2 for now. 
   🙂 I’ll come back to it once you guys have got it out there in production environments
   and I have the time to play around with it. If you’re open to some notes, here’s
   mine: 1. I’m not a huge fan of some of the architecture decisions between b2 
   and WordPress. For instance that archives and categories spit out the html without
   returning that level of control back over to the calling function seems odd. 
   I didn’t want to have an ordered list (i.e “li”) for those two items yet my only
   option was to go in and hack the main code because instead of returning an array
   or even a string with the html in it, the html is spit out by the function itself.
   I mean, at least give me the option of doing this: $this_var = somefunction();
   $temp_var = eregi_replace(“something here”, “something else here”, $this_var)
   print $temp_var; I guess I could just buffer the output and do some regex’s on
   the buffer but who wants to do that? Data and format should always, always, always,
   always be independent of each other. I mean it would have been just as easy to
   create a ordered list function that you pass an array to and it returns an ordered
   list. 2. You guys might want to consider using some more common fonts in the 
   default install. Not for nothing but Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif
   sucks as a default 🙂 At least on my computer I can’t tell the difference between
   a zero and a lower case “o” when typing in text boxes in the admin area which
   always makes me go back several times to check I have the appropriate value. 
   3. Comments, comments, comments. I know it’s beta code but somebody’s gotta be
   writing this and that person would probably benefit from a few comments here 
   and there. At a minimum a single line or two describing what a function does 
   would cut down dramatically on someone else’s time when they’re trying to help
   hunt down a bug. 4. You offer the option of upgrading from b2 but you don’t really
   carry over any of the settings from b2 which means that they have to all be set
   up again. 5. Conceptually, comments, trackback links, and pingback links are 
   different things. They need to be pulled apart in the database. 6. I noticed 
   that you guys were taking this in the direction of adding new functionality while
   trying to change the core architecture (or re-write the core architecture) at
   the same time. I would focus on one or the other right now with my preference
   being the architecture. If you don’t, you’re going to have changing function 
   calls every release and you’re likely to piss off a lot of users who have to 
   completely re-write their templates because you’ve decided that pingback_popup_link()
   can be merged into comments_popup_link() without including a backwards compatibility
   function. While such a choice may be the best decision going forward it does 
   burden the users and if you can minimize that by doing one huge architecture 
   release that reduces change in future releases you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead
   in terms of user loyalty. Ahhh . . . I think that’s it from the 2 or 3 hours 
   I spent playing around with it. Despite my critiques I really like it and I think
   it has a lot of potential but I just didn’t have enough time to want to figure
   that stuff out at the moment.
 *  [Mike Little](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mikelittle/)
 * (@mikelittle)
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23783)
 * Hi Bill,
    I shall try to answer some of your points (I hope I don’t sound too
   petulant 🙁 ) “b2rss.php doesn’t validate” — It doesn’t validate as an HTML document
   because it isn’t one. It doesn’t need an HTML doctype declaration. Try validating
   the RSS with an rss validator here’s one: [http://aggregator.userland.com/validator](http://aggregator.userland.com/validator)
   Also if you would care to check b2 doesn’t include a doctype declaration either.
   You are correct that things have changed with regard to pingbacks and trackbacks,
   in fact those original functions have been removed. True too that the readme.
   html file is out of date. You mention lack of comments in the code. But this 
   is no different from b2 upon which it is based. You also say “once you guys have
   got it out there in production environments “: try this [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22powered+by+wordpress%22](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22powered+by+wordpress%22)
   And now to your numbered points: 1: The list of archives, for example, is just
   that: a list. Hence it is marked up (semantically) as a list. Then you use your
   style sheet to style it how you want. That is the way it is meant to be. 2: I
   don’t like Georgia either, I think it was the first thing I changed! 3: You are
   correct. Some areas are better than others. 4: The upgrade scripts do carry over
   the settings from b2. As long as part of upgrade-071-to-072.php which is linked
   to at the end of b2-2-wp.php 5: [http://wordpress.org/support/index.php?action=vthread&forum=4&topic=34](http://wordpress.org/support/index.php?action=vthread&forum=4&topic=34)
   6: We will eventually use Smarty templates which should go some way to addressing
   this issue. Mike
 *  Thread Starter Anonymous
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23787)
 * pffft, if he wants such a perfect code, why doesnt he code it himself, and stop
   buggng other people with such minor problems.
