What is the best practice for developing Sitecore modules regarding dependencies?

Utilizing a dependency injection framework is a best practice in developing Sitecore modules because it enhances modularity and testability within your applications. By decoupling the instantiation of dependencies from the classes that use them, you promote better maintainability and flexibility.

When implementing dependency injection, you can easily swap out implementations for testing or change behaviors without modifying the dependent classes themselves. This approach also adheres to the principle of Inversion of Control (IoC), which encourages a more organized and scalable architecture, especially in complex applications like those built on Sitecore.

While hard-coding dependencies may offer marginal performance benefits, it severely limits the ability to make changes and test individual components independently. Keeping all dependencies within the same module can lead to tightly-coupled code that is difficult to manage and test. Using absolute paths for dependencies can cause issues with portability and make your modules less adaptable to different environments or projects. Thus, employing a dependency injection framework stands out as the most effective strategy for maintaining clean, effective, and sustainable code in Sitecore development.