I am confused as to whether it is acceptable to use code produced by other people for something that is related to me and my creations. Do i have to resort to coding my portfolio website with pure css and js to demonstrate my credibility and experience as a candidate employee? Does the ideology of ‘using other people’s tools to create a better product’ apply here in this context, or would it be considered plagiarism? Is there some sort of gradient as to how much i should use third party tools for my website for it be ethically appropriate, if it all?
It’s only ethical if you build the server yourself from materials found in nature.
To program from scratch you must first create the universe
Yes, you should use third party tools (just don’t take credit for them, maybe even credit the tools used in the footer). In a real job, you would leverage third party libraries to work more efficiently, so you should do the same when showing off your skills.
Yep, someone that insists on writing everything from scratch is sort of a red flag to me. Web development is mostly about knowing how to use third party packages and building on top of that.
Insists != for practice.
I’ve been mulling a “reverse engineer” for practice. But yeah, for the portfolio, you want to use the same ethos as you would use in the job
Yes, of course. Just make sure you’re abiding by their license, that’ll tell anyone who cares how it may and may not be used.
Everyone has good answers but I would check the license of more obscure libraries to just be sure you’re not violating it. GitHub has a handy feature that explains the license (if one exists) in easy to understand terms. I’ve never ran into this issue myself but it’s a good habit to have. Especially when you’re working for a company.
Absolutely fine.
Could you imagine if every developer recreated the wheel for every project?
There are definitely companies like that out there lol, legacy tech can be horrifying.
All of society is built upon the foundation laid by others. As long as you’re not misleading people into thinking you created something you didn’t, I don’t see any problem.
Would you use them when building things for a client? If yes, then yes. No one gets mad at a carpenter for buying nails.
