[OT] Extra time spent

[Chris via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 30 May 2014 at 15:26:00 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Friday, 30 May 2014 at 15:09:00 UTC, Chris wrote:
>> Plus, if there's a bug, you're stuck. I like to re-invent the 
>> wheel too, because existing wheels might not be fit for your 
>> purpose.
>
> Aye. But I don't like the term "reinvent the wheel" because 
> writing new code isn't really an invention most the time; I 
> often don't create new theoretical concepts, it is just a new 
> instance.
>
> To take the wheel analogy further, inventing it would mean 
> things like figuring out that it needs to be round, figuring 
> out concepts like spokes and tires and inflation etc.
>
> That's not what I'd do if you asked me to get you a wheel. The 
> options there are to buy one off-the-shelf or to go ahead and 
> build one (quite possibly using some or many off-the-shelf 
> components - a few existing library functions here and there - 
> or maybe making my own but using existing molds - e.g. looking 
> up the algorithm on wikipedia but not downloading an existing 
> library).
>
> I already know that round wheels rock and you need to grease 
> the hub and that , say, 27 inches is a pretty good size and 36 
> spokes is a nice round number. I don't have to do the research 
> that went into figuring all that out.
>
> "Re-inventing the wheel" makes it sound a lot harder than it 
> is. In reality, what we're doing when writing our own libraries 
> is more like "assembling a new wheel from your existing 
> knowledge".
>
> You don't want to ride on a wheel assembled by an idiot, but if 
> an experienced mechanic gave me a wheel she or he build, I'd 
> use it and I'd like it. (indeed experienced mechanics tend to 
> take very good care of their bikes!)

You're right there. "Reinventing the wheel" is often used, when 
you don't want to use 3rd party software, to make you look like 
an idiot.

For a server app I had to create HTML output. What did I do? I 
rolled my own dom module in D (187 lines of D code, including 
comments). Now I have a perfectly fine dom tree that does more 
than possible with JS. Had I used a 3rd party library, it would 
have taken me days to get it working properly, no customization 
possible, plus I would have additional library dependencies. And 
... you learn a lot while "reinventing the wheel" too.