Re: Z-Rated Code and Reinventing the Wheel

[hsmyers]

You reinvent wheels when they are:

1. Out of balance
2. Not round
3. Flat

Being published or in use does not protect a 'wheel' from any of the common failings above! To paraphrase R. Crumb, Keep on wheeling!

[rhesa]

You reinvent wheels when they are:

1. Out of balance
2. Not round
3. Flat

That's funny, but it's wrong:
• If your wheel is out of balance, you realign it
• If it's not round, you tweak the spokes until it is
• If it's flat, you fix the puncture and re-inflate
Alternatively, you swap in a new wheel of the same make and model. So in those cases, you either patch or upgrade.

You reinvent wheels if your current wheel:

• melts on hot tracks
• has no traction in the rain
• takes 30 minutes to change

Remember, Ovid is talking about race cars. The existing wheels were fine as wheels go, but they didn't bring him to the finish quickly enough, or didn't fit on his car.

[apotheon]

I agree. I also agree with the person to whom you replied.

The problem with a metaphorical statement of principle like "don't reinvent the wheel" is that it then allows infintely variable refinements to produce analogies to demonstrate related principles. For purposes of demonstrating that one should violate the rule about reinventing wheels when the previous wheel is not sufficiently functional, the previous comment was apt and effective. For purposes of demonstrating realities made more obvious and prevalent with the increasing awareness of open source software development methodologies, your comment is more apt and effective.

The benefit of metaphorical statements of principles like "don't reinvent the wheel" is two-fold: both that it gets the point across quickly, clearly, and profoundly, and that it does everything I just described as a problem above. Sometimes it's a problem, and sometimes it's a benefit, but usually it's both.