Framework vs Non-Framework

Last Update: 29.01.2019. By Jens in Newsletter

Using frameworks vs never using frameworks is a big question.

And the anser to it is, it depends :-)

Both have trade-off as anything else has too. What I learned over the years is, to not see this dogmatic in any way. It really depends on the situation at hand and what the goal is. However, I’ve far too often met fellow devs, who are too dogmatic with that. They either fall into the framework forever or in the opposite category.

Dogmas are not good. They blind us from seeing valuable solutions.

Yesterday I was talking with a guy who made the progression from the non-framework folks to the other side. He developed an application roughly ten years ago and did everything himself. He even went so far and developed dependency injection into his app. Essentially, he developed his own framework, so to speak. The difference was, it was his and he knew the internals and could fix anything. The control part as I call it. Feeling in control.

However, he progressed out of it as he noticed the benefits of an existing framework like Spring brings to the table. He now can crank out biz logic much faster than before. Without worrying about the infrastructure boilerplate part. He’s happier now.

I think more old school devs from back then are prone to the non-framework stance. The younger ones tend to go the all-framework route. A problem with the latter is, that you end up with a lot of external dependencies you have no control whatsoever about. There’s a saying: The half of the internet maven does not download is now downloaded by npm.

Evaluate before you decide, just don’t get attached to one sides dogma.

-