

Ask HN: Have frameworks taken over? - benregn

It seams like web app/services nowadays are always built on top of something, be it Ruby on Rails, Django, Sinatra etc.<p>Does anyone write their apps from scratch anymore?
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janus
Well, normally frameworks give you for free a standard set of practices that
make it easier to build a secure and maintainable application, so it's normal
that web development is being moved to frameworks.

I find that most web applications or websites built from scratch, normally in
PHP, to be written by amateur developers that have little knowledge of
security, maintainability, best practices, database design, etc.

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kls
Right it's the concept of "standing on the shoulders of giants" While there is
educational value in writing a web app from scratch, if it offers no core
value to your product you are not working in the best interest of the project.
A lot of developers go through a "not invented here" stage where they write
everything, usually this is a mark of immaturity of the developers part.
Understanding and leveraging frameworks helps the industry evolve. If we take
the automotive industry for example (because everyone loves a car analogy), at
one time there where all kinds of fuel systems and everyone built their own
fuel system for engines. Eventually the market consolidated on best practices
and companies like Bosch packaged up those best practices into systems like
the Common Rail. Now when a car manufacturer designs a new car they generally
build on the framework of the Common Rail for their fuel system. Further the
entire power-plant is usually an off the shelf framework that they utilize in
their design. This helps deliver a new product on a proven and tested
framework for powering it.

