2010/9/22 Trevor Parscal <tparscal(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
Modular feature development being unique to extensions
points out a
significant flaw in the design of MediaWiki core. There's no reason we
can't convert existing core features to discreet components, much like
how extensions are written, while leaving them in stock MediaWiki. This
sort of design would also make light work of adding extensions to core.
Making MediaWiki more modular won't magically make it possible (or
even desirable) to write any old feature as an extension. Some things
will still have to go in core and some things we'll simply /want/ to
put in core because making them extensions would be ridiculous for
some reason. It's true that more modularity will lower the difference
in awkwardness between doing certain things as extensions vs. in core
(and is generally desirable), but I also don't see how it would make
(much) lighter work of adding extensions to core: most extensions
should either be easy to add to core (Vector and WikiEditor for
instance, any special page extension) or cause some bumps because they
were written in an awkward way to begin with, probably because it'd
have been better to put them in core.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)