Another cool AmigaOS feature was the object oriented datatypes library. When an application used the datatypes library to read, say, image files, it could automatically and transparently read any file format for which there was a format specific datatypes compatible library available while itself only interfacing with the os' datatypes library.

A new image file format comes along? Simply install the corresponding datatype, and hey presto, all applications can now read and write the new file format without requiring change or recompile! Why is this not available on any modern OS? Building every single application with specific gif and jpeg and png libraries is inflexible and anachronistic in comparison.

And the same principle was applied to other areas, not covered by the datatypes library, through 3rd party libraries. For example with the xpk library, a de facto standard on later Amigas, an application could use any available compressor library to compress and decompress data, while again itself only interfacing with xpk, not knowing anything about specific compressors, and the instant ability to use new ones as soon as the compressor library file was put in the right directory.