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by Rayne 4800 days ago
Under new libraries I see a reddit API lib listed. Why are they including things like this in Factor itself. Doesn't it kind of bloat things? Factor can strip this out if it isn't used of course, but can you really maintain all of these libraries? If you just add random things to Factor itself you're eventually going to end up with something that is impossible to maintain without a very large number of invested people.
2 comments

The 'extra' directory basically acts as a package manager. The "Batteries Included" approach Factor uses here makes it much more likely that libraries work out of the box.

This was very useful in the early days of Factor when language and base library changes caused bitrot in contributions. If the contributed library wasn't updated it was moved to an 'unmaintained' directory for later correction.

Because there are like 10 person using it. Until the language grows and acquires a package manager it's easier to just put everything in the stdlib.
Sure, but I'd vote for doing things right to begin with rather than waiting for complaining users. But I guess we might disagree on what 'right' means in this context. :)
There is another aspect too: when everything is in the stdlib it forces developers to collaborate and not create their Nth implementation of the same lib because theirs is better. There is a breaking point in number of developers where it becomes more efficient to distribute the work trough a package manager but then you also introduce package hunting which can become quite a time consuming task.