Library vs. Framework

I thought I'll use my blog entirely for registering my thoughts on software, programming in general. It won't be a Joel On Software, but I'll give it my best :-)

During our college days, most of us started out programming with libraries. Eg. the C Standard libary or the Win32 library. By library we mean the main() function of the program is in control of the entire flow of the program. The main() function calls other functions in other libraries and gets the job done.

As time progressed software needed to be developed more faster and more efficiently without wasting time on tasks which provide plumbing. So, we needed to concentrate on the business logic of the application and abstract the redundant plumbing code.

Enter Frameworks.

Frameworks essentially provide skeletons/boiler plate applications. They have all the plumbing code minus the business logic. Eg. .NET framework, MFC etc. We only need to write code in places we need to customize, as per our business logic. By doing so, frameworks give tremendous productivity. In these days where hardware costs aren't a limiting factor, productivity is the key to the success of mainstream software development.