9 Things You Should Never Code Yourself

Originally published in 2014 and updated in 2019, this blog post by Andy Lester discusses the importance of utilizing existing libraries and solutions for common coding challenges to save time and reduce errors. It highlights nine specific tasks, such as parsing HTML, CSV, and JSON data, email validation, URL processing, date/time manipulation, templating, logging, and encryption, where using pre-built libraries is preferable to coding from scratch. The post emphasizes the complexity and potential pitfalls involved in these tasks, arguing that leveraging well-established libraries can prevent bugs and inefficiencies. Lester also underscores the significance of allocating a programmer's time wisely, noting that the integration of additional libraries has minimal impact on execution time compared to the time spent on debugging custom code. The article concludes by reminding readers that while creating code can be satisfying, often the most efficient solution is to rely on pre-existing tools and libraries developed and tested by experts.