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While I largely agree with you about what the right kind of takeaway you should get from DRY, it seems like a no-true-Scotsman argument to me. DRY stands for “

While I largely agree with you about what the right kind of takeaway you should get from DRY, it seems like a no-true-Scotsman argument to me. DRY stands for “don’t repeat yourself”. that’s its de facto definition, unfortunately... whether it’s useful or not. Just like REST and OOP and a host of other things that “everyone gets wrong”, you have to consider that if everyone gets it wrong, maybe the messaging isn’t very good in the first place.

dragontamer 6y ago
> Just like REST and OOP and a host of other things that “everyone gets wrong”, you have to consider that if everyone gets it wrong, maybe the messaging isn’t very good in the first place. In my experience, it just means that an army of ignorant middlemen grabbed hold of a concept and ran too far with it. OOP / UML / XML / etc. etc. They all actually solve problems very well. But the people who taught those concepts were mostly selling snake-oil under the guise of XML or whatever. If any particular paradigm becomes useful: the parasite class of marketers / con-men come out and sell fake versions of the strategy. Eventually, the con-men completely corrupt the concept and we just have to move on to the new concepts that haven't been corrupted yet.