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Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

factoryfactoryfactory.net

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Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#31

Post by LaGrange »

rapind wrote: post #17
erulabs wrote: post #5

Simplicity is easy to mandate: "just use simple tools!". It's not always obvious when the finished product looks wonky and slanted and has to be retrofitted several times that the complexity was always there, in the world. The complexity in our tools is hopefully there to help with some complexity in the world. In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!".

> In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!". 20+ years later and I’m still saying this. Quite possible I’m still the junior in terms of skill though.

I do to, but now it's in a discord channel dedicated to venting instead of work.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#32

Post by mattgreenrocks »

jonahx wrote: post #25
erulabs wrote: post #5

Simplicity is easy to mandate: "just use simple tools!". It's not always obvious when the finished product looks wonky and slanted and has to be retrofitted several times that the complexity was always there, in the world. The complexity in our tools is hopefully there to help with some complexity in the world. In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!".

> In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!" Don't have time now to find links of Jonathan Blow, George Hotz, Casey Muratori, and many other decidedly non-junior programmers complaining about the absurd, unnecessary complexity of modern software development. The people who complain are the people who know how much simpler it can be. Now, there is a separate phenomenon of…

Hard agree.

Try to discuss this with people and it’s endless hand waving about resume driven development or not enough time or devs aren’t good enough or nobody really writes good software.

It’s absolutely toxic.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#33

Post by gottorf »

JohnMakin wrote: post #19

This is taking a shot at Java, and a pretty old "joke" but I've heard of this actually being a thing out in the wild: https://stevenheidel.medium.com/a-factoryfactoryfactory-in-p...

Another fun shot: https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpris...

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#34

Post by killthebuddha »

yetanotherloser wrote: post #2

I do take the point but I feel like the era of the factory factory was a while ago and I'm almost nostalgic for it compared to the dubious soup that we seem to have to deal with now.

dubioussoup.ai

Edit: I donno why, but the concept of dubious soup has me CRACKING UP right now.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#35

Post by mindcrime »

erulabs wrote: post #5

Simplicity is easy to mandate: "just use simple tools!". It's not always obvious when the finished product looks wonky and slanted and has to be retrofitted several times that the complexity was always there, in the world. The complexity in our tools is hopefully there to help with some complexity in the world. In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!".

In my experience, it's always the junior who shouts "This could all be so much simpler!".

Vis-a-vis the conversation that has ensued from this statement, I'll offer the suggestion that the real seniors are the ones who don't make blanket statements one way or the other, and appreciate the distinction between incidental complexity and intrinsic complexity. Some times, the problem itself is simply complex and requires a complex solution. One should not rush to eschew complexity in those cases. Other times, the complexity is incidental and is brought in by the choices of the developers. In (many|most|all|??) of those cases, we should try hard to avoid that complexity.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#36

Post by saurik »

88913527 wrote: post #28
epiccoleman wrote: post #4

The worst part of this kind of thing is that young carpenters honestly, really, truly, just need to learn to use a hammer. They can't even conceive of the problems that are being solved by the hammer factory, let alone the factory factory. But in the world of the factory factory factory, the apprentice carpenter (who really just wanted to drive a few nails) is now faced with trying to understand the gargantuan comple…

Everyone needs to learn to do calculus by hand before advancing to the calculator. People picking up frameworks without fundamental understanding is a shockingly common fallacy.

I mean, you certainly should learn arithmetic before using a calculator, right? But a calculator is more of a library than a framework, anyway, so your attempt at proof-by-analogy isn't at all resonating with me.

(edit: I think I misread the comment I replied to and am now in the process of maybe figuring that out downthread.)

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#38

Post by yetanotherloser »

killthebuddha wrote: post #34
yetanotherloser wrote: post #2

I do take the point but I feel like the era of the factory factory was a while ago and I'm almost nostalgic for it compared to the dubious soup that we seem to have to deal with now.

dubioussoup.ai Edit: I donno why, but the concept of dubious soup has me CRACKING UP right now.

I couldn't think of a better phrase, ok? glad if it amused!

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#39

Post by spicybright »

88913527 wrote: post #28
epiccoleman wrote: post #4

The worst part of this kind of thing is that young carpenters honestly, really, truly, just need to learn to use a hammer. They can't even conceive of the problems that are being solved by the hammer factory, let alone the factory factory. But in the world of the factory factory factory, the apprentice carpenter (who really just wanted to drive a few nails) is now faced with trying to understand the gargantuan comple…

Everyone needs to learn to do calculus by hand before advancing to the calculator. People picking up frameworks without fundamental understanding is a shockingly common fallacy.

Extremely common, and was one I fell into as a junior dev myself (early 2010's).

Some reasons (based on my experience):

- University classes were either very low level, or using some new framework to increase your employment prospects

- All the experienced devs would hop jobs every few years, leaving less opportunity for mentorship.

- Lack of convenient resources for gaining base knowledge. Googling "how to make a todo list webpage tutorial" will always have articles using the latest web frameworks, for instance.

(Not really anyone's fault, a good engineer has know where to go for the right information. But as a junior without that skill it's easy not to get good information.)

My personal strat when learning a framework is sometimes building what I want without it, running into the common problem patterns, and then looking at how a framework solves it.

It's very time consuming so I only do that for personal projects, but I think I've learned the most base knowledge for really groking a framework doing that.

Re: Why I Hate Frameworks (2005)

#40

Post by chongli »

saurik wrote: post #36
88913527 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone needs to learn to do calculus by hand before advancing to the calculator. People picking up frameworks without fundamental understanding is a shockingly common fallacy.

I mean, you certainly should learn arithmetic before using a calculator, right? But a calculator is more of a library than a framework, anyway, so your attempt at proof-by-analogy isn't at all resonating with me. (edit: I think I misread the comment I replied to and am now in the process of maybe figuring that out downthread.)

Calculators do a lot more than arithmetic these days. Without knowledge of calculus, most people think of a calculator as a magic “black box” that outputs square roots and cosines.
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