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My experience with frameworks has been that, once you go outside the stuff that comes with the framework, they start to hold you back more than they help you.

by fsk 12y ago

My experience with frameworks has been that, once you go outside the stuff that comes with the framework, they start to hold you back more than they help you. It's also a nightmare to go into someone else's poorly written framework code and try to maintain it, especially because frameworks have "magic" where functions are not explicitly invoked, so it's almost impossible to trace the control flow. Every time I've been maintaining someone else's framework code, the project was a mess. I don't see how frameworks are so awesome if so many people use them incorrectly. For example, at my last job, they were using angular.js. Every 30-60 minutes the website just randomly crashed. There were all sorts of weird "$digest in progress" errors and bizarre errors. I know they weren't using angular correctly, but if a group of average developers are using angular incorrectly, do you blame them or blame angular?

mbesto 12y ago
Uhhh, you blame them.
- fsk 12y ago
  Why? If a group of average programmers use a tool incorrectly, is it the worker's fault or the tool's fault? If a group of average people can't use angular correctly, then maybe angular isn't so great.
  - parasubvert 12y ago
    You're assuming your anecdote is the norm. Angular is pretty popular because it makes some people more productive. The average woodworker probably doesn't know how to properly use a lathe, but they don't go on WoodHacker News saying that lathes suck.
    - robotkilla 12y ago
      > they don't go on WoodHacker News saying that lathes suck You're assuming the average woodworker knows about WoodHacker News.
robotkilla 12y ago
Well first, angular is not so great, but that's only one framework. > once you go outside the stuff that comes with the framework, they start to hold you back more than they help you If you're talking something like angular, you are correct. If you're talking about something such as Django, not so much. > nightmare to go into someone else's poorly written framework code and try to maintain it Try doing it with undocumented custom code. > especially because frameworks have "magic" where functions are not explicitly invoked It is your duty to read the source code when all else fails. If you start doing this you will also most likely start seeing a distinct difference between the acceleration of your career vs. your coworkers. > Every time I've been maintaining someone else's framework code, the project was a mess you have been working with or following behind poor developers. their custom code would most likely have been equally terrible and rife with bugs. > I don't see how frameworks are so awesome if so many people use them incorrectly. So are guns, drugs, genitalia and cars but people use that stuff wrong all the time. Frameworks are nice for these reasons: 1. they can help you learn how to build your own frameworks 2. they are typically documented (hopefully well-so) 3. the fact that you can identify which mistakes your coworkers made quickly ("oh, they should have used this class, function or file structure because it says so in the docs", vs trying to track down the original dev or read through mountains of source code to figure out what some undocumented thing does). Edit: i wish i would get told why i'm getting down voted on this rather than just down voted for an unknown reason. Is it the snarky remark that contains the word "genitalia"?
- fsk 12y ago
  >It is your duty to read the source code when all else fails. Wait? I have to read the source to use a framework? Which is it? Frameworks are awesome because they are well-documented? Frameworks are awesome because you can read the source when you're fighting some obscure bug? The problem with reading the framework source is that, the bits of the framework being used are usually only 1%-5%, so now I'm digging through some mountain to find the tiny bit I'm looking for. If I have a problem with GCC or PHP, I don't (normally) have to read the GCC source or PHP source. Why should I have to read the framework source in order to find out how it works?
  - 12y ago
vatotemking 12y ago
> My experience with frameworks has been that, once you go outside the stuff that comes with the framework, they start to hold you back more than they help you. That's why I prefer to use microframeworks over full blown frameworks. I can make it get out of the way if I want to by swapping out parts I dont like.

by fsk 12y ago

mbesto 12y ago

Uhhh, you blame them.

fsk 12y ago
Why? If a group of average programmers use a tool incorrectly, is it the worker's fault or the tool's fault? If a group of average people can't use angular correctly, then maybe angular isn't so great.
- parasubvert 12y ago
  You're assuming your anecdote is the norm. Angular is pretty popular because it makes some people more productive. The average woodworker probably doesn't know how to properly use a lathe, but they don't go on WoodHacker News saying that lathes suck.
  - robotkilla 12y ago
    > they don't go on WoodHacker News saying that lathes suck You're assuming the average woodworker knows about WoodHacker News.

robotkilla 12y ago

Well first, angular is not so great, but that's only one framework. > once you go outside the stuff that comes with the framework, they start to hold you back more than they help you If you're talking something like angular, you are correct. If you're talking about something such as Django, not so much. > nightmare to go into someone else's poorly written framework code and try to maintain it Try doing it with undocumented custom code. > especially because frameworks have "magic" where functions are not explicitly invoked It is your duty to read the source code when all else fails. If you start doing this you will also most likely start seeing a distinct difference between the acceleration of your career vs. your coworkers. > Every time I've been maintaining someone else's framework code, the project was a mess you have been working with or following behind poor developers. their custom code would most likely have been equally terrible and rife with bugs. > I don't see how frameworks are so awesome if so many people use them incorrectly. So are guns, drugs, genitalia and cars but people use that stuff wrong all the time. Frameworks are nice for these reasons: 1. they can help you learn how to build your own frameworks 2. they are typically documented (hopefully well-so) 3. the fact that you can identify which mistakes your coworkers made quickly ("oh, they should have used this class, function or file structure because it says so in the docs", vs trying to track down the original dev or read through mountains of source code to figure out what some undocumented thing does). Edit: i wish i would get told why i'm getting down voted on this rather than just down voted for an unknown reason. Is it the snarky remark that contains the word "genitalia"?

fsk 12y ago
>It is your duty to read the source code when all else fails. Wait? I have to read the source to use a framework? Which is it? Frameworks are awesome because they are well-documented? Frameworks are awesome because you can read the source when you're fighting some obscure bug? The problem with reading the framework source is that, the bits of the framework being used are usually only 1%-5%, so now I'm digging through some mountain to find the tiny bit I'm looking for. If I have a problem with GCC or PHP, I don't (normally) have to read the GCC source or PHP source. Why should I have to read the framework source in order to find out how it works?
- 12y ago

vatotemking 12y ago

> My experience with frameworks has been that, once you go outside the stuff that comes with the framework, they start to hold you back more than they help you. That's why I prefer to use microframeworks over full blown frameworks. I can make it get out of the way if I want to by swapping out parts I dont like.