So, the other day I was digging into this whole “logic deja vu” thing, and let me tell you, it was a bit of a rabbit hole. I mean, I kept stumbling upon similar-looking code snippets across different projects. It was like, “Haven’t I written this before?”
My Little Experiment
I started by grabbing a bunch of my old projects – you know, the ones collecting digital dust on my hard drive. I’m a bit of a code hoarder, I confess.
Then I picked a relatively simple function, something I knew I’d probably used in multiple places. It was a basic validation check for user input, like, making sure an email address looked like an email address.
I used a pretty basic text editor to search for parts of the code. For example, a typical one is:
- I would check for simple variable names.
- I looked for comments, if I even wrote some.
- The order I write my code.
The “Aha!” Moment
Bingo! I found at least three different versions of practically the same logic. The variable names were sometimes different, the comments were slightly tweaked, but the core steps were identical. Classic deja vu.
It was kind of cool to see it laid out like that.I did notice I was doing the same checks in slightly different orders.I cleaned them all up, picked the best parts of each, and made one “master” version. Much cleaner!
Making it Reusable
Now, instead of copying and pasting that chunk of code every time I needed it, I made it into a reusable function.I stuck it in a separate file I could pull into any new project.
It’s a good example of how a little bit of “code archaeology” can save you time and effort in the long run. At the end, the function could be used like the following way:
My email check is good. I can use it everywhere!
What I Learned
This whole “logic deja vu” experience taught me a few things:
- We all repeat ourselves: It’s natural. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
- Refactoring is your friend: Turn that repeated code into something reusable.
- Document, document, document: Even simple comments can help you spot this stuff later.
It’s a never-ending process, this coding thing. But hey, at least now I’ve got one less piece of logic to rewrite from scratch!
