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I've rarely had a hard time understanding code that was written for a purpose rather than importing a library. Except in rare cases (like dates, big APIs) a lib

I've rarely had a hard time understanding code that was written for a purpose rather than importing a library. Except in rare cases (like dates, big APIs) a library is often unnecessary cruft. Should I go pull a fat logger when all I need to do is send data over TCP to rsyslog? As long as I consider all of my use cases, and properly defend the cases I wont use I can write faster, often times more understandable, code. An example of a great, but often unnecessary library, is Pandas. I've seen Pandas imported for trivial CSV work, simple data manipulation, etc just because it was "familiar" rather than the right tool. Pandas is so, so, so heavy that if you're not using it completely for data science oriented work you are probably wasting your time...people seem to not understand this distinction. I've had people cut juniors/data scientists/etc loose on a "be-all-end-all" framework and ended up with the worst code I've ever seen. Edges so sharp just looking at them will cut you. I've seen code that imports trivial things like line counting! I've even been on the response team for a security incident involving several internal packages that imported the wrong thing from the package managers! I've had to re-write important library functions for a package that was imported and deprecated, and the author just went to do something else. Libraries are great, but they are not a fire-and-forget tool. When you use them, you must use them sparingly, correctly, and securely. Importantly, you need to pray a library will be maintained over the life of your software. "Documentation and community support" is worth absolutely, positively, nothing if the usage of the library enabled the writing of poor code. Hire better developers, and create strong coding standards at your company. Let software engineers do what they do best and choose the right place to include a library after evaluating all options. Experience level matters. Late seniors and staff+ understand the difference. New seniors, TLs, and of course braindead management love to bring in the universe on every project.

halostatue 4y ago
Your job as a software engineer is to solve business problems set before you. If your job is to send data over TCP to rsyslog, then you’re doing your job. If sending data over TCP to rsyslog isn’t your primary task, then doing that is a distraction, at best. Maybe the rsyslog protocol is simple enough that writing your own function is sufficient. Maybe it isn’t. I’ve been doing this for 28 years professionally and will often choose a library (and I _do_ typically look at the code and compare code diffs across versions on upgrade) over writing my own, because: 1. My job is not to write a task runner—so I use Sidekiq or Celery or Oban. 2. I’m not confounded by the illusion of NIH being lesser. I will always write my own code if it’s core to what I’m doing. If it’s a sideshow, I will absolutely outsource it to a library or a compiler or whatever. Anything else in the context of the job you’re hired to do is irresponsible.

halostatue 4y ago

Your job as a software engineer is to solve business problems set before you. If your job is to send data over TCP to rsyslog, then you’re doing your job. If sending data over TCP to rsyslog isn’t your primary task, then doing that is a distraction, at best. Maybe the rsyslog protocol is simple enough that writing your own function is sufficient. Maybe it isn’t. I’ve been doing this for 28 years professionally and will often choose a library (and I _do_ typically look at the code and compare code diffs across versions on upgrade) over writing my own, because: 1. My job is not to write a task runner—so I use Sidekiq or Celery or Oban. 2. I’m not confounded by the illusion of NIH being lesser. I will always write my own code if it’s core to what I’m doing. If it’s a sideshow, I will absolutely outsource it to a library or a compiler or whatever. Anything else in the context of the job you’re hired to do is irresponsible.