Caution with DRY Principle

Links

• Don't DRY Your Code Prematurely

  This post from Google's Code Health series, originally featured in Google bathrooms as part of the "Testing on the Toilet" initiative, explores the "Don't Repeat Yourself" (DRY) principle. Dan Maksimovich argues that rigidly applying DRY can lead to premature abstractions that complicate future changes. He emphasizes evaluating whether code duplication is truly redundant or merely superficially similar. The post illustrates this with an example, showing that keeping behaviors separate can allow for easier adjustments as business requirements evolve. The key takeaway is to tolerate some duplication early on and only abstract when necessary patterns emerge over time.