A friend shared this Joel on Software post with me today. An absolute hilarious read.

Excerpt:

"So you don't have any hammers? None at all?"

"No. If you really want a high-quality, industrially engineered spice rack, you desperately need something more advanced than a simple hammer from a rinky-dink hardware store."

"And this is the way everyone is doing it now? Everyone is using a general-purpose tool-building factory factory factory now, whenever they need a hammer?"

"Yes."

Frameworks have their place but time seems to be unkind to them. I'm not a Java guy but even the Java zealots I knew "back in the day" are now less bullish on the frameworks mess that exists on the Java stack. And no, for you remaining zealots, I don't want to fight about the point.

The fact is, the .NET Framework is only a few years behind. Will it bloat too? Has it already started with 2.0 and all the changes in ASP.NET and so forth and so on? Will 3.0 see bloat or a cohesive, more conservative growth pattern.

If we're all doomed to framework elephantitus, what is the solution? My hope is that Microsoft will learn from the failures of its biggest competitor and work as hard to keep the framework tight as they work to sell their operating systems. The same aggressive and successful behavior will be the only thing, perhaps, that can save us all from the same doom suffered by our Java brethren who are now escaping in droves to PHP.

Okay, I made that last part up. But it could be true. ;-)