{"id":78,"date":"2009-08-14T10:56:07","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T17:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/?p=78"},"modified":"2010-03-30T16:03:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T23:03:43","slug":"the-www-is-the-wheel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formidableengineeringconsultants.com\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"The WWW is The Wheel"},"content":{"rendered":"

For no apparent reason, but moreso than ever before, I have come to believe that the World Wide Web<\/a> can truly be the source of all knowledge<\/a> and a savior for the lazy<\/a> (or at least an inspiration to those who need examples to learn or get started).<\/p>\n

I was writing a simple application in C the other day and needed to code up a dynamic array. It seemed to me that actually typing out the 20 or so lines of code to implement the allocation and management was just too much effort. And then it occurred to me – “Why reinvent the wheel?” People write dynamic arrays in C every day and I bet that at least one person posted their implementation to the WWW for all to see and admire. A quick search<\/a> revealed that to be true and in minutes I was customizing code to suit my needs.<\/p>\n

Now…did I really save time? In the end, did my customizations result in no net increase in productivity? In many ways, for me, it didn’t matter. I am the sort of person who needs some inspiration to overcome a blank sheet of paper – something concrete – a real starting point – even a bad one. Having that implementation in place gave me that starting point and even if I ended up deleting everything and rewriting it I feel like I benefited, at least psychologically, from having somewhere to start. <\/p>\n

It is also valuable to see and learn from the experience of others. Why should I re-invent something so basic? Why not use what’s already extant and spend my energy and talent where I can really add value? <\/p>\n

But it is also true that although the WWW may indeed be “the wheel” it sometimes provides a wheel made from wood or stone, that has a flat tire or is damaged beyond repair<\/a>. For me, though, even that is beneficial since it helps me overcome that forbidding blank sheet of paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For no apparent reason, but moreso than ever before, I have come to believe that the World Wide Web can truly be the source of all knowledge and a savior for the lazy (or at least an inspiration to those who need examples to learn or get started). I was writing a simple application in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[25,24,89,23,22],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","tag-code-reuse","tag-reinvent","tag-software","tag-wheel","tag-world-wide-web"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t