Plugins: misused, overrated Nowadays everything is a platform and even the smallest programs must support plugins. Plugins are a useful concept but as usual in human history, it is more often misused than done right. The promises: • You cannot provide one solution that suits everyone, so just let everyone write their own tools. • Plugins are a useful feature to offer different solutions to different problems and use cases. • Plugins give freedom to users to build whatever they want. • Plugins are a great way for extending the capabilities of a program. • A huge number of plugins is a desirable thing for a program. • A lot of people can develop software additions, for good. The reality: • Plugins often simply used as an excuse for not developing a full-fledged program and just give up at the most basic set of functionalities due to pure laziness and sloppiness. • Plugins are often used instead of program interfaces by mistake. • Extending an application in a powerful way is hard and requires a lot of code and complexity. This project is best handled as part of the program itself (development, testing, documentation, bug fixes), instead of a separate project entity. Most of the useful plugins should be part of the program itself to lower overall cost and being able to raise quality. • Plugins are lagging behind the program life cycle, and are barely tested. • Having tons of plugins means 95% of them are useless, half-baked crap that no one maintains anymore. Most of them do not add serious value at all. Try finding a suitable solution in that pile, buddy. • A lot of people can develop software additions, sadly. Drupal, for example, is proud for its huge number of plugins. It shouldn’t be. The core thing does not even contain any layout-manager, you should pick from two plugin alternatives. One is alpha version, the other is beta. Pick your poison. Do you wish your program having a living community using plugins? Be careful what you wish for.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 11:06:15 +0000
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