Just a quote illustrating that reinventing is more fun than reusing.
Overcoming “Not Invented Here” Syndrome (in software development context):
[...] Some organizations and individual developers seem quite content to re-invent the wheel over and over, congratulating themselves on their innovation at the same time.
Becoming more aware of what is already available, however, cannot help but shake our belief that “if you want it done right, do it yourself.” Many developers, too, take too much of a perfectionist attitude when considering components for re-use. They look at the available alternatives, and dismiss them for various minor faults. “The doc is not adequate”, or “it’s not an efficient algorithm”, we might hear. The faults may be quite real – but are they truly significant enough to justify starting from scratch? A developer must, of course, take a careful and considered look at components being considered for re-use – but if they do 90% of the job, is it really more effective to re-invent that 90%, plus the remaining 10, or would it make sense to contribute the final 10% to the existing component? Would it be as much fun? No, almost certainly not. Would it be more efficient and cost effective? Quite likely yes.
For an alternative opinion on reusing code of others, see In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome.
Tags: asking questions, knowledge mappingArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/04/26.html#a1185; comments are here.
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