People ask me a version of the same question all the time. "Why are you spending your evenings building your own thing? There is already a tool that does this."
This post is about why I keep choosing the harder path of building from scratch when off-the-shelf tools exist, and what that choice has actually given me back.
- Learning by doing vs. learning by reading: I unpack why building something yourself teaches you things no tutorial or doc can, and why I treat construction as my primary learning loop.
- The "rediscovering America" pushback: The most common critique I get, and why I think it misses what actually compounds when you build instead of integrate.
- AI agent as a case study: A concrete example of where I ignored the popular frameworks and built my own, including what I now understand about variables, load-bearing pieces, and failure modes that I'd never have seen as a user.
- The WizBoard pivot: When I do choose to use an existing tool instead of rolling my own, and the rule I use to decide.
The part that surprised me most is the cost section. Building this way is not free, and I'm honest about what it takes.
Full post: https://thoughts.jock.pl/p/building-your-own-things-is-cool-too-2026
Free weekly: https://thoughts.jock.pl
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