Software is basically free, or so the saying goes. This has created a culture of building new software all the time rather than using and building upon existing technology. It’s almost an epidemic - for any little thing new software is built. This isn’t much of a problem if it’s a lone developer writing up a few scripts. But for larger uses it’s unwise.
At scale you want battle-tested
The idea that software is free glosses over the inordinate amount of time and effort that goes in to getting something from “working” to “works all the time”. It can take only a few hours to code something up but it takes hours upon hours of real usage to discover bugs and errors in software. Then hours and hours of more time fixing, improving, and monitoring.
There’s also a lot to be said for user feedback. People will always find ways to use software in a manner you never even thought about. They’ll encounter problems you wouldn’t have. They’ll make (usually) good suggestions on how to improve software.
Over time, even a short period like a few months, this makes software stronger, more reliable, and more user-focused. If you’re building something from scratch that’s going to be used by lots of people, you need to take this time into account. There will be problems that need to be fixed and the software won’t always function properly. If you’re under budget and time restrictions then this is not the wisest choice. Of course, if these aren’t an issue then go wild and build your own software.
But if you are under time and budget constraints, you should really think about using existing software to build on your infrastructure. If it’s open source it makes even more sense because you can customize the code and there are less concerns about vendor lock in. We talk explicitly about these issues in our recent white paper.
Battle-tested software has gone through these development and user feedback cycles. It’s had kinks ironed out, it’s had new features added at the behest of users, and it’s stable. It saves time, effort, and money to build on existing software. Software is not free. Even open source software that’s free to use has had hours and hours of time put into it - paid or otherwise.
QueryTree: battle-tested reporting and visualization integration for your app
QueryTree is a fully-functioning data visualization and reporting tool that has been in production usage for over three years. The tool is tested on a number of different databases and has benefitted from three years of customer feedback and considerable development.
QueryTree is essentially an open source, out-of-the-box solution that enables users to manipulate, visualize, and report on their KPIs in ways that enhance business intelligence and improve decision-making and profit.
Building upon QueryTree’s existing code will save you an inordinate amount of development time and resources, leading to a faster time to market with a product already tested at scale and proven to be a success. For more in-depth discussion on the topic, take a look at our white paper.
You can find the QueryTree source code on GitHub.