Bob the builder syndrome

Arnoud Lems — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 10:43:00 GMT

Can we build it? YES we can, but shouldn't because there's platform support for that.

Developers are an enthusiastic people, especially when it comes to solving problems. In their pursuit of solution Valhalla some tend do create their own solutions for problems the platform obviously offers support. A classic example:

There's two applications that need to communicate with each other for some reason. .Net offers a few ways of doing this:
SOAP over HTTP,
.Net remoting,
Socket communication

Someone with Bob the builder syndrome will always choose the later of the three. Reasons he would probably give are:
a) We have total control over what happens (control freak)
b) I've already looked into this and it looks pretty straightforward (oversimplifying)
c) The platform abstraction creates a lot of overhead (unfounded accusation)

I'm not saying you should never use socket communication, there might be perfectly good reasons to do so. But only after the other two have been ruled out for a really good reason. Before you know it the socket based approach will take you to your own proprietary “remoting” solution of streaming object between TCP endpoints.

Having a bob the builder in your project team can be quit a challenge. They usually are not easily persuaded and offer a well meant “I told you so” at every problem you run into. Though I sympathize with the Bob the builders in this world for building everything from the ground up is fun (I admit there's a Bob the builder in me too), there's often not a lot fun having to clean up the mess after the “pretty straightforward” solution develops into an over complex nightmare.

General

Bob the builder syndrome