The mythical “reusable code” idea has existed for decades. It showed up shortly after the first lines of code were written. We preach re-usability and sometimes strive for it but it rarely becomes a reality. I’ve seen various levels of success with this over the years. Everything from “we have a reusable library that 75% of us use” to “we have shared code libraries here, but never use them in your projects”.

But should we use them at all? This article looks at the question.