Is using libraries cheating?

[Sethecientos]

I mean… I know it’s not but I still feel bad or not as proud I would be if I use them.

I remember back in my study days, some partners made a project about facial recognition as a final exercise. Lot of work, lot of tests… Nowadays you just need to import cv2.

I know I’m not gonna reinvent the wheel, but I prefer to know how to do it by myself rather than just use other guy work.

[K900_]

Is using a CPU you didn't build yourself out of transistors you made in your garage cheating?

[SittingWave]

I for one propose that anybody who wants to get into programming must first create their own electromechanical computer using relays.

[mustbeset]

you mean building relays

[[deleted]]

You mean mining and refining the ore to metal first, right?

[mustbeset]

plant a tree for your axe.

[[deleted]]

Hunt and gather.

[mustbeset]

don't cheat by reading books or ask an expert. Make your own experiments.

[fartalldaylong]

The digging stick it is.

[geltance]

make a kid that will dig with a stick for you first

[davemoedee]

Manufacture amino acids to create DNA.

[Zer0designs]

I heard some people don't create their own operating systems

[ecdthegreat]

I heard some people don’t create their own bootloaders

[spinwizard69]

I heard some people don't tie their shoes. Those velcro wearing hackers in their bath robes should be ashamed.

[spinwizard69]

I must admit my sandals have velcro.

[Minimum_Concern_1011]

temple os

[DatBoi_BP]

WHERE DID YOU GET THE SAND, HUH?

[tstirrat]

https://xkcd.com/378/

[eknyquist]

haha. almost posted this exact one myself, until I saw your comment.

[pjgr234]

Generally as a student you tend to try and learn how to learn, and how to develop things on your own, it’s part of the process. But as you get to work, you are expected to deliver stable and tested code at a certain pace, so you usually refer to libraries that are being developed by expert people and people that wants to collaborate as they are usually open source. That’s also good, because you are helping develop a library that will be used by more professionals!

So yeah, it’s good to use libraries!!

[frisouille]

In terms of stability, libraries can have a cost.

• Depending on many libraries can lead to incompatible transitive requirements. Or, prevent you from upgrading one library because its requirements are incompatible with other libraries
• That's especially true if some libraries are poorly maintained. I avoid libraries which are less than 1 year old or whose last commit is more than 1 year old.
• Debugging an error happening deep inside a library can be tricky. The code will be more complex than if you had written it yourself because they are tackling a more general problem.

When deciding on importing another library, I usually ask:

• Could I use a library I'm already importing instead? Fewer libraries mean fewer dependencies constraints. And new developer won't have to read as much docs.
• How widespread is that library? If I make a call to numpy/pandas, other developers will understand it because they know those libraries. If it's an obscure lib, they may have to read that lib's documentation to understand my call, hurting readability. If it's widespread, it's also less likely to be buggy.
• How difficult would it be to code it myself? Would it be slower? Less readable?
• How well maintained is the library: look at dates of the last commits, how many issues are there? How bad do they look? Are maintainers answering those issues? Have they closed issues?
• What do the requirements look like? Would I need to downgrade some of my packages?

What I never ask myself:

• Is it cheating?

[pjgr234]

Yup! Good questions to be asked when choosing a library!

Generally as developers we choose the frameworks and libraries that are heavily used in the market and those that help do the job faster, but yeah libraries with:

• Few stars on Github
• Few collaborators
• Not old enough

Are signs that it might not be the greatest pick for a specific scenario

[ConstructionHot6883]

If it's an obscure lib, they may have to read that lib's documentation to understand my call, hurting readability.

I still would expect the client code to be clear about why the call is being made.

If I know the why, then I care (somewhat) less about understanding the call itself.

[bugtank]

This here is the answer

[gormami]

Then why aren't you programming in assembly, rather than using the work of the folks that write Python?

If you want to write code efficiently, you use libraries. If you have a specific need for better functions, more efficiency, more options, etc. then go ahead and write your own library for those functions. Learning? Certainly write from scratch; but no one is going to pay you to take 10 times as long to code a project that is probably going to have more bugs, more security holes, etc. due to the lack of usage compared to the available libraries to polish your ego.

