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That's more or less what I was trying to convey. Responsible engineers will look around for mature solutions to their problems. Sometimes there aren't any and sometimes it will be the most economically-defensible decision to roll your own.

Of course, we notoriously underestimate the costs of roll your own. So a fair and common question is: why did you roll your own? What cost was so compelling?

What sometimes happens though is that the roll-your-own decision, made at time A, is later critiqued based on the options available at time B. If the decision was being made at time B, then the roll-your-own decision might be a symptom of "Not Invented Here Syndrome". But accusing someone of NIHS without accounting for when the original decision was made is unfair.

Hence my joke name, "Not Invented Yet Syndrome". Why didn't you use the alternative? Because it didn't exist or wasn't applicable.



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