Development today is different than it was even 10 years ago. There’s the obvious shift towards JavaScript – for which there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth. However, those changes are just the first layer of the onion. Behind that are the questions of which platform or library you should use to build a solution. Do you build the solution yourself with a good probability of knowing when you’ll be done or do you look for a shortcut to possibly get a better solution done quicker. That’s the build vs. buy decision of today. It’s not about whether we’re buying off the shelf software or whether we’re developing it – but rather how much of it we’re developing.
What Platform Are You Standing On?
When you use the word platform in a development context the quick assumption is that we’re talking about operating systems. In other words, the assumption is the question of whether the platform is Windows, Linux, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Windows Phone. However, there’s more to it than that. If you’re building a solution today there’s more than just base level operating system platform services that you may want.
A platform may come in the form of a prepackaged software solution that is designed to be extended – like Microsoft SharePoint – or it can come in the form of one of the libraries that have been developed to be plugged in and used by developers. The key question to think about is why you should adopt a platform or a framework – and when doesn’t that make sense.
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