cast to sub-class or extending instance of super or a.n.other

[Lew]

Very easy, as you point out. When you're working in a large team,
people tend to use the system classes when they can and roll their own
when they can't, and you often get N version of things like this, all
slightly different. So it's nice when they're in places like Object
where people will look first.

When you're on a large team, you're supposed to use standard APIs first, team
libraries second, and roll your own last - and that last only after
coordinating with the rest of the team. Code reviews and such are supposed to
reveal when people have duplicated code, and lead to appropriate refactoring.
It doesn't work well in any team, let alone a large one, for people to work
without coordination.

Of course it happens that multiple versions of the same functionality appear
in large projects. The best-managed teams allocated time and budget to ferret
out such things and correct them ongoingly.

 

[Mike Schilling]

When you're on a large team, you're supposed to use standard APIs
first, team libraries second, and roll your own last - and that last
only after coordinating with the rest of the team. Code reviews and
such are supposed to reveal when people have duplicated code, and
lead to appropriate refactoring. It doesn't work well in any team,
let alone a large one, for people to work without coordination.

Coordination is neither free nor perfect, so requiring less of it
wins.

 

[Mark Space]

Very easy, as you point out. When you're working in a large team,
people tend to use the system classes when they can and roll their own
when they can't, and you often get N version of things like this, all
slightly different. So it's nice when they're in places like Object
where people will look first.

Agreed. However, on an organized team, I've often thought it would be a
good idea to task one member with "code libraries" and have them roll up
useful stuff into libraries for the whole team. Then the boss can just
mandate its use.

More work than otherwise, but still very doable, imo.

And if this stuff was truly useful I'd expect to see it published in a
3rd party library someplace, like the Apache Commons. Library selection
should be one of the first tasks for any project.