4 ms·

As a programmer, your value prop/job/business isn't delivering code. It's solving business problems. If a library lets you do that faster, then it's a good idea

by xxpor 4y ago

As a programmer, your value prop/job/business isn't delivering code. It's solving business problems. If a library lets you do that faster, then it's a good idea. Flexing your ability to code has no place in the real world.

bowsamic 4y ago
Are you saying that there is no value in honing your skills as a programmer?
- orf 4y ago
  No. He’s saying that while another developer gets stuck in the weeds implementing their own byte-string library, he’ll be past that and shipping the feature that needs a byte-string implementation to the customer or end user. It’s the same reason you’re writing this using someone else’s web browser, on someone else’s kernel, on someone else’s hardware. And it’s not because you’re a bad/lazy programmer or because there’s no value in understanding how all of that works.
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    I don't (and won't ever) get it, sorry
    - orf 4y ago
      You do fully, 100% get it though. Because you utilise the labour of others every day with the knowledge that doing so allows you to achieve what you need to achieve, rather than spending all your time growing and harvesting corn or something.
    - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
      You write your own OS, web browser, etc?
    - bobbyskelton41 4y ago
      It's basic economics: gains from trade. It's more expensive to be entirely self-reliant.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  People who use a lot of libraries still seem to spend most of their time programming. I'm not sure why using libraries means less practice programming.
- zaphar 4y ago
  Where on earth does he say that? There is no shortage of development in any given project. Writing my own http client/server, json parser, html parser, networking IO library, and a whole host of other stuff doesn't help me ship faster. I may experiment with implementations of these things on my own to learn more about them but: 1. Doing my own implementation of any of those things is a large amount of effort that isn't directly relevant to my needs in any given job. 2. My first attempts are going to be buggy and incorrect providing a source of bugs in my system that I didn't need. It would be irresponsible to use them in a work product. 3. I don't learn substantially more about software development doing these. I may learn more about http, or json parsing but I'm doing so at the expense of learning more about my business domain. There is some minimum amount I need to know about these things to do my job. The rest is unnecessary until I run into a situation requiring me to dig deeper. To borrow a Software Architecure truism? YAGNI, You ain't gonna need it. It is a fact that I am deliberately limiting myself if I force myself to understand every layer of technology I need to leverage in order to do my job rather than specializing. I will always have to delegate some of that to someone else who has the time to go deep enough to provide a robust solution for me. I will also always have a responsibility to go deep on some of those things when it is relevant to my work.
bluesnowmonkey 4y ago
Everyone’s job in a business is solving business problems. Programmers do that mainly by programming. Otherwise we wouldn’t call them programmers.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Exactly. To me it just seems like a profoundly bad idea to become overly reliant on the code of others. Then your capability to solve business problems will certainly decrease.
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    I'm curious what environment you code on where you are not extremely reliant on the code of others. you may not use many libraries but you are equally dependent on the standard library, compiler, and OS you are running on.
  - julienfr112 4y ago
    What would be the ratio between the the line (or instructions ?) you write yourself and the one you rely on (OS, environment, compiler, firmware ...) ? one in a million ?
frio 4y ago
Introducing a towering pile of dependencies is _introducing_ a business problem; there is a cost of ownership to a dependency tree that only grows as it grows. Grabbing a library from somewhere and saying "problem solved, onto the next one" isn't a sustainable development practice; there has to be some assessment of "is this library popular/the maintainer trustworthy/what risk do we carry if it gets abandoned/will someone pick it up/_does it solve a big enough problem to warrant the effort_" that goes with every choice to pick one. Further, every single 3rd party dependency carries security risks, and every time you add one, you make it more likely one of them will get compromised. I used to be a "just grab the libraries and move on" guy, but we're currently working on getting $currentEmployer off some old major versions of React, CRA and Spring Boot because a previous developer was of the same mindset and half the stuff he grabbed has died and isn't forwards compatible. It's not a fun process, and many problems the libraries solve could've been solved in-house for less total effort.

by xxpor 4y ago

bowsamic 4y ago

Are you saying that there is no value in honing your skills as a programmer?

orf 4y ago
No. He’s saying that while another developer gets stuck in the weeds implementing their own byte-string library, he’ll be past that and shipping the feature that needs a byte-string implementation to the customer or end user. It’s the same reason you’re writing this using someone else’s web browser, on someone else’s kernel, on someone else’s hardware. And it’s not because you’re a bad/lazy programmer or because there’s no value in understanding how all of that works.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  I don't (and won't ever) get it, sorry
  - orf 4y ago
    You do fully, 100% get it though. Because you utilise the labour of others every day with the knowledge that doing so allows you to achieve what you need to achieve, rather than spending all your time growing and harvesting corn or something.
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    You write your own OS, web browser, etc?
  - bobbyskelton41 4y ago
    It's basic economics: gains from trade. It's more expensive to be entirely self-reliant.
rcxdude 4y ago
People who use a lot of libraries still seem to spend most of their time programming. I'm not sure why using libraries means less practice programming.
zaphar 4y ago
Where on earth does he say that? There is no shortage of development in any given project. Writing my own http client/server, json parser, html parser, networking IO library, and a whole host of other stuff doesn't help me ship faster. I may experiment with implementations of these things on my own to learn more about them but: 1. Doing my own implementation of any of those things is a large amount of effort that isn't directly relevant to my needs in any given job. 2. My first attempts are going to be buggy and incorrect providing a source of bugs in my system that I didn't need. It would be irresponsible to use them in a work product. 3. I don't learn substantially more about software development doing these. I may learn more about http, or json parsing but I'm doing so at the expense of learning more about my business domain. There is some minimum amount I need to know about these things to do my job. The rest is unnecessary until I run into a situation requiring me to dig deeper. To borrow a Software Architecure truism? YAGNI, You ain't gonna need it. It is a fact that I am deliberately limiting myself if I force myself to understand every layer of technology I need to leverage in order to do my job rather than specializing. I will always have to delegate some of that to someone else who has the time to go deep enough to provide a robust solution for me. I will also always have a responsibility to go deep on some of those things when it is relevant to my work.

bluesnowmonkey 4y ago

Everyone’s job in a business is solving business problems. Programmers do that mainly by programming. Otherwise we wouldn’t call them programmers.

bowsamic 4y ago
Exactly. To me it just seems like a profoundly bad idea to become overly reliant on the code of others. Then your capability to solve business problems will certainly decrease.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  I'm curious what environment you code on where you are not extremely reliant on the code of others. you may not use many libraries but you are equally dependent on the standard library, compiler, and OS you are running on.
- julienfr112 4y ago
  What would be the ratio between the the line (or instructions ?) you write yourself and the one you rely on (OS, environment, compiler, firmware ...) ? one in a million ?

frio 4y ago

Introducing a towering pile of dependencies is _introducing_ a business problem; there is a cost of ownership to a dependency tree that only grows as it grows. Grabbing a library from somewhere and saying "problem solved, onto the next one" isn't a sustainable development practice; there has to be some assessment of "is this library popular/the maintainer trustworthy/what risk do we carry if it gets abandoned/will someone pick it up/_does it solve a big enough problem to warrant the effort_" that goes with every choice to pick one. Further, every single 3rd party dependency carries security risks, and every time you add one, you make it more likely one of them will get compromised. I used to be a "just grab the libraries and move on" guy, but we're currently working on getting $currentEmployer off some old major versions of React, CRA and Spring Boot because a previous developer was of the same mindset and half the stuff he grabbed has died and isn't forwards compatible. It's not a fun process, and many problems the libraries solve could've been solved in-house for less total effort.