Why is it, that with every project I work on, I seem to run into yet another homegrown framework? Some mad scientist has decided he’s got a better way to process http requests than the fine folks who wrote Spring MVC or Struts. I’m not talking about servlet based frameworks that print HTML and were written ten years ago. Sure, it sucks to be on a project like that but you can’t really be that angry about it – those are the tools that were available back then so that’s just how people did stuff. I’m talking about the projects that started a year ago, yet still have some guy’s pet project MVC or data access framework.
I’m not sure why this seems to be such a common occurrence. Perhaps the culprits are those who’ve just finished reading their first patterns book and really feel the need to put together a nifty framework using all those patterns. While implementing a framework may be a useful academic exercise to become familiar with patterns, using such a framework in lieu of a proven solution that solves the same problem is probably not a great idea. Many of the patterns required for a web application have already been implemented in existing frameworks. In fact, identifying patterns in a framework such as Spring is also a good academic exercise.
While it’s very possible that you’ll need to extend an existing framework or write something that is domain specific, it’s not very realistic to think you’re going to single handedly write something like a data access framework that’s on par with an industry standard solution like Ibatis or Hibernate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I think I’m going to be using the same set of standard tools five years from now. However as I've mentioned before, once a tool has made my list of preferred solutions it takes a quantum leap forward for me to trade it in for something new. In all fairness, maybe you’ve created a solution that is indeed a large enough advancement to justify replacing an industry standard technology. If you truly believe that to be the case, ask yourself how you’d feel about releasing your framework to the open source community. Chances are, your gut reaction will be that you don’t necessarily want engineers from around the world scrutinizing your code just yet. It’s easy to push your solution on a captive audience of co-workers. Things tend to change when the people evaluating your solution are a group of completely objective strangers.
It’s easy to become enamored with your masterpiece and convince yourself that it makes sense for your company. The reality is that teams of talented engineers have created the tools you’re trying to replace. An endeavor of that magnitude is a large project in its own right and would require your full attention. Most likely you’re not able to make that type of time commitment. Even if you were able to replicate their results you’d be creating a proprietary solution for a problem that’s already been solved using technology that’s familiar to developers everywhere. It’s very hard for me to envision a situation where the cost incurred to develop, maintain and document that proprietary solution would be worthwhile. Do yourself and the people who inherit your project a favor and take advantage the technology that’s available.
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