RE: multiple binary source

Using just #ifdefs and #defines etc in code for separating would be simpler 
to implement in the beginning but would be very unwise choice in the long 
run. It's very inflexible solution and has potential of making the code 
harder to understand.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that having just "vanilla" and "extra stuff" UI will 
not be enough. There are just too many different users with differents work 
task, likes and dislikes. One might want java debugger, other a spell 
checker, third mouse gestures, fourth an extensive preferences-dialog with 
possibilities to control everything. The all or nothing -approach just does 
not cut it sensibly.

I wish people would stop either speaking for everybody or intentionally not 
wanting to understand any other. Clauses starting with "all/everybody 
wants..." and "nobody would use..." are just not valid. Only if someone 
makes a real survey, one can say something about general opinion, but even 
then, very much attention has to be paid to the number of respondents, the 
distribution of the types of respondents, the statistical variation and so 
forth... Also, these three are not the same: the current user base, the 
current actively participating users and the target(or possibly future) 
users.

Anyways, of those projects (which I know of) that have chosen the extensions 
-style have definately not become less appealing or harder to code (in the 
long run). Quite the opposite. The projects have received many more 
extensions outside the normal core developer group. The extensions approach 
actually encourages people to develop more since one is allowed to 
concentrate on smaller tasks without needing to understand the whole 
program.

The key to this is well planned, stable and documented API for extensions. 
Sure, sometimes the API may have to be changed, but those changes should be 
made only seldom, with clearly annoucing those releases. There's nothing 
inheriently "buggy" in extensions. In some sense also galeon is also an 
"extension" to gtk and those many many libraries it uses.

....

Luckily, there are countless numbers of apps that do some sort of 
extensions. It should be relatively easy to get the API right pretty much 
from the start, if a little time is spent on researching on the other apps 
and then drafting the API to a document.

Some samples:

WEB:
Mozilla/phoenix: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/
...and tons of plugins: mozdev.org

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

DEVEL:
Anjuta: http://anjuta.sourceforge.net/
...the addons: http://anjuta.sourceforge.net/right_pannel.php?load=resource

INSTANT MESSAGING:
http://miranda-icq.sourceforge.net/
(plugins: about 100, with version duplicates included...)

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
(number of plugins: 100??)

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