[chrisbennet]

On my own projects I'll sometimes "reinvent the wheel" on purpose. It's a good way to make learning mistakes. For better or worse, I tend to learn from making mistakes.

At work though, my employer isn't really paying me so I can experience personal growth. I'm try to deliver value as efficiently as I can.

I've done this long enough to know that the "easiest" problems can have subtle bugs. Think of the singleton pattern: if you write one "without looking at the answer" you invariably make a small mistake that introduces a race condition. That's why I Google even "easy" problems.

That said, I can't do math in my head very well any more - calculators have robbed me of day to day practice and my 8th grade math skills are flabby now. (My degree is in math so it's especially embarrassing.)