Hacker News Reader

Comment by sambeau | Hacker News Reader

This comment totally missed the point:

  A good framework is nothing more than your toolbox 
  filled with a good selection of tools.  Some tools are 
  very general purpose (standard claw hammer) while others
  are very specialized (roofing hammer).  Having them all
  available and knowing when to use them is half the battle.

No, sir. That is a good library.

View on HN

No, sir. That is a framework you may not be familiar with.

There are frameworks specifically designed to be modular, and of which 90% can be used as a library, without being forced to apply it's MVC or scaffolding bits.

The line between framework an library is a blurry one in a world where "framework" does not equal "Rails".

Framework: it calls you.

Library: you call it.

Well put.

BenjiSmith puts it similarly in a comment halfway down:

  A library is something *contained* within my code.

  A framework is a *container* for my application.

That distinction only has meaning when passing functions around is hard. Nobody call simple chart generating library's frameworks even if they have large numbers of call backs to your code. At the same time it's easy to find actual web frameworks that are instantiated by your code which may spawn unrelated processes at the same time.

I commented on that elsewhere. It's more like a continuum. Many libraries will offer callbacks and some are just based around callbacks. Some frameworks need to be called too. For example, IoC frameworks in Java often needs to be called/initialized/configured first (and then they do their magic).

Frameworks adhere to the Greyhound principle: Leave the driving to us. And to the Hollywood principle: Don't call us, we'll call you.

Someone once wanted to know what inversion of control was. I told them that inversion of control simply meant in Soviet Russia, API calls YOU!

Why are they downvoting you? You're right, a framework is more than a toolbox, it also provides a skeleton. If you want a toolbox you want a library, not a framework.

Most frameworks are composed of libraries anyway.

A well designed framework should allow you to use its separate components as well as the whole thing. For example, you can use Zend Framework as a full framework, or as a library by importing individual classes (e.g. I use Zend_Http_Client for connecting to RESTful APIs, even though none of my projects use Zend as a framework). Unfortunately most of the other frameworks I've used tend to be all or nothing.

I think a better analogy then Jeol's is that a framework not only gives you a toolbox with plenty of good tools (not all of which you might need), but it also puts the frame for your house in place. That can restrict you in the kind of house you build, but it can also save you some time.

It's a post on a discussion forum on Joel's site, not a post by Joel himself. Easy to make the mistake though (I quite often get halfway through a linked comment on there before I realise)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com