No, reinventing the wheel is alright; at best you may find a new and better kind of wheel, at worst you'll still learn something. This is forgetting that wheels can be round.
The point isn't reinventing the wheel. It is understanding why the wheel was created, why it is better than some of the alternatives, the pros and cons over using one kind of wheel vs another, and when it is time to stop using a wheel and invent tank treads instead.
I certainly have experienced similar things, particularly been acused of reinventing wheels. Flexibility and performance are two big reasons, but also "it's fun" or "I want to understand X" also have a good weight when we do this kind of "useless reinvention".
Yes. My point was that there's a huge amount of effort currently being expended to do just that. No one is trying to change the fact that a wheel is round and rolls, but from there, there's quite a bit of space to innovate.
So true. And these crappy wheels keep getting reinvented over and over at different companies. Sharing the effort and making a better wheel for everyone sounds like a good idea so long as it's not your core business. There must be a downside right?
What's the pain point here, beyond just wanting to reinvent a round-enough wheel?
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