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Age of "Don't do it yourself"

blog.rybarix.com

1–4 of 4 posts

Re: Age of "Don't do it yourself"

#2
In some cases, there is risk to doing it yourself (rolling your own authentication scheme). But from a pure learning standpoint, yes people should be encouraged to build even if solutions exist. Perhaps there is a better version we don't know about until it's built.

When it comes to a startup or company project though, it also depends on how much time you spend on something that isn't the core problem.

Re: Age of "Don't do it yourself"

#3

In some cases, there is risk to doing it yourself (rolling your own authentication scheme). But from a pure learning standpoint, yes people should be encouraged to build even if solutions exist. Perhaps there is a better version we don't know about until it's built. When it comes to a startup or company project though, it also depends on how much time you spend on something that isn't the core problem.

Author here.

I would add that doing things on your own, which is probably never optimal from time perspective, may open doors to solutions that you haven't seen before.

I recently experienced this is by not going through the beaten path - installing well-known dependencies and building solution based on that. I chose to experiment a bit and it turned out that I usually use small % of imported code.

It really changed how I look at dependencies.

Re: Age of "Don't do it yourself"

#4
post #3

In some cases, there is risk to doing it yourself (rolling your own authentication scheme). But from a pure learning standpoint, yes people should be encouraged to build even if solutions exist. Perhaps there is a better version we don't know about until it's built. When it comes to a startup or company project though, it also depends on how much time you spend on something that isn't the core problem.

Author here. I would add that doing things on your own, which is probably never optimal from time perspective, may open doors to solutions that you haven't seen before. I recently experienced this is by not going through the beaten path - installing well-known dependencies and building solution based on that. I chose to experiment a bit and it turned out that I usually use small % of imported code. It really changed…

I agree. If everyone always just used the standard solution we'd never get better ones. Nothing is ever done.