4 ms·

I guess we'll never get this horrible metaphor out of software development, but I keep trying: It's not _reinventing_ the wheel. The wheel is an old concept, s

by fhd2 12y ago

I guess we'll never get this horrible metaphor out of software development, but I keep trying: It's not _reinventing_ the wheel. The wheel is an old concept, so are blogs. This is a new/different implementation of that wheel. "Reinventing the wheel" is as pointless as it sounds. But what about making new, better wheels? Maybe not everyone needs the same wheel? (Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not exactly a fan of Ghost.)

deleted 12y ago
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icebraining 12y ago
That's the point: while Ghost claims to be a new, better wheel, it actually seems (to some people) to be reinventing it.
- coldtea 12y ago
  It would only be "reinventing" the wheel if it was (or, at least claimed to be) an independent first-time creation of a blog engine without prior knowledge of them existing. So, unless we're talking about something like that (unlikely) there's no such thing as "reinventing the wheel" in real life. There's just "creating a different wheel". BBS, Enkei and all the wheel companies are not "reinventing the wheel". The create a new version of wheel. Even if it's boring and similar to existing things, it's not a re-invention. That would be like calling another CRUD app that is "re-inventing the CRUD".
  - icebraining 12y ago
    If you're going to complain that it's not actually reinventing, then can I point out that Ghost is not a wheel, either? It's an idiom with a known meaning. It doesn't have to be literally true.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Yes, but the problem is that it's not a good idiom either, for the reasons explained: It's based on a broken metaphor, and it doesn't reflect how things work on software. They could have at least said "they made just another blog engine".
  - krapp 12y ago
    I thought the implication in "reinventing the wheel" in software was that the current de-facto implementation obviously got it perfectly right, so trying to improve on that would just be absurd. Of course, i'm sure people were saying that when someone decided what the world needed was a better Movable Type. And to go all the way down the pedantic rabbithole, there's never been software which is elegant or utilitarian enough to be worthy of considering a "wheel" in that regard.

by fhd2 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

icebraining 12y ago

That's the point: while Ghost claims to be a new, better wheel, it actually seems (to some people) to be reinventing it.

coldtea 12y ago
It would only be "reinventing" the wheel if it was (or, at least claimed to be) an independent first-time creation of a blog engine without prior knowledge of them existing. So, unless we're talking about something like that (unlikely) there's no such thing as "reinventing the wheel" in real life. There's just "creating a different wheel". BBS, Enkei and all the wheel companies are not "reinventing the wheel". The create a new version of wheel. Even if it's boring and similar to existing things, it's not a re-invention. That would be like calling another CRUD app that is "re-inventing the CRUD".
- icebraining 12y ago
  If you're going to complain that it's not actually reinventing, then can I point out that Ghost is not a wheel, either? It's an idiom with a known meaning. It doesn't have to be literally true.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Yes, but the problem is that it's not a good idiom either, for the reasons explained: It's based on a broken metaphor, and it doesn't reflect how things work on software. They could have at least said "they made just another blog engine".
- krapp 12y ago
  I thought the implication in "reinventing the wheel" in software was that the current de-facto implementation obviously got it perfectly right, so trying to improve on that would just be absurd. Of course, i'm sure people were saying that when someone decided what the world needed was a better Movable Type. And to go all the way down the pedantic rabbithole, there's never been software which is elegant or utilitarian enough to be worthy of considering a "wheel" in that regard.