“Don’t Reinvent the Wheel” and Other Web Developer Cop-outs

In programming and development, there are a lot of lame excuses we hear mindlessly parroted. Many of them started out as good ideas — take Knuths “premature optimization” — but have been twisted, spun, and misinterpreted far beyond the original scope for one reason: To be a lame excuse for people to either wallow in ignorance, or somehow get away with doing a half-assed job.