Libraries vs. Frameworks

Software libraries empower experienced developers to pick and choose components that align with their vision, enabling them to craft solutions tailored to their unique requirements. This flexibility allows for more creativity which leads to better code and happier developers.

In contrast, frameworks, while streamlining development and providing conventions, restricts a developers ability to create and be expressive. The guardrails built into frameworks can prevent developers from writing code they way they want. Trying to do something in a framework that it doesn't cater for, can lead a developer to spend days searching the corners of the Internet for people who have tried to it and failed, and then spending days decompiling framework code to figure out how things are wired in order to get a simple deliverable done the way they want.

Skilful developers prefer libraries

It is not uncommon to struggle to find talented young software engineers who are prepared to work in these frameworks for example .Net and Java Spring. Some organisations are trapped in these ecosystems and will keep going with an ever ageing talent pool, while others switch away from these frameworks and benefit from highly skilled developers that prefer to work with libraries.

We are unashamedly developer centered. We love working in well crafted codebases written by skillful developers who take pride in their craft and their code - these codebases are easy to extend and debug. Conversely we have experienced the drag of working in poorly written codebases created by commodity developers. Commodity developers may be cheaper per day, but they take many times longer to write anything so their overall cost is higher, but also the code they write is a drag on all future developers who need to work on that codebase. Cheap commodity developers are a false economy.