We Ought to Have a Go-to Framework
October 31, 2024 · 2 minutes
What amaze me from the web development is that you can build anything you like by using any web tech stack. The web does not belong to a specific programming language or tech stack. You can build cool apps by using Rails, Laravel, Django, NextJS, or whatever - even your own personal framework and tooling.
It’s a lot of fun when exploring the available web tech stack. It’s nice to have a good understanding in most of those stack and paradigms. But when it comes to do rapid development, we ought to have our go-to framework.
Imagine, all of a sudden, you got an offer to develop a complex application in less than 3 months. The client will pay you $5000 as the compensation.
Or, imagine that you are an indie hacker that competes with the fund runway. You have a bunch of ideas that needs to be tested, so you need to ship as fast as possible to see whether there are markets for your ideas or not.
It would be difficult if you don’t have that go-to framework.
There’s no specific criteria to choose the go-to framework. Choose one that makes you productive and enjoy to code. I choose Ruby on Rails as my go-to framework because of that. And, it’s a mature framework as well. I love msture and stable framework, haha. Others may choose Laravel/Django/NextJS/whatever they preferred, and it’s OK, as long as you can be productive.
Don’t listen too much to the people who say “oh, this framework is slow” or “oh, this framework doesn’t scale”. We can optimize our code in various ways, as our user base grows and the application becomes bigger. The real problem is, can we scale our application user base to that scale? It’s useless if you use the blazingly fast web tech stack for application with zero active user.
When you already have that go-to framework, it would be better if you have a good understanding in other tech stacks as well. It will make you be a T-type programmer. And it’s great.
My teacher once told this when I was in junior high school: “in order to survive in this world, you must have at least one core competency”. It was in circa 2009, and it’s still relevant. Having a go-to framework means that you have an in-depth expertise in the web development as your core competency.
Tech world is wild. There are many frameworks and libraries as the times goes by. But if you do a little observation, all those shiny new frameworks or libraries are basically do the same as your go-to framework. Even your go-to framework might be better, since it might be more stable and community supports than those shiny new frameworks.
So, ya, pick your go-to framework. It doesn’t have to be a popular framework, after all. Choose the one that fits your preference and make the programming fun again.