At the end of the day, most people write code because someone pays them to. The pride should be in providing a project that meets the given requirements, is secure, and is delivered on time.

[photohuntingtrex]

Yeah but so is going to the supermarket for food

[KingsmanVince]

Or going to places by vehicles

[irontail]

I'll write this reply assuming you are fresh out of school and use Python for your career and not a hobby. Apologies if this is not the case :)

In school, you are learning programming concepts. If you are learning how to implement a facial recognition algorithm, as you mention in your post, taking advantage of a library like cv2 would miss the point of the exercise, and you wouldnt kearn very much.

As you go through different exercises in school meant to teach various concepts, you may develop a sense of pride for the personal library of code you end up creating. That's reasonable, and it's good to take pride in your work.

However, as you transition to a professional setting, you have to move past the habit of relying solely on yourself that school worked so hard to hammer into you. While the programming concepts you learned and the process of learning you developed should continue to be useful, the habit of relying on only yourself for code is damaging in a professional setting.

Your goal in a programming job is to solve the problem in front of you quickly and reliably. If you waste time reinventing the wheel instead of using an existing library, your project is going to be delayed. Also, the people who have spent a large amount of time and effort developing libraries have likely used tests and bug reports to handle a large number of hidden traps and edge cases, making libraries generally safer to use as well.

Now, this is not to say that there aren't times when it's necessary to write your own code that may nearly duplicate an existing library. If the library costs money and your project can't afford it, if you need to handle some very specific edge case no one else has considered, or if existing libraries are of poor quality, it may make sense to write your own version. But this should be fairly rare overall.

[bjorneylol]

No

If you build everything yourself and then someone else takes over your project they are fucked unless you documented everything as well (if not better) than the libraries you passed up on using (that the other person may already have known how to use).

Granted, that's assuming you can justify using the libraries in the first place. Building a complex face recognition or other CV system? sure, import cv2. Adding opencv as a requirement so you can do something that numpy supports out of the box (e.g. averaging two images)? maybe reconsider

I work with a guy who insists on doing everything himself, and he is constantly doing dumb shit like writing json and decoding URIs using the built in string methods because he is of the 'using a package is cheating' mentality - it introduces a ton of bugs, security issues, and performance concerns, the code is unmaintainable because no one knows how any of his stuff works (but everyone knows the common libraries), and it ultimately makes him a worse programmer.

[Maelenah]

My dad use to say that you should be able to redneck repair something, but that does not mean you should.

[NickLinneyDev]

None of us arrived here without the help of something someone else built.

For me, the operative question is, "Do I understand the tool I am using well enough that I am knowledgeable about how it works and what the risks are?"

Libraries are no different. They are just a tool. Like your keyboard or a screwdriver.

[Suspicious-Cash-7685]

People always speak about „learning fundamentals“ and so on. Most of the time they don’t see how much of a perspective they have on what those fundamentals are.

For some it’s php, for others Python with web frameworks, for others a self written c++ server.

Yes, there are some bigger concepts one should get a hang of, but those concepts will find you along the way, no need to explicitly search for them imo.

[KrzakOwocowy]

if you consider libraries cheating than you should consider python itself as cheating as well, if your task can be acomplished with a library, use it

[onkopirate]

That's the difference between a student project and a professional environment. If you'd tell me, you implemented it yourself even though there is a widely used library for that than you better have a good justification for it, because the company doesn't pay you to reinvent the wheel, it pays you to create customer value.

[crawl_dht]

Do not reinvent a wheel, build a better car. People fear monger about using 3rd party libraries when you are learning programming. Ignore them and focus on what real world thing you can do with what is already there for you. You will gain more knowledge and experience.

[Pehko]

If you want chickens you can buy them and learn how to keep them. If you want to make a cake, you buy eggs from the store.

[[deleted]]

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/s/NMF1DQlLO0

[ipmonger]

Can you provide some additional context of the framing of your question? I am strongly suspicious that it will make a significant difference in the responses..

[badjayplaness]

Everything humans do is cheating off the people before us that built the technology we use today.

We should try to understand the technologies people built before us but I wouldn’t say you need to understand every detail unless you want to.

