This is similar to the philosophy maintained in the project I work in, x264: code duplication is the enemy and abstraction is your friend. Even in assembly cod

This is similar to the philosophy maintained in the project I work in, x264: code duplication is the enemy and abstraction is your friend. Even in assembly coding, macros are used heavily to turn thousand-line functions into four lines of macro calls. The maintainability difference is unbelievable--the less code you have to write to do something, the easier it is to understand and the easier it is to change in the future. Furthermore, the shorter the code, the more you can fit on the screen at one time, and therefore the easier it is to get the whole picture. The mark of an effective programmer is that he is able to do this abstraction no matter what the situation he is in--regardless of language or platform.