3 ms·

I know this is in jest, but honestly there are two kinds of wheels: round things that everyone uses to roll around with in common/universal ways, and specific c

I know this is in jest, but honestly there are two kinds of wheels: round things that everyone uses to roll around with in common/universal ways, and specific configurations of wheels like this person mentioned for microwave routing. You probably don't want to reinvent the wheel that is SSL or UTF-8 or something ubiquitous like that, but there's actually not that much wrong with reinventing the way specific wheels are arranged and designed to work together in a domain-specific context like microwave routing (which I know nothing about). The act of reinventing it will probably teach you a lot about the domain itself, and depending on where you started in your journey, it can be quite fruitful (i.e. if you are a true beginner, then many of the lessons you learn will be things that are already common knowledge; if you are already a journeyman or expert, it's quite likely you might pick up some novel insights in the course of disassembling and reassembling the thing).

k__ 6y ago
If you are able to define that you indeed need a new kind of wheel, it may not be a reinvention :D Most people also don't even know that the wheel exist and don't think that they reinventing it.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  In my case, as in most, it depends. For example, they are absolutely correct about "reinventing" encryption algorithms...unless you are a TLA, and want to have something that no one else has (and have some good nerds on staff). It may also be good for control freaks (like Yours Truly), that deal with fairly sensitive data, and who don't feel comfortable using a well-known framework with a big presence on mitre.org. I'm really pretty good at designing frameworks and SDKs/APIs. I've been doing it for over thirty years (since before they were coined terms). Chances are good, that I'll probably be able to scare something up. I like how it's OK to write a new coding language, but "reinventing the wheel," to write a backend.

k__ 6y ago

If you are able to define that you indeed need a new kind of wheel, it may not be a reinvention :D Most people also don't even know that the wheel exist and don't think that they reinventing it.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
In my case, as in most, it depends. For example, they are absolutely correct about "reinventing" encryption algorithms...unless you are a TLA, and want to have something that no one else has (and have some good nerds on staff). It may also be good for control freaks (like Yours Truly), that deal with fairly sensitive data, and who don't feel comfortable using a well-known framework with a big presence on mitre.org. I'm really pretty good at designing frameworks and SDKs/APIs. I've been doing it for over thirty years (since before they were coined terms). Chances are good, that I'll probably be able to scare something up. I like how it's OK to write a new coding language, but "reinventing the wheel," to write a backend.