Home Page - 2002-09-10

Post date: Nov 29, 2008 3:50:25 AM

Against Monolithic Frameworks [Read this article]

...OpenSource projects are exposing what we missed in the hitherto proprietary model of software making. When a company, with its rightful motive of making money, creates a software, it will keep, and has kept its activities closed to outsiders. Not only the source, but also extensibility of the software is kept closed. This, they thought, has to be done in order to keep the revenues flowing in. After all, if they allow users to create their own useful extensions, then how will the original company sell its next version? But this all changed with the coming of OpenSource software, which started just as a philanthropic rebellion to the shooting software prices. When people make software for the sheer fun and beauty of just making it, they don't worry about the next version, but only its usefulness. It is definitely not useful for the users of a software, to wait for the creator to serve all their requests promptly. Moreover why wait for a small tweak, instead of doing it ourselves. This extensibility, and the consequent modularity is the hallmark of the OpenSource software development.

...Plugins can themselves expose a thin extensibility hooks, and act as a mini framework. If a plug-in itself can be made out of smaller plug-ins, or can be extended or configured by a plug-in, we now have a open network of plug-ins. A good ideal to keep as our bearing.