We Should Always Try to Reinvent the Wheel

All the things we currently use will eventually become obsolete. They should, and reinvention helps make sure of that. Reinvention allows the shedding of the unnecessary and retention of what is optimal. It gives way for improvement and sometimes leads to discovery of new and better ways.

This also applies to software development. Having hand-me-down APIs and open source solutions is good, but this should not stop us from creating things from scratch on our own. With doing things from the ground up, you do not just learn how to extend, but you also figure out how things work, where you can improve, and what you don’t need. In some cases, reinvention is much more convenient than trying to understand something that’s not of your own. Dictate, instead of trying to figure out, how things work.

I like reinventing the wheel. I think most developers do. We love solving problems, and we love challenging solutions.