Monday, March 12, 2007

Why the "not-built-here" mentality

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/why_the_notbuilthere_mentality.htm]

A lot of developers have the "not-built-here" mentality - i.e. they only want to use code that they (or their department) built themselves. Here's a brainstorm of some ideas why:
  • Concern that external component won't actually work or fit their needs
  • Too difficult to customize
  • No fun to just plug in someone else's component - devs want to build it themselves
  • External components often have license fees (turns off managers and business sponsors)
  • Too many unintended side affects (i.e. an AJAX web control that can't handle being on a page with a postback)
  • Developers think that they can do it better than the external component
  • Fear that product won't be maintained (perhaps from a bad customer service experience)

Of course the benefit of using a third party control (especially an open-source one) is that it can save you a ton of time, potentially give you things that you could never build yourself, and provides you something far more standardized.

No comments:

Post a Comment