Design a general plugin architecture

Should we design a general plugin architecture?

Considered Alternatives

• Design a general plugin architecture
• Every plugin has its own architecture

Decision Outcome

• Chosen Alternative: Design a general plugin architecture
• Designing a general plugin architecture allows us to extract similarities to a abstract level.

Pros and Cons of the Alternatives

Design a general plugin architecture

• + every plugin implements the same interface
• + similarities can be extracted to a more abstract level
• + reduction of information the plugins need, for example file access could be handled in the abstract layer
• - there may be things that are not required by every plugin

Every plugin has its own architecture

• + no need for discussion with other plugin teams
• - every plugin does what it wants
• - "duplicated code", same things are implemented the same in every plugin
• - How to check whether every plugin supports the given csar?