Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Outstanding Objects (Developed Dirt Cheap)

Posted by michael on from the search-twice-code-once dept.

Mark Leighton Fisher writes "Some readers might be interested in Outstanding Objects (Developed Dirt Cheap); or "Why Don't Developers Search the Literature?" It seems like I still see a lot of wheel reinvention going on, even with the wealth of code and information now available on the Net."

4 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. The catch-22 of code reuse by Cally · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it's generic enough to be scratch your particular itch, you'll need to do a lot of work to implement the specifics of your case. If it's very highly specialised, you'll need to do a lot of work to adapt it to the specifics of your case.

    Given the choice, would you rather work on adapting someone else's code for your situation - or would you rather write your own from scratch?

    (it's a rhetorical question ;)

    --
    "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
  2. There is a very practical reason by cpparm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If your problem is trivial, it's faster to write your own code. If your problem is not that trivial, it takes a lot of time to try to understand someone else's non-trivial solution. More than it would take to write your own code.

  3. Re:legal issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I develop in Delphi and I use a lot of stuff from the net (if you want to learn how to create reusable components, and use already made components, this is THE development environment, and there is even a free linnux version! and it is PAscal, not this joke of a language called C or C++).

    anyway, as I work that way (for my company), I then get nailed down by the legal team because most stuff on the net doe not have a licence attached to it, or has a wrong licence, or the company wants to kee 100% copyright on stuff, but we can not contact the authors or something like that.

    ie: if you develop for a company, you do not have the choice, you have to re-invent the weel (or hide it from your superior and legal teams). what a shame....

  4. Re:A few reasons by Xzzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    4) Other's people's code is documented by monkies, if at all.

    5) Integrating foreign code can be more work than just writing it yourself.