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Boss: I saw that you are using {some JavaScript library}, why?

Me: you asked for this functionality and the library is very good for that

Boss: here at our company we do not use code from other people, we write everything ourselves

Me: but this library is very well built, actively developed and supported

Boss: I don't care, please rewrite this component

Suffice to say, I quit that job asap. Whoever thinks it's a good idea write so much code for a small purpose in an application when there is something available open source to use, is stupid. In most cases it's better to use something which is out there than to waste time writing a hardly stable version of it.

Comments
  • 95
    Try speaking the language they understand: manager.

    "Sure, but writing my own lodash library will take two months, and will expand the workload for the lifetime of the project. Are you willing to increase the project budget enough to account for that?"
  • 15
    I'd say leaving was a good decision, I don't understand why they'd want to reinvent the wheel...
  • 3
    @Ashkin what if they'd answer "yes"?
  • 21
    @RealKC

    Two months+ of payroll plus an unknown amount of future debt in place of a free, open source library? That's a insanely unsound financial decision.

    Extrapolate that to future decisions and previous projects. Estimate the effect on company finances, and by extension, payroll.

    Back away, leave, never return.
  • 26
    then ask your manager for budget to write a FUCKING OS first
  • 23
    @dhanvi shouldn't he actually ask his manager to write a BIOS first?
  • 6
    @RealKC ah you got me there

    then what about the hardware and what about the whole freaking technology!
  • 11
    @dhanvi fuck I guess he needs to ask the manager for budget to reinvent the computer
  • 6
    @RealKC or their own technology (like electricity)
  • 7
    @dhanvi I believe a delay of approximately a century is justified for achieving this task
  • 4
    @RealKC whole life time of the earth would be what i would be asking

    think of creating your own wheel

    in other words reinventing the wheel!
  • 3
    To use jquery library to select div does not make sense as well.. if library exist you do not need to use for simple things.
    The same with trackers on websites.
    Really website should use >16 to track users on home page?
  • 6
    So he also mean that you can't use Angular, React or Jquery..
    Nah, he's crazy
  • 3
    @purpletoxicrain angular and react are big frameworks for frontend, they aren't used for small functionality in most cases so if a company refuses to use them it's not as big of a deal than using say d3.js or moment.js for relevant tasks where there is no need to write a huge amount of code as it's already written for you.
  • 4
    @RealKC @dhanvi They should reprove all the science behind it too
  • 3
    There's one thing I still didn't fully understand. If I write some software for my company (actual commercial product) and I want to use some open source library that uses GPL or Apache license or whatever, which forces me to open source the whole software, can I even use that? I mean I obviously can't open source this commercial product of my company, so I must code this whole shit on my own, that would be easily done with that free GPL library?
  • 2
    He is either inexperienced or has spent a long time in Enterprise environment with a lot of proprietary solutions.

    I have met such people. They are often skeptical about open source solutions and are like "Let's reinvent the wheel for every goddamn thing".
  • 3
    @Ashkin
    That's some sound advice.
    It's committed to memory.

    My future self thanks you.
  • 4
    @Forside someone in my lab actually studied these problems. Turns out some licenses can't be used in same projects, as you mention, and even code snippets under a license would imply the use of that license (or a compatible one) for the class or the whole project.
    Conclusion was that this is not a "real" problem today as an estimated of almost 40% of Android apps suffer from license conflict and no one wants for now to sue them except for big compamies, and they have their own tools/lawyers to prevent that
  • 3
    @toz3wm Find it interesting how many of those commercial softwares have that page of hundreds of GPL/whatever library's used in the software. But no one cares, so what is the license even worth.
    I know one can decide not to open source the software, but has to at least supply the code when asked for. Still don't think any company would do that.
  • 2
  • 4
    @Forside not exactly

    IANAL

    not every open source licence forces you to open source your code

    Apache, MIT, some BSD can let you keep your code properitory

    the rule of GPL is that your code should also be GPL (open source)
  • 1
    Often times when a company bars you from doing that it's because they're worried about their IP and haven't put a process in place yet for governing external code. Open source licensing is a big headache when you have a large Enterprise environment that makes and sells things.
  • 1
    @Forside The licenses are all different. I think the Apache licenses are the most Enterprise friendly.
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