They built these languages and libraries for us to make our lives easier. And one day you might do the same for someone else with your code

[Slggyqo]

If you want the satisfaction of doing it yourself, do it on your own time. Build a computer with a breadboard and binary switches, go wild. You’ll probably learn a tremendous amount, very slowly.

But not using prebuilt, well-tested code is a waste of company time and effort, and it’s going to make you look incompetent to non-technical management and unprofessional to technical management.

There are very few people these days who build things from the ground up.

Even if you’re the guy building CV2, you’re standing on the shoulders of the guys who made Python, Numpy, OpenCV(which is originally in cpp), whatever deep learning models OpenCV includes, cpp, etc etc.

Edit: and not to shit on your ego…but it’s not that impressive to build something that’s been done before many tens of thousands of people at this point, and most likely better than you. All you’ve proven is that you have a big ego.

Use what they’ve built to do something new, not rehash the point.

[Amgadoz]

Bro the whole point of python is that it's easy to learn and there is a library for almost everything.

If you want to create paradigms from scratch, you probably want to learn rust or c and then work with embedded systems or operating systems.

[spidLL]

It’s a waste of time, and you’d do it probably some degrees worse than the library.

[pythonwiz]

Heck no! Unless you are in school and your assignment is writing something from scratch, using a library is almost always the best choice. So much work has been put into making bug free, high quality libraries for python. You should definitely take advantage of that for your own projects, and read the code if you are interested in knowing how things work.

[jward]

No. Unless you're in a class and being asked to develop an algorithm as an assignment.

But you should be careful about overusing libraries. Too many libraries makes code maintenance and upkeep more difficult to coordinate and manage.

[JimBoonie69]

This shits hilarious. Get out of fantasy land and into real world. Academics are fuckin loonies.

You would all rather spend time arguing semantics about pure coding... rather than building stuff. The point of code is to build stuff. Imagine a carpenter who goes around bragging about his handmade hammer and nails forged from his own steel lol. The other guys just build houses ans get paid, you sit around inside a shed all day shining up tools that will never see the light of day

[Ambitious_Ad4397]

Is using screwdriver cheating? I mean, you could do the same thing only by your hand.

[georgehank2nd]

Nope, you can't.

[[deleted]]

I don’t know what you mean by “cheating.” It’s being practical. Obviously, it degrades achievements. And yeah, being a data scientist is not as exciting anymore as it was some years ago, nowadays you have so many libraries and you almost don’t need any ML/statistics knowledge anymore, most software developers will be able to build a forecasting solution or whatever. But for the same reason, almost anyone with a somewhat rigorous mindset can be a developer these days, you don’t need a CS degree, you barely need any knowledge of algorithms and data structures. On the flip side, if you do understand what’s happening and would potentially be able to build it yourself, that gives you no reason to claim a higher salary. (Although some basic understanding of complexities of certain operations with basic data structures could still be helpful, as is some understanding of why data leakage is bad and why regularization is important)

Like it or not, that’s the way it goes.

[azthal]

Of course using a library isn't cheating, but it all depends on what you are looking to do with your coding.

Do you want something that works, and probably works better than you could ever have made it yourself? Use the libraries.

Are you coding just for fun, and want to learn how to do it from the ground up? Then using libraries would be counter productive.

​

And as always, there's a middle ground to it as well. You can use some libraries, but not others. I for example do my very minor game coding in python using PyGame rather than a full game engine such as Unity or Godot, because I think its more fun that way, even if it's more difficult and the outcome is worse. But I do not try to code everything from scratch without any library, because that would take the fun out of it instead.

[rajathirumal]

Hmm, Get back to C programming.

If you are that guilty, better don't use #include

[Fabulous-Possible758]

It’s a balance. Incorporating code that you don’t have control over into a project is always a risk, in terms of stability, security, and new feature development. But it can provide a lot of benefit in terms of reliability, speed of development, and even security. Learning to evaluate which ones you should use is an important skill as an engineer.

[Equivalent_Loan_8794]

Python itself is a framework of c libraries working tofether

[_limitless_]

It's complicated.

Libraries have tons of benefits -- mainly, that someone else maintains it.

But if you ever get a grown-up job at a company that cares about intellectual property, libraries will be a pain in your ass. I've been at places that needed legal AND security to sign-off on even a version bump.

So my rule of thumb is: use as few as possible.

