On Frameworks

I don't like how the term "framework" is being so loosely tossed around. I don't consider the Hybrid theme to be a framework at all. It's a parent theme.

But, underneath the theme is a folder called library. The actual development framework lives within that folder. I could've just as easily called this hybrid-core like Carrington does with carrington-core. Yes, Carrington is a framework, but Carrington Blog and Carrington JAM (for example) are themes.

You could load Hybrid's library folder into ANY theme and call a few lines of code to initialize the framework. Or, you could be building a completely new theme from scratch and have it powered by the Hybrid Framework. Yes, you could write your own custom templates, HTML, functions, or whatever.

The framework is there to be a set of functions that both organizes and streamlines much of the grittier stuff with theme development.

On "Smart" themes

I don't consider themes like Thesis and Builder frameworks either. If I were to classify them as something separate than a regular theme, I'd call them smart themes.

A theme with a ton of layout and design options doesn't necessarily make it a framework.

With that said, Elastic is actually a framework.

On Plugins

I don't like the idea of sticking a thousand options into a theme. This is where the beauty of plugins come into play.

I like using plugins for this sort of thing for two major reasons:

1) Only users that want those extra features have to install the plugin(s). People that don't aren't stuck with unnecessary admin panels and extra code loading.

2) Plugins are much easier to upgrade because developers have access to a Subversion repository and users are more comfortable with the idea of upgrading plugins.