--- title: "Automating the reinvention of the wheel" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/10/30/automating-the-reinvention-of-the-wheel.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/10/30/automating-the-reinvention-of-the-wheel.html" published: "2005-10-30T22:27:00" updated: "2005-10-30T22:27:00" tags: [".Net Quotations"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "John posts a macro how to automate creating connection strings in visual studio .NET, and demonstrates a few key points (which have nothing to do with him probably being a great guy, good blogger etc..) 1. The blog…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Automating the reinvention of the wheel By Roy Osherove October 30, 2005 In [.Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations) **Historical article** · Originally published October 30, 2005; technical details may be outdated. [John posts a macro](http://geekswithblogs.net/johnsPerfBlog/archive/2005/10/26/58165.aspx) how to automate creating connection strings in visual studio .NET, and demonstrates a few key points (which have nothing to do with him probably being a great guy, good blogger etc..) 1\. The blog space keep reinventing things, meaning that if I write something two years ago, it may as well have never been written. Case in point is [the macro I wrote in 2003](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2003/06/23/9119.aspx) to do the same thing. 2\. People don't take the time to [search before solving things](http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=connection+string+macro). 3\. VB.NET preserves the awesome power of \*late binding\* (and I don't mean data binding) to unknown object interfaces, which shines in the face of such a simple macro. Just compare the length and complexity of the macros that [John posted](http://geekswithblogs.net/johnsPerfBlog/archive/2005/10/26/58165.aspx) and [I posted](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2003/06/23/9119.aspx). 4\. Lack of knowledge of the language and its main advantages puts you at this special place where you are both "with" and "without". "Yes, I just bought a car, but I still drive at 2 miles per hour" would be a good analogy. Again, this has nothing to do with John, just a good case to make a few points to learn from: - Learn all the ins and outs of the tool you are using and the language you use, and you could be 100 times more productive. - Search before embarking on a task. Chances are you're not the first one who either had to do something like this or faced with a problem such as this. Oh, and yes, my crazed ego **demanded** that I write this (nobody's perfect). ## More in .Net Quotations [All posts in .Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations) - May 18, 2006 ### [CLR Generics Vs. C++ Templates - some good links](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/5/18/clr-generics-vs-c-templates-some-good-links.html) - Nov 8, 2005 ### [Predefined CodeDOM implementations for common .NET usage patterns](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/11/8/predefined-codedom-implementations-for-common-net-usage-patt.html) - Oct 30, 2005 ### [Strongly Typed Reflection Calls in .NET 2.0](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/10/30/strongly-typed-reflection-calls-in-net-20.html) - Aug 18, 2005 ### [Cool Tip: Show a vertical rule after 80 chars in VS.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/8/18/cool-tip-show-a-vertical-rule-after-80-chars-in-vsnet.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/