I work on mostly distributed systems too and that's why I'm in the DRY camp (but only after the 2nd iteration kind of thing -- mostly). That's where the experie

I work on mostly distributed systems too and that's why I'm in the DRY camp (but only after the 2nd iteration kind of thing -- mostly). That's where the experience pays off. I think DRY is taken to extremes and you get that one-line function that does nothing meaningful except rename append or something equally trivial (rename append then append space). I like small code bases. I like only have to make one bug fix. I like being able to rewrite large chunks of code (like entire protocols). And DRY lets that happen. But I also like readability, and something that can fight against DRY I realize. I'm a pragmatist at heart. And coding is really a craft. So all these maxims have their use, but it just takes experience to know when to use and break them. But overall I see DRY as one of the more vital.