Making maintainable code is a good goal.

DRY is one step removed from that goal and people use it to make very unmaintainable code because they confuse any repeated code with unmaintainability. (or their theory that some day we might want to repeat this code so we might as well pre-DRY it)

The result is often a horrendous complex mess. Imagine a cookbook with a cookie recipe that resided on 47 different pages (40 of which were pointers on where to find other pointers on where to find other pointers on where to find a step) in attempts to never write the same step twice in the whole book or your planned sequels in a 20 volume set.

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chuckadams 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's almost like there's a "reasonable person" type of standard that's impossible to nail down in a general rule...

	▲	colechristensen 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you can describe a rule in one sentence it'll probably lead to as much trouble as it fixes. The problem is zealots. Zealotry doesn't work for indeterminate things that require judgement like "code quality" or "maintainability", but a simple rule like "don't repeat yourself" is easy for a zeal. They take a rule and shut down any argument with "because the rule!" If you're arguing about code quality and maintainability without one sentence rules then you actually have to make arguments. If the rule is your argument there's no discussion only dogma. As a result? Easy to distill rules spread fast, breed zealots, and result in bad code.