📝§ Extensible system

• Extensibility is about cost of adding new extensions

• Issues with non-extensible systems

  • Local-First Software

• Every extensible system feels messy and spaghetti-like

• Opportunities of extensible systems

  • Seamless UI

  • Access to data

• What makes system extensible?

  • Open source makes systems more extensible

    • Are there closed-source extensible systems?

      • Sublime text?

      • Roam?

  • Extensibility requires introspection

    • Reify data model

• Principles of extensible systems

  • Composability

  • Replaceability

  • Explicit data (?)

  • Ideal extensible system requires adding new code only

    • Open-Closed Principle

  • Extensible system makes it easy to apply the changes

• Examples of extensible systems

  • Vim / Emacs

    • What makes Emacs extensible?

    • What makes Vim extensible?

  • Smalltalk

    • What makes Smalltalk extensible?

  • TeX

    • What makes TeX extensible?

  • What are extensible systems that do not require computers?

  • What are examples of extensible systems in real life?

• How to make vendors create extensible systems?

  • How to turn vendors into allies?

    • Open source business models

  • Extensible systems threaten ads

• Safety in extensible system

  • Extensibility negatively affects software security

• 2/COSS process might be good for extensible systems

• Why extensible systems are not popular right now?

• Extensible user interface

  • Extensible interfaces might hinder UX

  • CLIs are more composable than GUI applications

    • CLIs expose interaction as first-class citizen

    • CLIs are usually much smaller and do a single thing

    • Only non-interactive CLIs are composable

• How does idea align with other trends in Software Development?

  • more software moving to web

• Languages

  • Smalltalk

  • Guile is a language designed for extensible systems

Backlinks

• 📝 § Personal computing
• 📝 Enums are not extensible
• 📝 Glamorous toolkit
• 📝 § Programmable syntax
• 📝 Authentication and identity management should be part of the platform
• 📝 Extensible interfaces might hinder UX
• 📝 § Index
• 📝 What makes Smalltalk extensible?
• 📝 Guile is a language designed for extensible systems
• 📝 CLIs expose interaction as first-class citizen
• 📝 Issues with non-extensible systems