DRY versus WET

You've got to have either a Snappy Acronym or Fancy Vague Phrase (FVP) in order be credible. So when I decided to write about what I think is wrong with DRY, I came up with 'DRY versus WET' - but I didn't know what WET meant.

DRY - Don't Repeat Yourself - is one of the Mantras of the Current Age of Programming Wisdom.

In case you don't know what a mantra is, it's a sound or phrase which you repeat over and over again while meditating. Meditating is something you do with your mind which brings peace and quiet . . . by avoiding all thought.

The problem I have with DRY is that you have to Think in order to write Good Code. In other words, you need Well Examined Thought - that's where WET comes from. [So now I've got an Acronym that Actually Means Something].

For Example:

Take a look at the Rails source code to see what over-DRY-ness does. After a while you'll see that (almost) every piece of code which could be repeated is turned into a method call. Even stuff which isn't more than a fraction of a line! This is Really DRY - so It Must Be Good. Right? Wrong!

This is Spaghetti [see The New Spaghetti for more ranting . . I mean 'detail'].

Historical Note: Spaghetti code originally referred to the overuse of GOTO (or branch) statements in FORTRAN or Assembler programs, but any program which has a high ratio of Control Transfer statements to Useful Work is really Spaghetti - because it reads like all the code was written on the sides of noodles and then all mixed up.

So . . . Don't DRY up. Get WET!


Think it's worth doing a book about?