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> My mantra for using a library is - if you could've written the library yourself, then use it. Otherwise, you dont know enough and using it as a blackbox is ce
by noir_lord 7y ago
> My mantra for using a library is - if you could've written the library yourself, then use it. Otherwise, you dont know enough and using it as a blackbox is certainly going to lead to disaster in the future (for you or some other poor soul).
That is largely my attitude to using any package/library - if the entire dev team gets hit by a bus tomorrow can I maintain this (i.e. keep it working reliably in production), if the answer is no then I nearly always avoid it and if I can't I wrap it in my own layer so that I can replace it later.
I've been an enterprise developer for a long time so my worldview is shaped by "this will likely stick around twice as long as anyone expects minimum" though.
- Filligree 7y agoI have a friend with that attitude. It's led him to implementing his own encryption libraries, UI libraries and so forth, and... Well, I have to admit he's smart, but the software he writes outside of work is some of the worst I've ever used. Furthermore, I was able to crack his RSA implementation with a straightforward timing attack. Some things shouldn't be reimplemented. Perhaps he could have implemented them, then used something else? True, but that's a hard sell.