Relevant XKCD [0]. Lots of topics vary wildly in complexity, depending on what's actually expected of the developer. For example, I could see how implementing

Relevant XKCD [0]. Lots of topics vary wildly in complexity, depending on what's actually expected of the developer. For example, I could see how implementing an authentication system might take as little as a few hours to as much as a few months. I think developers sometimes get overconfident when they can just reach for a library to do anything they need, so they underestimate the complexity of having to implement everything themselves. I've seen tons of great examples of this while doing frontend work. Need a typeahead component? Just pull in some plugin or library and wire it up, frontend development is so easy! But if you actually go implement your own you quickly realize there's lots of details to consider in order to make it accessible and user-friendly. Working with local data? Might want to go brush up on search algorithms. Throw in a bit of extra fun if you need to support multiple languages. [0] https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/