On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 6:33 PM, Trevor Parscal tparscal@wikimedia.org wrote:
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.
I think that I would support allowing core features to use hooks instead of writing the code in all over the place. All you would have to do is initialise $wgHooks somewhere before LocalSettings.php is run.
Giving structural proximity to functionally-related code would make things much less confusing for new developers (and simpler for those with experience). It would allow us to declutter our core code (things like user permission checking come to mind), and it would make light work of merging extensions into core.