Never never underestimate the power of N.I.H.[1] in human affairs. Creative people with time to spare can't resist the temptation to think "how would I do that?

Never never underestimate the power of N.I.H.[1] in human affairs. Creative people with time to spare can't resist the temptation to think "how would I do that? oooh I can think of several tweaks that would make it better. I should totally make one of my own." And then their work becomes "held territory" for their coterie or organization to be defended and enhanced and bingo, you have a new language or database or protocol with a community, and the more effort the community invests in the thing, the more stable and important it becomes. Really, it's the intellectual analog of the process by which a whirling disk of dust becomes a system of planets, some big, some small... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here