October 10: DRY: a principle of software development

Don’t repeat yourself.

Source: The Pragmatic Programmer
Published: October 1999

DRY: a principle of software development

"Don't repeat yourself" (DRY) is a principle of software development. It means don’t repeat the same code in different places. Instead, reuse the code you already wrote.

Example for business folks (like me):

In Microsoft Excel, we don’t want to hardcode a variable many times. Instead, we want to use a cell reference. That way, when we need to change a variable, we can do so once and have confidence that it is reflected throughout our workbook.

Software developers can encourage code reusability with abstractions (e.g. by using methods).

Bonus: The exact quote from the book is, “Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.”

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