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:Wrong Question

[pete-classic]

Before you drew one little box or cloud on a whiteboard as part of the design process? Before your customer had a prototype to say "Oh, I don't like this at all"?

What are you talking about? The point was about being locked in by design choices. My comments were in the context of the original "ask slashdot", not whatever was going through your head when I made them. So, no, not before the first whiteboarding, but long before marrying an object model framework that squeezed all the air out of the project.

And, yes, part of being an expert is being out ahead of the ball. If you aren't asking your customer questions that he hasn't even considered then what does he really need you for? He could just get some college kids to code the thing up if it is fully realized in his mind.

I believe that ahead-of-schedule and under-budget have very little to do with success, unless there's no way in which you can delight the customer.

Well, they have everything to do with success if you're, you know, running a business. Delighting the customer is a laudable goal as well, but little comfort if you have to close the doors.

-Peter

Re:It's knowing when

[johnlcallaway]

There has only been on program ever written ... HelloWorld. All other programs are just modifications of that program and it's ancestors.