[development] 4.8/5.0: Modules, the install system, and directories

[Khalid B]

On 2/22/06, Morbus Iff <morbus at disobey.com> wrote:
> > Why any of these at all? why not a simple
>  > hook_info or hook_help in the .install?
>
> Because, unlike modules, the code for an .install is nearly *always*
> growing. Whereas modules may lose functions or become tighter code,
> .install files MUST, for legacy reasons, keep all the data changes
> around. Any gains we get by using .install files in admin/modules would
> be utterly destroyed if we had to load system.install (which would
> contain all of the current/legacy updates.inc in my proposal).

And a hook_info or hook_help would require loading the entire
module in memory, and that is what causes the memory issues
with admin/modules

Splitmode helps with this, but as I said earlier, it is overkill for the
vast majority of small/medium web sites. Perfect for big ones though.

If splitmode is not the only way of doing things (can't imagine it would
be so for the time being), then we need an external file to do that part.