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Of course it can. You can do pretty much anything you like with software as long as you have the vision. A plugin/extension architecture can certainly make modi

• MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  Except it doesn't work like that. Sensible architecture doesn't make compiler engineering trivial. Compiler engineering is a highly technical area of software engineering. Think an average C++ programmer could take an old C++ compiler like OpenWatcom and make the necessary improvements to make it comply with the latest C++ language standard? Not a chance, that would be the work of a lifetime. They might have a shot at making small contributions to a compiler, but they'd have to set their sights quite low. Another example might be operating systems. The abstractions offered by modern operating systems are terribly easy to use, but there's a high skills barrier to doing meaningful work on the kernel. Similarly, the average web developer stands little chance of making a contribution to V8 or WebKit. This strikes me as analogous to discussing whether it should be harder to design and build a car, than to drive one. I don't like to be uncharitable but I stand by my earlier choice of words: this is silliness. Difficult engineering fields cannot be made easy. I see that another commenter, 'gm', has done a good job expressing similar points.