[development] Content Specific Modules for Small Constituencies, Are they Kosher?

[Larry Garfield]

On Wednesday 18 November 2009 10:24:59 pm Andrew Berry wrote:
> On 2009-11-18, at 11:11 PM, Shai Gluskin wrote:
> > I'm thinking of creating a very simple module. All it would do is install
> > a particular vocabulary on your site which has about 50 terms (I'll give
> > the specific example further below).
>
> It strikes me that this would be much better suited as an install profile
> which would set this up, along with other common modules and data used by
> synagogues. It might be worth reaching out to them, finding some other
> common features which you need for your site, and starting from there
> instead.
>
> Or, if taxonomy import is all you need, see about a generic taxonomy import
> / export solution, and providing a dataset for that somewhere.
>
> --Andrew

I think the last answer here is key.  Modules that provide *functionality* 
that is useful only to a small subset of users are fine.  There's a LOT of 
those around. :-)  However, modules that exist only as a glorified data dump 
really should not, IMO, be modules to begin with.  They should be handled in 
some more elegant data-dump-centric way.  If such a way doesn't exist, that 
sounds like a perfectly good excuse to build one.

-- 
Larry Garfield
larry at garfieldtech.com