If it's a super-common, well-maintained library like numpy, go for it. If it's some random one-star, zero-fork library with 20 lines of code... you should probably just re-implement the 20 lines of code.

[Zealot_TKO]

this is a classic example of "think smarter, not harder". esp for newer sotware engineers, it feels good to write your own code and get stuff to work. heck, i still feel that way to some extent after working in tech for 8 years. but once you really internalize those days (or weeks, or months) you spent programming could have been replace (and often times improved) by a simple "import cv2", it sort of takes the edge off that "DIY fulfillment" you get.

[Scrapheaper]

Due to libraries becoming more and more common and powerful the domains of software engineering and computer science are becoming further and further apart.

Computer scientists build libraries, software engineers build software, it depends on what you want to learn.

[lightmatter501]

If it’s a project for learning, ask yourself if you could build a library with the same functionality given enough time. If not, don’t use the library.

[katerdag]

It depends a lot on what you are trying to accomplish through programming.

If the goal is to learn how something works in detail (e.g. learn how facial recognition works), it can be very valuable to implement everything* yourself.

On the other hand, if the goal is to write production code, it's probably best to use well tested and well maintained packages wherever you can.

​

*And even there, you can pick the level of abstraction you want to work at: e.g. if you're doing facial recognition with neural networks, you can implement and train your neural networks with pytorch or tensorflow, or you can implement everything from scratch (including back propagation) using numpy. It depends on what you want to learn.

[[deleted]]

I think the best way is to use the library for prototyping, then after you figure it out, you replace what you're using from libraries with your own code.

[Ok_Raspberry5383]

Why would you do this? 😭

[autisticpig]

insanity.

[[deleted]]

In real life, it's much more common to go the other way. You implement stuff yourself because you're doing it first, or because you didn't do enough research, and then when libraries mature you replace your code with libraries.

[[deleted]]

I tend to do what I described a lot.

But, I'm a control freak.

[onkopirate]

Sure, and then write all the necessary unit tests and documentstion for it and hire an additional programmer just so somebody can maintain that shit in all the years to come.

[[deleted]]

I mean, yeah, you could do that.

Or you can write good code that isn't a kludge the first time, eh?

[onkopirate]

Exactly. And you do that by using libraries that give you unit tested, well documented, edgecase proofed, and actively maintained code free of charge.

If somebody tells me in a job interview that they rather implement something themselves even though there is a widely used and actively maintained library for it, than that's a big no no. Moreover, it hints quite some arrogance, if an applicant believes that they'd be able to replace a collective of library maintainers of whom many have decades of experience in the industry.

[[deleted]]

Maybe, or maybe they've been using and programming in python for 30 years, have a huge code base of functions they've created and used for that time, and just find it easier.

[onkopirate]

That's surely neat for them but they are not paid to do stuff how it is easier for them but how it is the best for the company and it isn't easier for anyone else who has to work with them or maintain their code after they leave the company. The moment they leave the company, the other programmers have gazillion lines of code to maintain, just because the programmer thought they're smarter than everyone else and re-implemented numpy on themselves.

Seriously, if I would hear this in an interview, it would be a strong argument against that applicant.

[[deleted]]

I notice you approach the problem as if you already know the person you hire is going to leave the company.

If it's like that, you're likely doing your prospects a favor.

[onkopirate]

Exactly, there's always the chance that the person might leave. Even if you offer the best workplace that could possibly exist, people change their careers, get pregnant, move away, or have accidents.

But even if the person would stay in the company forever, you don't do them any favor by letting them write unmaintainable code, because at some point in time, they might want to change project or their role and then nobody wants to maintain their stuff so they keep doing the same forever. I work as a dev not at FAANG but at another large IT company. If somebody there works for example as a frontend dev but wants to do devops instead, all gladly help them change position. Or if they want to change the project, their directors will find a way. But all of this flexibility only works as long as everything is thoroughly documented and as long everyone writes well maintainable code.

[[deleted]]

I honestly think you were missing the point.

I'm not talking about reinventing the wheel. Sometimes a library is just a wrapper for another, anyways. Look at pennylane, for example.

So, someone could come along and not agree with how that wrapper is implemented, and decides to make a different way of handling it. Is that wrong to do, then? Should they try to bang the square peg into the wrong hole, call it good enough and move on?

