It depends. I'm with Terry on needing the library to include useful documentation with examples. Especially that! For I am a bear of very little brain, and monkey see monkey do. If I have a concrete example to get me up and running, that counts for a lot.
I agree with Steve on writing something once and reusing it forever and ever. That is, until I find out I've been doing it wrong, and find some better way, and even then, it will have to be enough of an improvement that I'm compelled to go back and rewrite and/or refactor my program(s) around the new method. A semi recent example being drawing 2D multicolor tile-based graphics: I have functions that work, and then bplus educates me on super speedy hardware images, which are dramatically faster, but require a different enough approach that it's been months and months and I am still procrastinating rewriting this game's graphics routines to take advantage of that method!
I completely suck as a programmer, and sometimes it's easier for my monkey's brain to comprehend my own retarded logic than someone else's done the right way. But not always. I built this input mapping module that detects keypresses and gamepad input for upto 8 players, and it's pretty ugly. It works, but everytime I have to go through the rigamarole of tying it into a new program, I am reminded that maybe I oughta check out that other guy's library which is probably less of a headache (unless it's not! but it's worth trying).
.)
Also, like JRace, most of my programming is for personal reasons & I generally write software by myself. I find that everyone seems to have their own style and way of thinking, and my code sometimes makes people run away screaming, and vice versa. I don't hold myself accountible for productivity, but generally my motto is "cheap and easy" so if a reusable routine helps me get something done faster and is easy for everyone to understand, I'll use it. I have found that often the more "full featured" a library is, the easier it is to be confused by, and less flexible it will be to adapt as a solution for my specific case. Not always, but I have seen this often, especially when trying to write my own reusable libraries. Similar to what jrace said, the more fancy it is, the harder it becomes to rework when my needs change for a different project.
So I think that instead of a library, I would find individual functions and routines the most useful.
I hope this helps answer your question! :-D
I agree with Steve on writing something once and reusing it forever and ever. That is, until I find out I've been doing it wrong, and find some better way, and even then, it will have to be enough of an improvement that I'm compelled to go back and rewrite and/or refactor my program(s) around the new method. A semi recent example being drawing 2D multicolor tile-based graphics: I have functions that work, and then bplus educates me on super speedy hardware images, which are dramatically faster, but require a different enough approach that it's been months and months and I am still procrastinating rewriting this game's graphics routines to take advantage of that method!
I completely suck as a programmer, and sometimes it's easier for my monkey's brain to comprehend my own retarded logic than someone else's done the right way. But not always. I built this input mapping module that detects keypresses and gamepad input for upto 8 players, and it's pretty ugly. It works, but everytime I have to go through the rigamarole of tying it into a new program, I am reminded that maybe I oughta check out that other guy's library which is probably less of a headache (unless it's not! but it's worth trying).
.)
Also, like JRace, most of my programming is for personal reasons & I generally write software by myself. I find that everyone seems to have their own style and way of thinking, and my code sometimes makes people run away screaming, and vice versa. I don't hold myself accountible for productivity, but generally my motto is "cheap and easy" so if a reusable routine helps me get something done faster and is easy for everyone to understand, I'll use it. I have found that often the more "full featured" a library is, the easier it is to be confused by, and less flexible it will be to adapt as a solution for my specific case. Not always, but I have seen this often, especially when trying to write my own reusable libraries. Similar to what jrace said, the more fancy it is, the harder it becomes to rework when my needs change for a different project.
So I think that instead of a library, I would find individual functions and routines the most useful.
I hope this helps answer your question! :-D