The inspiration for the "file based plugins" were Apache::Registry in mod_perl -- hide as much of the nitty gritty as possible and allow the user to just write the code that actually does stuff for them. On that track then I think it's reasonable to add whatever boiler plate code is needed for all plugins to the manufactured package (we already add a bunch anyway).
But it's worth keeping in mind Robert's point about "plugin is a class" plugins. We really should encourage plugins with more than a hundred or two lines of code to be class based. (Or plugins with more than a couple of methods; whatever the measure should be).
- ask
