BuddyPress.org

… it isn’t feasible since the queries it would take to pull that off would be astronomical.

If the data can be written to a table to begin with, and the structure of the written data makes sense, then in theory a query can be designed to accomplish the same outcome without having to write it to a table.

But in practice, since WP uses a sharded DB and not a normalized DB schema, this could be an issue.

… but I think the talking back and forth between the components isn’t really the job of the core to do

Okay, I think I just saw a ghost. That was a scary comment, jjj!

Whereas I agree that it may not be the responsibility of the core to ensure that non-core components successfully talk back and forth with each other or with other core components, it is absolutely the responsibility of the core to ensure that each core component effectively and properly communicates with one another when activated. Every component we have discussed here is a core component.

What you basically just said is the right hand does not need to know what the left hand is doing. In actuality, your right hand may not always need to know what your left hand is doing, but sometimes it is an absolute necessity. The brain takes care of this for us, of course.

BuddyPress’ core needs to take care of monitoring, negotiating, and policing the actions of its core components. As users and developers, we are entirely dependent on the core development team to make sure that happens.