Plugin-based architectures can be a bad idea.

Not always. In user-facing applications, where the list of installed and enabled plugins is clear, then plugins are often a good thing. This article is concerned not with end-user facing applications, but with libraries. Libraries that allow their functionality to be extended through plugins. In particular, libraries that automatically detect and load all installed plugins.

Plugins aren't always obviously plugins. In this article, I'm defining a plugin as a software module that adds additional functionality or modifies the external…