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Abstractions have non zero complexity costs.

And

Repeated code has non zero complexity costs

Why is this a hard concept?

It doesn't make dry any less valid.

Generally you can invoke both reasons to do something but the underlying reasoning is always complexity.



Indeed. In any practical optimisation problem, which is fundamentally what all engineering is, there's a sweet spot.

You can't just slam the DRYness knob to 11 and expect it to always be better, any more than you can turn a reflow oven up to 900°C and expect it to be better, just because 380°C is better, for the specific PCB in question, than 250°C.

It also doesn't mean you can turn it off entirely, just as if you look at your charred results at 900°C you don't conclude that "heaters considered harmful".

Also, the problem is strongly multivariate and the many variables are not independent so the "right" setting for the DRYness knob is not necessarily the same depending on all sorts of things, technical and not, up to and including "what are we even trying to achieve?"




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