Back when I was just a cub technology reporter, I got assigned to the objects beat (ah, polymorphism!). Object vendors would go on and on about the importance of re-use: You build all these little, well, objects, and then programmers could re-use them all and they'd save zillions of hours of time and productivity would soar and they would save Western Civilization.
Or maybe my recollection is a little fuzzy. Because I see now that Wayne Kernochan, who follows programming for the Aberdeen Group,
writes that re-use isn't what it's cracked up to be:
Evidence increasingly suggests that encouraging reuse in today's toolsets is having little positive effect on productivity - and sometimes even a negative effect. The problem, Aberdeen suggests, is that development tools suppliers and users alike are taking too narrow a view of programmer productivity, mistaking a possible means (reuse) for a goal (faster, repeated delivery of software value-add to the customer). IT buyers should focus on tools that have proven able to deliver order-of-magnitude improvements in programmer productivity in particular situations, improve the end result, or speed upgrade of existing programs - such as refactoring.Free registration's required to read the report (via Ecademy). Back to Compendium
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