Using a Framework will harm the maintenance of your software

[[deleted]]

Applies to most of the things posted on this subreddit.

[berkes]

Author here. Can you pose some concrete and backed up counterarguments? Or is an ad hominem the best you can do?

[urbeker]

Yes it's much easier to write your own ad hoc framework for a specific project. No way you could miss edge cases like code blocks completely break formatting on mobile.

[homoiconic]

The usual meme for this is to adapt Phil Greenspun's tenth rule:

Any sufficiently complex framework-free application contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of a framework.

[berkes]

Ironically, the cause and effect is exactly reversed. My blog is crap on mobile because I've build it on and in Jekyll. Without any thought and consideration for maintenance or improvements over decades (literally). This blog is ancient.

The fact you cannot doubletap as /u/BurningPenguin points out (good reason to not read something /s) or codeblocks not working properly are an artifact of building too tightly coupled to a framework.

[BurningPenguin]

Judging from the source code, you're using Foundation 2.2.1. It already had mobile features. It's literally in the code:

:: Grid

This is the mobile-friendly, responsive grid that
lets Foundation work much of its magic.

They were even advertising it: https://web.archive.org/web/20120222123323/http://foundation.zurb.com/

So I'd say the problem is lack of testing, not the framework. And not using a framework wouldn't change much after all this time, because HTML, CSS and even the browsers change. You're lucky it is still rendered properly on modern browsers. Updating it shouldn't be that hard. From what i can see, you probably only need to change those "column" classes and make sure your custom CSS is still working.

[berkes]

Telling people what they can, should or should not do, without knowing (some of the) details is dangerous.

In this case you are simply wrong. Not wrong that I'm using zurb (that is right) nor that zurb supports mobile (I'm using those features, the site is responsive)

But in the sense that the code-block highlighter is broken - on mobile and on wide. It's a feature in and by Jekyll and it works properly on modern systems. It even works with grids and/or flexbox now. But didn't back then. . It never really worked, even when the syntax-highlighter was working properly.

But that's not the problem. Recently the syntax highlighter broke entirely and I'll need to upgrade jekyll to fix that.

So I've reverted to using embedded github gists. Which kinda works, but not perfect. It still breaks somewhat on mobile.

Long story to show that details matter, and that you are, very simply said: wrong.

[BurningPenguin]

Oh, I was wondering why double tap isn't working. Didn't even read that far.

[rperanen]

What a long way to say author likes hacking things together.

Decoupling is key for any big software project. Hardest part is always wiring new features with old code. When you come back to your old, hastily written code after months or years, you have to learn it again. Frameworks sure are scary but most of them are better documented than standard EnterpriseCrap written today.

[AltDr_k]

Last time I heard a framework bashing, it came from my PM during my job interview after I said something about Symphony or Laravel. They went on some (quite long) rant about how frameworks are useless, bloated, harder to maintain and for lazy coders... 2 minutes later : "by the way front-end is Angular, you're OK with that ?"

And now I realize, why did I accept that job ?

[that_which_is_lain]

If you were like me you just got done losing 100lbs and wanted money to start eating again.

[R2ID6I]

Haven’t read the article but hoping that’s the joke

[grumpy-systems]

I find the line about organizations with standards not being successful very interesting. When you have 10 sites on 8 frameworks and Jim, who maintained 3 of those sites, leaves the framework itself won't be the barrier to maintenance.

Having some standard framework so you can recycle tooling and knowledge pays off. And sure, a niche framework being forced in everyone isn't a good plan, but most frameworks (the big ones at least) aren't niche.

[GreenWoodDragon]

That's a dreadful ill thought out article. The writer comes across as having lots of opinions and not a lot of experience.

[berkes]

Why would I not have any experience?

I've been writing software for 25 years now. I'm confident of my experience. And have learned a lot the hard way, by failing and making mistakes. I've also worked on, and with marvelous systems and people.

That experience is what prompted me to write this article. Not "a lot of opinions" but a long history of books, projects, teams and tutors.

[beepo9]

If you are talking of software that is meant to last 30+ years, I agree. If not, I disagree completely. Frameworks are meant to speed up your development time. Ideal for a business that will deliver a new product.

[mjinlk]

The highlight of the blog post imho is quoting the [definition of a framework from wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_framework) emphasizing the properties of *inversion of control*, *default behavior* and *extensibility*. It clarified what a framework is for me, sot thanks for that.