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Juanjo Aguililla
Juanjo Aguililla

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Frameworks are good... Everyone should have their own

WARNING: the only Kotlin related thing here is the link at the bottom... However, I hope the story that leads to it would be funny to you.

There are plenty of frameworks out there, specially in the JVM world. Well, not as much as in the JavaScript community (but it is pretty close).

Why people love to write frameworks? they are only tools, it is like wanting to design the perfect screwdriver, right?

Yes I know what you are thinking: "I don't give a damn about the screwdriver, I just want to build things".

And you are right, you can go to the store and pick a screwdriver designed by professionals. You just check what you need and buy one. It is totally cool.

However, what happen when you use screwdrivers for a long time? You have a few of them. Maybe none of them is good enough to use it for everything... Or they are designed for a broad range of needs and you have very particular needs (like those with many attachable heads and none of them work properly).

At this point, you may have realized that screwdriver makers don't care that much about you. They seem more worried in selling you courses about how to use their screwdrivers, or sending you people to use them for you at a convenient rate. Yes... they stopped building screwdrivers, and started building a profitable business. And now, you have to be certified to use their screwdrivers.

So you start to think... Hey, I could make my own screwdriver, maybe it is only good for me, but I'm the one building things here! right? what could go wrong?

So you build "your screwdriver"(tm), it is tailor made for you... It has an odd design, because well, everyone is used to the commercial ones (so they don't understand your genius)... Anyway, you are happy with it and you learnt a lot in the way.

However, that path leads you to stop building things and start designing screwdrivers. And so, the circle is closed. Not really in my case (I don't sell screwdrivers), but you get the idea.

That was my story, with the difference that I developed a programming toolkit instead a screwdriver (I guess you noticed that before, right?).

And that is my journey in the programming tools field: I develop a toolkit for a product which I didn't finish... Well, it is finished, but it is not deployed (but this, my dearest reader, is another story).

And, even I wouldn't pretend that anyone would have to be certified to use my toolkit, I really would like to ear your thoughts about it. Because if there is something good about making this effort (and believe me, it is a big effort) it is all that you learn in the way. And I would love to continue learning helped by my peers thoughts.

https://hexagonkt.com
https://github.com/hexagonkt/hexagon

Thanks for reading my story!

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