Don't be afraid to code it yourself

Published on 2021-04-02.

Have you ever thought about developing some type of application from the ground up while people are telling you that you shouldn't do it, and that it is difficult, and that you shouldn't reinvent the wheel, etc.? Guess what, what you shouldn't do is to listen to such people!

There is only one sure way to become good at something and that is by doing. The more you do something, the better you get at it.

A great benefit of doing it yourself from the ground up is that you become a master of your code. If something breaks, then you're the one who knows the code inside and out. If you use some pre-made solution, then you don't know the code and will possibly have a hard time helping a client with a bug.

You should never be afraid to code stuff yourself. If every programmer was afraid to code, then nobody would ever code anything!

Every time you build something, you learn something, and each time you gain experience and skill.

If you or a client need a specific tool or an application and you do not like the available options, then code it yourself if you can.

Make sure you don't have any technical debt. Fix your bugs right away, the sooner you do it, the better. If you wait a long time, then it becomes more difficult.

Find the tools that you like to work with. I personally use Vim or Neovim as my text editor and integrate that with Ctags. Combined with the terminal applications you find available in a standard Linux distribution or BSD flavor, like sed and grep, this setup blows away even most sophisticated IDEs out there. But your millage may vary.

Happy "hacking" :)