 *  [bill](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bill/)
 * (@bill)
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23788)
 * Mike, petulant-level was set correctly 🙂
    I went back and looked at the code
   for each and you’re right, b2 doesn’t declare a doc type. It also doesn’t break
   in my RSS reader either 🙂 You’re using RSS .91 and b2 is using 1.0. I added 
   the following line to the output and it stopped the reader from complaining and
   it validated w3c (I wasn’t trying to validate the HTML, the validator validates
   the doc type which in this case is DTD RSS .91) <!DOCTYPE rss PUBLIC “-//Netscape
   Communications//DTD RSS 0.91//EN” “[http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dtd”&gt](http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dtd”&gt);
   I literally have 40+ channels in my RSS reader and the Word Press one was the
   only one that caused it to choke before I added that line. I’ll admit, I’m no
   expert in RSS or even XML but I’m just relaying to you what did and didn’t work.
   On the comments, now that you mention it, I didn’t do a file to file comparison.
   The files I looked at in b2 had comments (i.e. many of the files in the root 
   dir) and I was mostly checking out the includes files in WordPress. Still doesn’t
   mean it’s right though 🙂 In regards to the list issue, I don’t think you’re 
   going to convince me on that one, yes, it’s a list but that’s what arrays are
   for. If it’s a list pass it back as an array and then let the presentation layer
   deal with it. By passing it back with the “li” tags already there you’re taking
   away the ability of the presentation layer to deal with it. What if I want the
   categories to go horizontal across the top? What if I’m writing an add-on to 
   WordPress and now I have to essentially duplicate that function because it prints
   directly to the browser rather than just returning the data. Presentation should
   be in one level and data access/manipulation/business logic in another. The moment
   you start mixing the two it’s hard to ever pull them back apart again. Mike, 
   on the Smarty templates, I think I may have been a little confusing in my comments.
   Smarty is a good choice but my point was .71 or .72 would have been a more convienent(
   for users) choice for deploying a template engine. From a user’s perspective,
   let’s say I started with b2. Then I migrate to .72 and I have to change my code
   because some functions don’t work they way they did in b2. But, I’m cool with
   that because I’m changing forks in the project so it’s to be expected. But then...
   when? . . . .73?, .74?, 1.0? is the big Smary change coming and I have to re-
   write all of my formatting yet again? I’ve seen other open source projects shoot
   themselves in the foot with this. Developers come along and say “hey cool, I’m
   going to add this feature and that feature and release them as add-on modules”
   and then you release the next version of the software and functions return different
   values than they did in the last release and/or some functions don’t exist at
   all. So the developers piss and moan and bit and some re-write their stuff and
   on the next release changes break their stuff again. By this time people are 
   tired of having to support a bunch of angry people who’s add-ons don’t work because
   the core API’s keep changing. If this was a closed source offering like Blogger
   or RadioUserland that’s a little easier to deal with. But by virtue of being 
   open source you’re inviting others to contribute. Perhaps not to the core application
   but one would think that you would welcome other developers writing applications
   that plug into the framework you’re building making the end result more robust.
   If the framework keeps changing Regarding the trackbacks, comments, etc, let 
   me offer an example: This is the query in b2trackback.php $queryc = “SELECT *
   FROM $tablecomments WHERE comment_post_ID = $id AND comment_content LIKE ‘%<trackback/
   >%’ ORDER BY comment_date”; Now, MySQL is a great db and she’s very fast but 
   wouldn’t a more efficient and more scalable query be: $queryc = “SELECT * FROM
   $tabletrackbacks WHERE trackback_ID = $id ORDER BY trackback_date”; You’ve eliminated
   a LIKE query and you’ve moved this data into it’s own tables which will make 
   queries on it faster than if you have to query comments and trackbacks. I’m not
   talking about changing the presentation of the data, only the way it’s stored
   and thus the part that limits how scalable the application can be. If you’re 
   thinking that the performance improvement would be minimal, you’re probably right
   on a small to medium sized site but on larger sites you take it where you can
   get it and this seems like a pretty easy one. Also, another idea that I had that
   I thought I would throw out . . . I think one of the selling points of b2 was
   that you didn’t need to publish the site. Having run some sites that see a lot
   of traffic, publishing isn’t a bad thing if done correctly. For instance, why
   can’t you index.php be a file that the admin dumps a current verion of the site
   into every time there’s an update? That way the only dynamic calls you have to
   make are to the comments, trackbacks, and pingback link totals rather than pulling
   up a fresh copy of the site every page view. Obviously most people will be able
   to get by just fine being fully dynamic but having that as an option might be
   a pretty cool feature for someone who gets Slashdotted. 🙂 Lastly, I hope none
   of this has been taken as anything other than constructive feedback. I’m not 
   offering my opinions because I think you’re wrong and I’m right, I’m offering
   them because I think they might be helpful. Sure, not having a trackback table
   isn’t going to kill you but, hey, it’s a thought, right?
 *  Thread Starter Anonymous
 * [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23812)
 * Good comments Bill, thanks for sharing them.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘Question’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 7 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: Anonymous
 * Last activity: [22 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question/#post-23812)
 * Status: not resolved

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