tiojoca
Junior Member
Posts: 24
Joined: Feb 2004
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RE: Let's talk again about code sharing
Although releasing the 1.42b's source would be great, I think giving more functionalities to the plugins API would still be a better option. In the end, any IM's basic functionality is to send and receive messages. So I believe that Plus! plugins API basic functionalities should include getting and sending messages!
Of course if the Plus! source code is available to public it is always possible to implement the same hooking techniques that are implemented by Plus! but this seems very counterproductive to me. MSN messenger is always evolving and the hooking methods keep evolving with it (and even apart from it)! Whatever is developed on Plus! has to be re-implemented on the plugins resulting in a great loss of time and effort, and even on bad resource usage!
Patchou did a really great job and Plus! is the best, no doubt about it! But people will always want new specific functionalities that sometimes are not so useful to others. To add them to default Plus! installation itself would make it too heavy for unnecessary reasons, and means Patchou is left with the burden of having to implement all the new functionalities by himself.
With plugins, Patchou can still keep control of his work (doesn't even has to distribute the source code) while keeping developers and end-users happy. Every modern development paradigm is saying it: applications should be modular and encourage code-reuse. Plugins are definitely the way to go, they just need that extra basic IM power!  
This post was edited on 02-06-2004 at 11:48 AM by tiojoca.
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