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Things You Should Never Do, Part I (2000)

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Re: Things You Should Never Do, Part I (2000)

#101
post #98
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a framework doesn't help at all because a framework is still somebody else's code. There is nothing special about somebody else's framework that makes it any easier to deal with that somebody else's non-framework.

I'll address both your comments here if that's alright, It's not about code quality at all, it actually doesn't matter that much if the framework is excellent or just okay to reap the main benefit, which is knowledge diffusion through the team and having a set of agreed upon idioms that there's no need to bike shed over. Not every team has a software architect skillset so it's a bit of a risk hedge as well. There's n…

That's a sound argument under certain circumstances. If you're building a standard product using relatively unskilled labor then yes, using a framework -- any framework -- can be helpful. But if you're doing something where rewriting an existing code base is even an option you would consider then you almost certainly are not operating under those circumstances. For starters, you probably have people on your team who are plausibly capable of rewriting the existing code, and under those circumstances, hemming those people in with a bad framework can do a lot more harm than good. So I stand by my original statement: "Use a framework" is not good advice in general. It can be the right thing under certain circumstances, but the art is in recognizing those circumstances, not in the use of a framework. Blindly following "use a framework" with no further qualification is a PHB move.

Re: Things You Should Never Do, Part I (2000)

#102
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely; most frameworks will not fulfill their design goal. Most ambitious open source programming efforts tend to wither away due to loss of interest, a failure to gain contributors, lack of experience, lack of time or energy and many other factors. But despite that caveat, there do exist frameworks out there today that speed up development for some developers. Whether one has the time or energy or will to audit…

> But despite that caveat, there do exist frameworks out there today that speed up development for some developers. Of course. But there also exist frameworks that will slow development down. For any X in {frameworks, languages, operating systems, libraries} there exist X's that will be helpful and X's that will not, and so "use an X" by itself is not helpful advice for any X. You have to use a good X, but that isn't…

Absolutely true.

I just intended to push back against the notion that frameworks should not be considered.

Re: Things You Should Never Do, Part I (2000)

#104
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other way around in my estimation.

I've read every line of a 300,000 line web application in less than a year working at a company. I doubt I could write that many lines of code in that amount of time.

Interesting. I usually think about it at a different scale; its much easier to write something small and clever than it is to read and understand it later.
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