in reply to "Standing on the shoulders of giants"

There is just one problem with that; yesterday's solution is not necessarily the best for tomorrows hardware. (or user requirements)

Various folks seem to think that software once written never needs to be rethought, and whilst that may be true one day; when we have completely and finally optimised and maximised the hardware side of the equation, currently it is not true and it's a mistake to think that we can rest on our collective laurels, treat existing code like gospel beyond question, and to dismiss out of hand anything new.

  • Comment on Re: "Standing on the shoulders of giants"

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: "Standing on the shoulders of giants" (rethink)
by tye (Sage) on Nov 29, 2011 at 02:42 UTC
    Various folks seem to think that software once written never needs to be rethought

    What a ridiculous supposition.

    In my experience, there are no shortage of people who announce their new software and then get questioned about why they went to so much effort rather than just using this or that similar pre-existing software. And they mostly get asked that because their announcement of their new software fails to answer such questions (usually it fails to even acknowledge the existing similar solution much less make a good case for why the new solution is better for the motivating case, much less "in general").

    This is so common that it has become quite common to start with the assumption that insufficient consideration was given to the option of not starting from scratch. I admit that I would prefer some people to moderate their devotion to evangelizing around that.

    It seems to me that a more probable supposition is that some people get tired of having their from-scratch creations questioned and so invent a ridiculous pathology to help them dismiss such responses.

    I even reinvent a lot of stuff. And I see a lot of skepticism that some reinvention of mine was worthwhile. If it bothered me, I'd put more effort into documenting the benefits of my versions as compared to others. But I probably also see less skepticism than many because I often feel little compulsion to evangelize my (re)creations. Go boldly bragging about your awesome (re)invention and you'll get extra helpings of counter points, naturally.

    - tye        

[reply]
      My #1 reason for "reinventing the wheel": it's often faster to just do whatever scratches my itch than to find out whether someone already has done it, decide whether it's actually good enough for me, and to figure out what hellish API they may have thought up.
[reply]

      I freely and openly admit that I wrote my 're-invention' because when I started it I had absolutely no knowledge of what had been before, not even CGI.pm

      But once I'd started down the path I found, the more I learnt about what I didn't know, the more I found that I didn't like it anyway.

      I also freely admit that a lot of the problem I encountered in presenting my ideas was my own fault for not properly documenting what I had done and for getting annoyed at people failing to understand it because I hadn't documented it.

      To be honest I'm one of these people that flits willy nilly from one thing to another, I have attention deficit and if I'm not coding, I'm playing a game or my guitar, or piano, or I'm outside having a smoke.... anything but writing documentation!!

      At the end of the day I'm 100%, no 110% glad that I took the path I took and came to where I am now :

      http://www.perlnights.com/?action=show_thread§ionid=1&threadid=251

      I guess I really ought to write the documentation, and find a better name for the code which is not in use by someone else. I'll do that eventually, right now I can't be bothered :)

[reply]

In Section Meditations