Pro-Tip of the day: Stay pure
At Findustrial we strongly stick to the principle of staying pure and not relying on external dependencies. Why? Because every external software library or package we need to include in our code couples us to external companies or projects. Which is especially bad when using external code on your core business logic.
I would always consider and discuss the need of an external library or tool over implementing the code on your own. Rather take a few days in building a custom solution that fits your needs exactly over engineering an external dependency into your product.
Plus: Independence from other software vendors and projects may also drive up your businesses overall evaluation in the end.
The downside of this, of course, is reinventing the wheel. The biggest downside is probably that now all your developers are hostage to your company's ability to write good documentation as well. If its a small shop this isn't as much of a pressure but you're still bottlenecking knowledge transfer of your custom solution to person-to-person communication.
