“The loop” refers to the process WP makes (code-wise) in displaying content to the visitors. In terms of Plugin development, you usually work either outside or inside “the loop”.

If you want to learn more about “the loop”, take a look here: http://www.themelab.com/2008/04/04/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-wordpress-loop/

Since I spend a lot of time optimizing GD Star Rating plugin and adding various caching methods, I have measured all kinds of things, and the conclusion is that the best thing is to have less DB queries. They are very fast, but take into the account total number of queries executed, and it’s best to find the way to minimize that. GD Star Rating pre 1.5 versions needed some 150 queries for 10 posts because it was executing queries as they were needed. Now it needs less then 10 queries for the same 10 posts.
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Thank you for that function! That does indeed make it a lot easier, and as you say, if its already in the cache it is much faster. In cases where a lot of posts could be queried it would be good.

One note however, if in cases where you are only interested in for instance the title of a range of posts, would it not be faster to use my original query solution, modified to only return the title from the database, or would get_post() still be better/faster?

Thank you for adding valuable insights to my ramblings!

$postdata = get_post($postid);

This function uses internal WordPress object cache, and if the post you need is already in the cache you save on running unneeded query. Object is the same as with your method and all returned properties the same.
.-= Milan Petrovic´s last blog ..New website res4WP.com =-.