Build what makes you special. Buy the rest(werd.io)
4 pointsby benwerd4 hours ago2 comments
  • codingdave4 hours ago
    Speaking of table stakes, the concepts from the article are table stakes knowledge for any IT leader. I'm glad it is explained well here, and the detail is great... but it is not unique to newsrooms. It applies to all companies, even tech startups. Always has.

    But it is good to be reminded of such things, and even if this is kinda tech leadership 101, there is always someone seeing it for the first time.

    • benwerd3 hours ago
      I agree that it's tech leadership 101, but I think you'd be surprised how many teams don't do this! (And how many ICs aren't aligned with the principles.)
  • billy99k4 hours ago
    Most technical teams won't do this because it will most likely mean a smaller team. You don't need nearly as many people (they also don't have to have as much experience or knowledge) to maintain 3rd party tools as you do to build in-house ones.

    It's the same reason open source reduces head count (something I predicted in the early 2000s and did see this come true years later).

    • lysace4 hours ago
      It also sucks to depend on a binary blob + support contracts. Open source wins again. Much more so if you are willing/able to roll up your sleeves and fix the bugs yourself. Noone else will be as motivated as you to fix your particular bug.

      I keep finding that it's surprisingly possible to fix the various bugs I encounter, once I decide to actually dig in. Even in languages I'm not an expert in. Available source + build system is worth so much.

      Often the biggest hurdle is the mental one, to actually try.

      • taylodl3 hours ago
        > Much more so if you are willing/able to roll up your sleeves and fix the bugs yourself.

        I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen that done over the past 25 years, excluding myself. I can also count on one hand the number of times I've seen people build their deployed artifacts from source. These are actually related issues: if you've never built what you've deployed then you're going to be reluctant to make changes, build, and deploy. In theory open source can be much better than what it is, but in practice it's not much different than binary "blob + support contracts", and that's a shame.

        • lysace3 hours ago
          (I added some text sort of to that effect to my comment while you were typing. Agreed.)