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Yeah, this is a classic canard, and I think it’s completely wrong, at least in software. “Build vs. buy” in software isn’t a question of the cost of building an
by jdlshore 4y ago
Yeah, this is a classic canard, and I think it’s completely wrong, at least in software. “Build vs. buy” in software isn’t a question of the cost of building and maintaining it yourself vs. the cost of buying it from someone else. It’s the cost of buying it, learning it, working around not-quite-right behavior, keeping up with updates, and dealing with incompatibilities.
Sometimes those costs are worth it—for me, typically when it will take more than 1-7 days to build just the pieces I need—but it’s not as simple as common advice will have you believe.
- kqr 4y agoAuthor here. This is a comment I've received multiple ways, and I agree. There's a point at which existing solutions would be much more complex than we need, and we would be better off making something simpler, more tailored to our needs on our own. This perspective is missing from this article -- and it's important enough that I'm planning on making it a separate article.
- 082349872349872 4y agoIsn't that "build to buy"? By building the simple sol'n we need now, we gain the expertise necessary to pick which off-the-shelf sol'n to continue with after we start to grow out of what we've built?