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

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.