To what extent do you use frameworks?

Question

In general, to what extent and when we should use frameworks?

It is important to previously learn "raw" language, or you can start learning through frameworks?

What are the disadvantages of using them repeatedly?

Answer 1

To what extent to use frameworks?

Difficult to answer that, "to what extent" is something very open, very free for each one’s interpretation.

In general, to what extent and when we should use frameworks?

We use frameworks to take advantage of an infrastructure for a type of task or application as a whole performed by someone who has already had the same problems you will have and deliver you "ready". It gives productivity (up to page 3^* :) ), avoids certain errors but gives low flexibility too.

It is important to previously learn "raw" language, or you can start learning through frameworks?

This has a lot of opinion. I think you should only use one framework after you know how to do without it. You should learn the basics and know how each thing works. But what I see nowadays is that almost everyone uses a framework because he doesn’t want to learn how to program for real. In general it’s the only option a person has. No wonder that today many software suffer from low quality.

But I admit that for some programmers the framework can be a gift, without it the code of the person would be much worse precisely because she does not master what she is doing.

A good learning is to create a framework, even if it is not to use it. If you do it right, if you know how to evolve it can learn many development concepts with it. In fact this goes for almost everything in programming, not only frameworks.

What are the disadvantages of using them repeatedly?

• You have to do what the creator has determined is good, which is not always good for you. You’ll probably have situations that you can’t handle well with him, and it can be pretty tricky to solve. Often the solution will get crooked, or happens what I see a lot is that the programmer says it can not do.

  It is inflexible. Even when it has some flexibility not without a complexity cost that would not exist if it did in the hand only what it needs.

  It is universal knowledge that they are limited and do not solve everything. And if solving is because you had something so simple that the use of them was not so necessary.

  The term we use for this is "opinionated" which in some cases may even be an advantage.

• You get stuck with it, if you ever need a very different solution, throw it all away. And/or you stick to your model, learn to do everything his way and can’t do it differently, you start to think that all the problems are nails because you only have the hammer in your hand, you can even hit the use the first time, but next time it won’t do but you’ll use it anyway.

  If you only learn the framework you can never call yourself a developer, you’ll never have the best jobs, you’re just a customizer of framework, most of these jobs are underjobs. The difference in salary from one to the other is 10 times.

• Because one thinks that one does not need to learn anything in detail it is common that the user of frameworks tends to do more atrocities in the code. And the moment the framework begins to expose its limitations, huge gambiarras are made. Often because the person needs to do something that he only allows with a lot of customization, more than he should.

• It’s very common for people to choose the framework wrong, because to make the ideal choice you need a knowledge that the person doesn’t have, and maybe doesn’t want to have. And it’s common that the ideal for what a person really needs doesn’t exist.

• Often the framework is much heavier and consumes much more resources. He is an abstraction and that is always an advantage and disadvantage. Some arrive to cause well visible damages, others only increases the cost that will seem normal.

• There are cases that they become problematic or are abandoned, and you go along.

• I’ve seen people using the framework no worries about the license and be wearing something in a pirate way without knowing :)

Alias, knows what a framework?

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^*In the beginning it is beautiful, it goes well, everything seems right, it works, from then on the problems start to appear and fall apart and you regret the decision to have started, but since you are there many times you end up suffering all the way. When you don’t know the whole, you’ve only seen the marketing, biased opinions, just the simple and easy that works and the cover and even the page 3 of a book, that’s not what defines how your whole experience will be, this start is made to catch you so it’s neat, the rest is not usually.