Counterpoint to these two posts: a journeyman used to have to make his own tools. He could easily have bought them, or his master could have made them. Making your own tools gives you vastly greater skills when using the tools. So I know how fast AI agents and model APIs are evolving, but I’m writing them anyway. Every break in my career has been someone telling me it’s impossible and then me doing it anyway. If you use an agent framework, you really have no idea how artificially constrained you. You’re so constrained, and yet you are oblivious to it.
On the “wasting three months” remark (GP), if it’s a key value proposition, just do it. Don’t wait. If it’s not a key value prop, then don’t do it at all. Often times what I’ve built has been better tailored to our product than what AWS built.
I agree with this point. It is about being a craftsman esp. the point about if it is part of your KVP or not.
In addition to this, if you do have the skills of doing it, then you can either patent it or open source it.
This will allow you to be part of the ecosystem giving you a much greater heft in the community. At the very least, if you've done something at least put it out there as an alternative to what's being pushed by AWS (or whoever). You never know...
You can make your own hand plane, and you will be a better woodworker for it. Still in a few months your competition will be using a electric planes and routers
the hand plane vs. the electric plane may not be the right metaphor. It will be more like one hand plane vs. another.
Just because it is a "great big" company pushing it with all their might ($s), doesn't mean it is the best solution out there. There's a lot of people who would prefer the alternate.
Like a previous post said, just make sure it lies in your base competency (which you have if you've developed it) and is part of your key value proposition.
The cult of efficiency aims to turn craftsmanship into something that only concerns hobbyists. Everything else is optimizing money in vs money out to get as close to possible as revenue being directly deposited into shareholders bank accounts.
On the “wasting three months” remark (GP), if it’s a key value proposition, just do it. Don’t wait. If it’s not a key value prop, then don’t do it at all. Often times what I’ve built has been better tailored to our product than what AWS built.