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Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

(blog.yossarian.net)
431 points thunderbong | 1 comments | 11 Jan 25 04:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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dgan ◴[11 Jan 25 08:06 UTC] No.42664211[source]▶
Okey but to me, copying - pasting working code (even with sone extra unused bits) really looks no more different than inheriting a library - provided base class, and then extending it to one's needs.

That's literally the basis of all software. There is no need to invent "a Makefile effect/syndrome"

Yes that's an indication that a code sharing mechanism is needed but not implemented. Copying pasting solves that. You don't expect people to rewrite http client for every project which interacts with APIs, so you?

replies(2): >>42664293 #>>42664809 #
1. worldsayshi ◴[11 Jan 25 08:24 UTC] No.42664293[source]▶
I think this is a good point. As somewhat of a tangent I have vaguely been thinking of the difference between copy pasting and explicitly extending for a bit.

It seems that in many cases, adapting copy pasted code has some benefits over importing and adjusting some library code. https://ui.shadcn.com/ is an example of going the copy paste direction. It seems to me this is preferable when tweaking the exact behaviour is more important than keeping up to date with upstream or adhering to an exact standard. If you customize the behaviour a lot the extra abstraction layer only gets in the way.

This insight might be a bit mundane. But I remember myself bending over backwards a bit too much trying to reuse when copy pasting is fine.