Lessons learned becoming a framework developer

• Authors: James Carey;Brent Carlson
• Venue: Software—Practice & Experience - Special issue: Enterprise frameworks
• Year: 2002

When we began developing frameworks we were naive about what was involved in developing a framework versus other software. We had experience in object-oriented development, but even that did not prepare us for some of what we learned as we developed frameworks. This paper captures some of the lessons that we learned as we became framework developers. If you have already developed frameworks these will validate what you have already learned, but for someone just starting out these are the areas where we believe you will be surprised. For example, are you ready to become comfortable exposing your work completely, since almost everything might be part of the framework product? Are you ready to become more disciplined so you can manage and deliver all these pieces? Other lessons will validate and enhance what you learned developing object-oriented software; for example, the value of patterns, especially to define customization points. All are part of the biggest lesson of all, that as a framework developer you are no longer independently developing an application for an end-user, instead you are on the many diverse customer teams using the framework--helping them deliver their applications.