Why do Pythoneers reinvent the wheel?

[Stefano Masini]

On 9/9/05, djw <donald.welch at hp.com> wrote:
> I think, for me, this most important reason is that the stdlib version
> of a module doesn't always completely fill the requirements of the
> project being worked on. That's certainly why I wrote my own, much
> simpler, logging module. In this case, its obvious that the original
> author of the stdlib logging module had different ideas about how
> straightforward and simple a logging module should be. To me, this just
> demonstrates how difficult it is to write good library code - it has to
> try and be everything to everybody without becoming overly general,
> abstract, or bloated.

That's very true. But...
...there are languages (ahem... did I hear somebody say Java? :) that
make it so hard to write code, that one usually prefers using whatever
is already available even if this means adopting a "style" that
doesn't quite match his expectations.
To me, it is not clear which is best: a very comfortable programmer
with a longer todo list, or an unfomfortable programmer with a short
todo list.
So far, I've always struggled to be in the first category, but I'm
amazed when I look back and see how many wheels I reinvented. But
maybe it's just lack of wisdom. :)

stefano