How can developers mitigate the challenges of using C-based PHP extensions like Yaf on shared web hosting platforms?

Developers can mitigate the challenges of using C-based PHP extensions like Yaf on shared web hosting platforms by compiling the extension as a shared object (.so) file and loading it dynamically in PHP using the dl() function. This allows the extension to be used without requiring it to be enabled in the php.ini configuration file, which is often restricted on shared hosting environments.

if (!extension_loaded('yaf')) {
    dl('yaf.so');
}