3 ms·

I'm so bored of the "Do not Reinvent the Wheel" line. Why? I want it to be my wheel, what is wrong with reinventing the wheel? Inventing creates innovation an

I'm so bored of the "Do not Reinvent the Wheel" line. Why? I want it to be my wheel, what is wrong with reinventing the wheel? Inventing creates innovation and innovation sparks creativity and that's what programming is all about; creating. So if you don't your stuck with someone's else invention, that's no fun. Why should I use their invention and not mine? If it makes the spec, what's the issue?

eimrine 3y ago
Text areas, scroll bars, select inputs.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Select inputs are a decent example of why people reinvent things. There's no native combobox type input; html5 gave us list input + datalist, but no multiple selection. If anything, the select element has been a perfect example of a bad interface design: it is extremely difficult to use with large lists, but the lack of native combobox has had people reinventing the select input for years. Number inputs have always been a vile thing to work with, as is the "required" attribute.
presidentender 3y ago
If you're in the business of wheels, or if it is a hobby, make wheels. If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels. If you are in the business of transportation, buy carts.
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  > If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels. I just don't agree with that logic. If you make your own carts, innovating your own wheels will yield cheaper costs in the long run. You have a new design and it could be something better. In conjunction you can than produce your own cart to that better design. Sure your not a wheel business, so you don't sell your wheels as that's not your specialty but you can now provide your own wheels for your own carts. Otherwise your vendor-locked to that manufacturer. And what then if they decide to stop selling the wheels or carts that you rely on, or increase the prices? You don't have Amazon (Cart) selling Google's Infrastructure (Wheels).
  - lwhi 3y ago
    It's not easy to do everything well .. and each stage of the process requires expertise. It's fairly good logic.
    - doublerabbit 3y ago
      Who says? Its flawed logic that for example makes the internet or any product cheap and stale. This era of mobile phones is a good example, when providers created their own device before selling out to Android, it was a fantastical place. Now when choosing a phone all you have is a different same rectangle with the same OS. If you hire the expertise, you add that in to cost factor of your company. Or you set a budget and in creating your own variant while you sell your first. I open a cookie shop. I sell pre-made cookies that taste amazing and make customers happy. You hire the kitchen staff to make your own cookies, not as good and they don't sell as well. You keep going and keep growing the quality as you slow down selling the amazing cookies. Because as an scenario, say the company who's providing you with amazing cookie changes their recipe for budget cuts and now they're now not selling as good as before, bland and sickly. You lose sales and by not reinventing the cookie you lose quality, rep and profits. I'm just amazed no one can give me a good case to why not. Innovation is what's missing from this world.
      - lwhi 3y ago
        Standardisation is not a bad thing. I think your analogy is flawed.
      - vore 3y ago
        If you’re selling cookies, are you going to be milling your own flour from self-grown wheat? The original post was just saying at some point you are drawing a line between what you consider to be your competency versus what is not.
        doublerabbit 3y ago
        Regardless to how stubborn it makes to the comment, Yes. I don't see why not. There is no versus to be had. We are always competing, it doesn't have too. As in the end all that really matters is making the consumer,customer, end result happy. By milling the raw grain, you can then make your own machine. With that machine reduces the production costs. It's not a task that can happen overnight. But to own a piece of land and to make raw produce from that isn't trivial.
madeofpalk 3y ago
For the user, the problem is if you reinvent the wheel poorly. Remember all those terrible ‘scroll jacking’ website? The bar to reinvent the wheel has to be high. You should have significant value to add, and you’ve got to re-implement all the other behavior users expect.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
D-Coder 3y ago
I'm reminded of a story about why reinventing the wheel is bad. It's not so much that it's a bad idea... it's the endless arguments about whether our wheel should have three corners or four.
yen223 3y ago
The funniest part about the phrase "don't reinvent the wheel" is just how often, like, actual wheels get reinvented. And for good reason - imagine sticking bicycle tyres on the landing gear of a 787 just to avoid "reinventing the wheel"!

eimrine 3y ago

Text areas, scroll bars, select inputs.

zdragnar 3y ago
Select inputs are a decent example of why people reinvent things. There's no native combobox type input; html5 gave us list input + datalist, but no multiple selection. If anything, the select element has been a perfect example of a bad interface design: it is extremely difficult to use with large lists, but the lack of native combobox has had people reinventing the select input for years. Number inputs have always been a vile thing to work with, as is the "required" attribute.

presidentender 3y ago

If you're in the business of wheels, or if it is a hobby, make wheels. If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels. If you are in the business of transportation, buy carts.

doublerabbit 3y ago
> If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels. I just don't agree with that logic. If you make your own carts, innovating your own wheels will yield cheaper costs in the long run. You have a new design and it could be something better. In conjunction you can than produce your own cart to that better design. Sure your not a wheel business, so you don't sell your wheels as that's not your specialty but you can now provide your own wheels for your own carts. Otherwise your vendor-locked to that manufacturer. And what then if they decide to stop selling the wheels or carts that you rely on, or increase the prices? You don't have Amazon (Cart) selling Google's Infrastructure (Wheels).
- lwhi 3y ago
  It's not easy to do everything well .. and each stage of the process requires expertise. It's fairly good logic.
  - doublerabbit 3y ago
    Who says? Its flawed logic that for example makes the internet or any product cheap and stale. This era of mobile phones is a good example, when providers created their own device before selling out to Android, it was a fantastical place. Now when choosing a phone all you have is a different same rectangle with the same OS. If you hire the expertise, you add that in to cost factor of your company. Or you set a budget and in creating your own variant while you sell your first. I open a cookie shop. I sell pre-made cookies that taste amazing and make customers happy. You hire the kitchen staff to make your own cookies, not as good and they don't sell as well. You keep going and keep growing the quality as you slow down selling the amazing cookies. Because as an scenario, say the company who's providing you with amazing cookie changes their recipe for budget cuts and now they're now not selling as good as before, bland and sickly. You lose sales and by not reinventing the cookie you lose quality, rep and profits. I'm just amazed no one can give me a good case to why not. Innovation is what's missing from this world.
    - lwhi 3y ago
      Standardisation is not a bad thing. I think your analogy is flawed.
    - vore 3y ago
      If you’re selling cookies, are you going to be milling your own flour from self-grown wheat? The original post was just saying at some point you are drawing a line between what you consider to be your competency versus what is not.
      - doublerabbit 3y ago
        Regardless to how stubborn it makes to the comment, Yes. I don't see why not. There is no versus to be had. We are always competing, it doesn't have too. As in the end all that really matters is making the consumer,customer, end result happy. By milling the raw grain, you can then make your own machine. With that machine reduces the production costs. It's not a task that can happen overnight. But to own a piece of land and to make raw produce from that isn't trivial.

madeofpalk 3y ago

For the user, the problem is if you reinvent the wheel poorly. Remember all those terrible ‘scroll jacking’ website? The bar to reinvent the wheel has to be high. You should have significant value to add, and you’ve got to re-implement all the other behavior users expect.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

D-Coder 3y ago

I'm reminded of a story about why reinventing the wheel is bad. It's not so much that it's a bad idea... it's the endless arguments about whether our wheel should have three corners or four.

yen223 3y ago

The funniest part about the phrase "don't reinvent the wheel" is just how often, like, actual wheels get reinvented. And for good reason - imagine sticking bicycle tyres on the landing gear of a 787 just to avoid "reinventing the wheel"!