Reuse Code Or Code It Yourself?

eldavojohn writes "I began coding for a project that had simple requirements for my employer — Web services and a test application for them. But requirements have been creeping, as they always do. Initially I had decided to use the Spring Framework with Hibernate. And I re-used a lot of libraries that made things simple and quick for me. The new requests coming in involve capabilities beyond those of the frameworks. Now, I used to be told that good programmers write code and great programmers reuse code. It's starting to look like I would have saved myself a whole lot of time if I had written the database transaction using JDBC instead of Hibernate — now that I'm married to this object model framework, some of this stuff doesn't look doable. So what is better for the majority of software projects out there: reuse code, or code from scratch? What elements or characteristics of a problem point to one option over the other?"

Comments

Re:It's knowing when

[SQLGuru]

Laziness is not a bad trait, since this will sometimes help you decide where you are best spending your energy. The bar is a good answer, but not applicable in this scenario ;)

I like to say that there is a fine line between laziness and efficiency. The only difference is that efficient people actually get stuff done. Lazy people are just.....lazy.

Layne

Re:It's knowing when ... Profit!

[pbhj]

a great programmer can:
1) Evaluate the suitability of existing code for the task
2) Use the existing code appropriately
3) Write excellent readable, maintainable code when needed (and only when needed) to fill the gaps
4) Communicate well with the business to understand the problem and design a solution

5)...
6) Profit!

I wish I was a great programmer then I could cure world hunger, poverty and conflict and walk on water in my spare time ....