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edited Oct 9, 2010 at 22:14

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Don't take DRY as a hard and fast rule. It's a good thing, but you can only approximate it in practice.

Also I think it's not well written. "Don't repeat yourself" doesn't seem to cover the equally important case that to make a semantic or functional change you would have to edit source text in multiple places, saying different but coordinated things.

Rather than take it as a commandment not to be violated, it is better to understand why it is a good idea and make sensible choices about it. The reason it is bad to have to make coordinated edits in multiple places is that you, the editor, make mistakes. You are not 100% reliable to make the changes without error. If you have to make 10 different source text changes, and you only get 9 of them right, you've put in a bug. That is why arranging the source text to minimize the number of coordinated changes you typically have to make is a good thing. It minimizes bugs.

We don't belong to a religion in which DRY is one of the commandments. It is just a handlyhandy, though slightly misleading, way to encapsulate some common sense.

Don't take DRY as a hard and fast rule. It's a good thing, but you can only approximate it in practice.

Also I think it's not well written. "Don't repeat yourself" doesn't seem to cover the equally important case that to make a semantic or functional change you would have to edit source text in multiple places, saying different but coordinated things.

Rather than take it as a commandment not to be violated, it is better to understand why it is a good idea and make sensible choices about it. The reason it is bad to have to make coordinated edits in multiple places is that you, the editor, make mistakes. You are not 100% reliable to make the changes without error. If you have to make 10 different source text changes, and you only get 9 of them right, you've put in a bug. That is why arranging the source text to minimize the number of coordinated changes you typically have to make is a good thing. It minimizes bugs.

We don't belong to a religion in which DRY is one of the commandments. It is just a handly, though slightly misleading, way to encapsulate some common sense.

Don't take DRY as a hard and fast rule. It's a good thing, but you can only approximate it in practice.

Also I think it's not well written. "Don't repeat yourself" doesn't seem to cover the equally important case that to make a semantic or functional change you would have to edit source text in multiple places, saying different but coordinated things.

Rather than take it as a commandment not to be violated, it is better to understand why it is a good idea and make sensible choices about it. The reason it is bad to have to make coordinated edits in multiple places is that you, the editor, make mistakes. You are not 100% reliable to make the changes without error. If you have to make 10 different source text changes, and you only get 9 of them right, you've put in a bug. That is why arranging the source text to minimize the number of coordinated changes is a good thing. It minimizes bugs.

We don't belong to a religion in which DRY is one of the commandments. It is just a handy, though slightly misleading, way to encapsulate some common sense.

answered Oct 9, 2010 at 22:08

12.9k
2
38
59

Don't take DRY as a hard and fast rule. It's a good thing, but you can only approximate it in practice.

Also I think it's not well written. "Don't repeat yourself" doesn't seem to cover the equally important case that to make a semantic or functional change you would have to edit source text in multiple places, saying different but coordinated things.

Rather than take it as a commandment not to be violated, it is better to understand why it is a good idea and make sensible choices about it. The reason it is bad to have to make coordinated edits in multiple places is that you, the editor, make mistakes. You are not 100% reliable to make the changes without error. If you have to make 10 different source text changes, and you only get 9 of them right, you've put in a bug. That is why arranging the source text to minimize the number of coordinated changes you typically have to make is a good thing. It minimizes bugs.

We don't belong to a religion in which DRY is one of the commandments. It is just a handly, though slightly misleading, way to encapsulate some common sense.