[katsume3]

I find myself writing less code these days, not because I'm lazy, but because I can borrow so much already-written code from people now, thanks to things like Github and the Internet in general. I am a firm DRY[0] enthusiast, and also, a /Don't Repeat Other's Efforts/[1] enthusiast and it pains me to solve an already-solved problem.

Sadly there are people out there calling me a 'Stack Overflow developer' in that I copy and paste code, but I find immense joy in challenging most of that code and tinkering with it to find a solution that fits my needs. In other words, I rarely use a snippet of code ad verbatim.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinventing_the_wheel

[DarkWiiPlayer]

DRY is a good principle when you're aiming for effective product development, but that doesn't mean it's the most fun. I often find myself reinventing the wheel in my private projects, not because I couldn't easily find a library that already does what I want, but because I enjoy that sort of "DIY-Programming". I want to think about all the messy details because it's one of the things that makes programming fun for me.

Maybe this depends a lot on the individual. Some might find my way of enjoying code very boring, as I'm just messing with low-level stuff and not getting that much done. To me it would feel very exhausting to be writing glue-code all the time without messing with the internals of the systems I'm working with and recreating them myself every once in a while.

As a general advise to new developers: Find out what you enjoy about coding and always keep that in mind, be it while looking for a job or starting a new private project.

[Havoc]

I’d say don’t repeat it if you could do it yourself. Tinkering and learning invariably involves covering some ground others have trodden on before