How to find libraries and framework

Johannes Reichard
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

I never discovered a generic review page which had reviews and comments on libraries and frameworks. Thinking about it a little longer it is probably to complex for one review page to handle the vast amount of possibilities.

So how do I search for libs and more importantly decide for the one and against another one?

Prerequisites

  • python
  • Django
  • django-rest-framework

This is my software stack so I can orient on these prerequisites. For Django there actually is a page comparing packages and collecting usage data and other stats: https://djangopackages.org/. It helps to get a nice orientation and to get an overview of packages for a specific topic.

How to decide

Having found a lib I have some general metrics that I apply:

  • It actually starts with the amount of github stars, issues and the general activity on this project.
  • Check google for the projects name and check what comes up regarding usage, questions on stackoverflow and blog articles, sometimes also twitter
  • In the end I check the source code, reading parts or the whole project (to get an overview, not necessarily understand every detail)
  • Always check the license (or it will haunt you)

That’s basically it. With enough manpower you can also think about a proof of concept and evaluate different libraries.

Why does it work

This approach is opinionated and works for me because Django and django rest framework is an anchor: it’s a lot easier to search for Django related stuff than for general python packages and frameworks.
Django and django rest framework also do most of the heavy lifting, the biggest problems are already solved and I can concentrate on smaller packages solving smaller problems.
Open source rulez, reading the source code of other people sometimes makes me reuse the code/principle/idea without the need of using the actual package.

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