In the web development industry, one of the ways of classifying the type of web developers is separating them into two groups, one which entails those which can be referred to as ‘purists,’ while the other group would then be comprised out of those web developers who make use of higher-level GUI platforms to create the websites they build. Of course the true programmer knows that higher-level platforms require less actual programming skills and knowledge, contrary to what the phrasing may suggest, which is why a so-called hard-coder typically has more web development knowledge than someone who uses a Content Management System (CMS) to build websites.
This is not to say that CMS developers are any worse than purists, with most successful freelance web designers actually making use of Content Management Systems to produce some of the most visually appealing work in existence, for their clients. So there’s definitely a place for CMS development, going beyond the field of web design and development and permeating many business software solutions spaces.
These available ‘out the box’ solutions are becoming more and more intuitive, increasingly becoming richer in the features and customization they offer, but they can perhaps never be as flexible as everybody would like them to be. For that kind of flexibility you would need to rope in dedicated software solutions professionals who can build you each application required to your exact specifications.
This is not to say custom software developers don’t use any existing platforms to build over. In fact, this practice of using integrated solutions and platforms to tailor the final output to the end-client’s specific needs is what actually keeps the costs lower than what they’d be if every single process and feature had to be coded from scratch. However, this is exactly why there will always be a market for custom software solutions – you can only do so much with the most feature-packed, turn-key integrated software solution that comes ‘out of a box.’
Custom software development is such a specialized field that the dominant trend over the past few years is that of the biggest of companies not housing their own, in-house software division. They might have an IT division which operates more on the level of providing technician services, but probably wouldn’t have software engineers who specialize in building custom applications from the ground-up.
Instead, the custom software solutions are outsourced to specialists such as Freeport Metrics, simply because that’s what’s required if a solid, professional and robust solution that does what it was originally built to do is to be deployed. In order for any organization functioning in the modern world to remain competitive at the very least, and to ideally gain a competitive advantage, that organization needs to apply specialist level focus to their core product or service offering, while at the same time requiring specialist level computing and communication systems, hence the need for specialist, custom software developers.
In the case that the entire business is pretty much run on software, no out-the-box solution will do. A custom solution would be the only way to go.
