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Originally Posted by Rick Thornbro
Let's remember spirit of the rule. Let's use this time to teach new programmers the art of taking a hunk of metal and making it come alive. Taking code from a previous year and dumping it, is fast but doesn't teach anything.
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FIRST has stated time and again that the program is not about teaching (they always refer to the I and R in FIRST), so I doubt this rule is intended to force teams to start over in order to teach their new programming people.
Besides, I've always thought that one of the best engineering practices is to build on what others have done.
We've discussed this for a few days now and I still am not entirely clear on the purpose of this rule. The rule equates software code to a mechanical part that's been produced - but why draw the line between software architecture and software coding? My mechanical friends can have a complex 3D part designed in AutoCAD ahead of the season and just press the big green button on the CNC machine to have it produced after kickoff. So why as a software person can't I just run my compiler on code I've already written to produce a compiled executable (which I argue is a better analogy to a machined part)?