Depending on what technology you work on or utilize, odds are there are plentiful of libraries available to you. What are libraries, you ask? Well a library is a code base that someone else has already pre written that has a reusuable functionality.
For example, back when I was developing my Rails Portfolio app for flatiorn - I was struggling with building a Friendship relationship where a User can add friends; thus a user is related to another User via a friends table. However a User can add a friend - but they are not necessairly friends until the other User accepts said friend request. While working on this I discovered a gem that does the exact funtionality I was trying to develop. The idea behind libraries or gems (in the case of ruby) is to be efficient as a web developer and to not have to reinvent the wheel.
There are pros and cons of using libraries or gems. In my case I opted not to utilize the gem - and in tern spent much more time that I would’ve if I were to implement that feature with the gem. If not for that particular feature, I would’ve had more time adding and developing additional features. However, because I didn’t utilize that gem I was able to learn and garner more knowledge and experience. Not only that the problem with gems is version control. If a gem is not regularly maintained, there comes the issue of what if the code base Ruby gets a new version and your gem is no longer supported - that would break your entire application.
It’s a give take, sometimes you have to choose your battles. As someone who is just starting up it makes more sense to reinvent the wheel versus using libraries/gems. I would garner more knoweldge; however one can argue that with more time saved by utilizing the library - one would be able to implement more features that may or may not have a library. And by implementing more features you are learning as well - the more you code the more you know.
So libraries/gems are there to help - but don’t necessarily rely on it all the time. Sometiems it’s worth it to break it down and try to reinvent the wheel again.