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Because many (not all) devs use frameworks to cover for their own weaknesses in software design. There’s something deeply comforting in the faith that a few Ver

Because many (not all) devs use frameworks to cover for their own weaknesses in software design. There’s something deeply comforting in the faith that a few Very Smart Framework Authors have laid a gold-plated path of success for them to follow. What they overlook is the time and energy wasted in the framework cottage industry: making dependencies talk to one another, aligning version numbers, major version upgrades being forced on them (or risk being insecure) and the time spent searching Google, SO, and GitHub issues for support.

ryanbrunner 5y ago
This really doesn't ring true to me. The biggest value of frameworks in my mind is that I don't have to waste time doing software design for things where my solution has no reason to be unique. Directory structure, how I interface with the database, how I write to logs, how I route HTTP requests to endpoints in my code are all certainly things I could solve, but I'd rather spend time on things that are unique to the problem I'm solving, and accepting a perfectly suitable standard for everything else. As a bonus, I know that every dev I hire with experience with that framework is also going to know how these things are set up, and they can focus their onboarding time on what actually needs to be unique to the problem we're solving. Regarding the downsides: - a framework doesn't necessitate additional libraries any more than rolling your own does (arguably this is worse without a framework, because unless you don't use libraries altogether you have a hodgepodge of libraries to solve common problems that don't have a lot of incentive to be cross-compatible, and a framework really can't be incompatible with itself) - Any half-way popular framework is going to ship security updates for past major versions (and again, if you're using libraries this is more of a headache than updating a single framework)
- nh23423fefe 5y ago
  Agree. I've never seen a poor dev reach for a framework to solve a problem. Poor devs do nothing for days and then ask a bad question at a stand up.
scarface74 5y ago
I would much rather waste my time on a well documented industry framework that I can use when I leave than learning a framework written by the architect astronaut because he thought his problem was a special snowflake.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  > because he thought his problem was a special snowflake I think this is the heart of the issue. Of course everyone thinks their problem is a special snowflake, otherwise they wouldn't invest resources into solving it. The job of us developers is to distill the essence of it and generalize the rest. But it's something I've always struggled to communicate with the business side. Either I "just don't get it", or they take generalization to mean I want to drown them in configuration.

ryanbrunner 5y ago

This really doesn't ring true to me. The biggest value of frameworks in my mind is that I don't have to waste time doing software design for things where my solution has no reason to be unique. Directory structure, how I interface with the database, how I write to logs, how I route HTTP requests to endpoints in my code are all certainly things I could solve, but I'd rather spend time on things that are unique to the problem I'm solving, and accepting a perfectly suitable standard for everything else. As a bonus, I know that every dev I hire with experience with that framework is also going to know how these things are set up, and they can focus their onboarding time on what actually needs to be unique to the problem we're solving. Regarding the downsides: - a framework doesn't necessitate additional libraries any more than rolling your own does (arguably this is worse without a framework, because unless you don't use libraries altogether you have a hodgepodge of libraries to solve common problems that don't have a lot of incentive to be cross-compatible, and a framework really can't be incompatible with itself) - Any half-way popular framework is going to ship security updates for past major versions (and again, if you're using libraries this is more of a headache than updating a single framework)

nh23423fefe 5y ago
Agree. I've never seen a poor dev reach for a framework to solve a problem. Poor devs do nothing for days and then ask a bad question at a stand up.

scarface74 5y ago

I would much rather waste my time on a well documented industry framework that I can use when I leave than learning a framework written by the architect astronaut because he thought his problem was a special snowflake.

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
> because he thought his problem was a special snowflake I think this is the heart of the issue. Of course everyone thinks their problem is a special snowflake, otherwise they wouldn't invest resources into solving it. The job of us developers is to distill the essence of it and generalize the rest. But it's something I've always struggled to communicate with the business side. Either I "just don't get it", or they take generalization to mean I want to drown them in configuration.