Should Developers Use Third-Party Libraries?

Originally published on Scalable Path by Aris on April 3, 2018.

Every new developer learns the following core principles of software engineering early in their career:

DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)
This acronym encourages developers to avoid code duplication and focus on configurable and reusable components.

KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Always aim for simplicity in your design by avoiding over-engineered solutions.

YAGNI (You Ain’t Gonna Need It)
Focus on your current requirements, don’t try to predict future needs

But I’d like to focus on a fourth principle, one that pre-dates software engineering:

Don’t reinvent the wheel.

This implies that you should avoid spending time and effort solving problems that others have already solved. As a developer, the most common way of putting this principle into practice is by using third party libraries.

However, their use is a hotly debated issue (in engineering circles anyway). It’s not uncommon to see skeptical senior developers who refuse to work with them. In this article, we will look at why this is, by evaluating the pros and cons of using third party libraries. You can…