One of the main principles of oik-plugins is to develop lazy shortcodes using lazy code. Lazy shortcodes say

Call me when you need me, here’s how to get in touch

The oik-plugins code is intended to be as efficient as possible. We believe that it’s only necessary to instantiate the code when actually needed. Just because a shortcode is defined, there is no need to load all the gubbins that it uses until it’s actually invoked. This principle applies to a lot of the code in the oik suite of plugins.

• They don’t waste time doing things that other plugins and APIs can do for them; don’t include files if other plugins do it for you.
• They don’t do things until necessary; waiting for messages to say something’s happened before loading code

To find out more about lazy smart shortcodes why not take some time looking at this “presentation”. Technically lazy code implements “callbacks” and deferred loading of functionality.