You've seen the developer. Maybe you are the developer.
They discover DRY — ✨ Don't Repeat Yourself ✨ — and something switches in their brain. A primal need awakens. Every duplicated string, every similar-looking function, every pair of lines that rhyme in the wrong light becomes a personal affront. An itch. A moral failing.
Two weeks later, their codebase looks like a game of Jenga where every piece is also load-bearing, also abstract, also parametrized six ways to Sunday, and also, crucially, completely impossible to understand.
Congratulations. You've achieved ✨ DRY ✨. You've also achieved a codebase that will ruin your next three Fridays and everyone's.
What DRY Actually Says (and Doesn't)
