Why do Pythoneers reinvent the wheel?

[Jorgen Grahn]

On 14 Sep 2005 07:03:28 -0700, konrad.hinsen at laposte.net <konrad.hinsen at laposte.net> wrote:
> Stefano Masini wrote:
>
>> There are a few ares where everybody seems to be implementing their
>> own stuff over and over: logging, file handling, ordered dictionaries,
>> data serialization, and maybe a few more.
>> I don't know what's the ultimate problem, but I think there are 3 main reasons:
>> 1) poor communication inside the community (mhm... arguable)
>> 2) lack of a rich standard library (I heard this more than once)
>> 3) python is such an easy language that the "I'll do it myself" evil
>> side lying hidden inside each one of us comes up a little too often,
>> and prevents from spending more time on research of what's available.
>
> I'd like to add one more that I haven't seen mentioned yet: ease of
> maintenance and distribution.
>
> Whenever I decide to use someone else's package for an important
> project, I need to make sure it is either maintained or looks clean
> enough that I can maintain it myself. For small packages, that alone is
> often more effort than writing my own.

If the licenses are compatible, you also have the option to simply steal the
code and merge it into yours -- possibly cutting away the stuff you don't
need.  Or if not, to read and learn from it.

That's another kind of reuse, which is sometimes overlooked.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <jgrahn@       Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/                algonet.se>   R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!