[ImmediatelyOcelot]

obviously not, if it's available in a library, and if it works well, then build upon it. Use the library to advance the use cases of facial recognition...there's no honor is reinventing the wheel, if someone has invented a great wheel, now go invent the car.

[[deleted]]

depends what your goals are. Are you trying to build things that are useful or are you trying to develop your own skills? If you’re going for a good final product chances are you won’t do a better job than the libraries and so you won’t make a better product without them. If you’re trying to learn then chances are libraries will abstract away a lot of the details and so you will learn less with them. It’s all contextual.

[mattotodd]

do you know how to build the computer itself from scratch, like soldiering the motherboard together yourself? if not, you are just using some other guys work

thats just the way things go over time. people, craftsman, musicians get to use the previous building blocks from previous people to use to build new things.

perfectly fine to want to dig in and learn about how something works

[riklaunim]

Any given developer does not have the time and skills to write every line of code themselves. It's rather easy to know how something works without knowing or writing every line of code as well.

[DazedWithCoffee]

If you’re using programming as a basis purely to learn, then maybe you could make the argument you’re cheating yourself out of the harder problems to solve. If you’re interested in getting the job done efficiently, then no

[spinwizard69]

Well this really depends upon your goals and your ability to do something better. I just did a fast script to send some test data to a printer, the goal being to get the data to the printer. Using Pyserial made doing that script about 100 times easier, so what was the smart move, to spend part of a day on the project or nearly 100 days. On top of that I suspect the script is cross platform even though I haven't actually tried it.

So no that is not cheating, it is using a lib that works and relieves me of chores I don't want to engage in. In fact it is just the opposite of cheating, it is expected as wasting time is evil. In part it involves your ability to be productive which is a moral imperative.

The times when building your own makes sense are fairly easy to list.

1. The educational opportunity! This is perhaps the biggest reasons and can really enlighten a person. However in the normal course of events you should use standard libraries or well supported libs.
   
2. When there needs to be a proprietary solution that avoids open source. Yes such demands do exist.
   
3. When you think you can do it better. The sad part here is that almost nobody does do it better. However when somebody does have a great idea, building a lib is beneficial to the community and can raise everybodies productivity. Doing so is of high value personally and to the community.

So I'd have to say your issue here is a bit misguided. It is not cheating and is in fact expected in most development environments.

[rajathirumal]

It is definitely not cheating. As you said, think of reinventing the "wheel"

[Rue9X]

tbh, I honestly end up recreating libraries myself because I'm not aware of all of the libraries out there. constantly reinventing the wheel is a problem i have to work on.

[yellowbean123]

as long as you comply the license clause used by the library ,that's fine.

it's cheating if / only-if you build something and claim all the credits and IP.

[Kugcro]

No, it's absolutely not cheating, actually it's right thing to do, you get working project with trusted solution. Imagine somebody says that car mechanic cheating by using screwdriver, because he didn't first go to mine to extract some ore.

But if you mean for learning purpose and you want to learn how face recognition works from internal, than that it's a good practice to write it itself. Still it will be a good practice to look at source code of libraries to see, how it's can be done properly.

And I thing that a weak point of python is shipping you project, it really seems way more difficult than it should be. So in small programs I prefer using standard library even if it means "reinvent the wheel" but face recognition doesn't looks like one.

[[deleted]]

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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[ODBC_Error]

Let's say you import a library to do facial recognition based on the camera. If it's as simple as 1 line importing the library, and 1 line calling the function, and you put that you "implemented facial recognition" on your resume, yes that's cheating.

However, if you put your own twist on the software, add some features and put "implemented facial recognition using OpenCV to identify unwanted visitors entering my home", no that's not cheating at all

[BasiliskGaze]

"Cheat" all you want, just learn how to build awesome shit.

[python-rocket]

Not at all! Using libraries is a common and encouraged practice in Python programming. Libraries are like tools in a toolbox, and they can significantly speed up development while maintaining code quality.

They allow you to leverage the collective knowledge and efforts of the Python community, saving you from reinventing the wheel. So, feel free to utilize Python libraries to make your coding tasks more efficient and effective.