请不要重复发明轮子。
There are a lot of software wheels that get re-invented all the time. Re-inventing is a time consuming waste that many projects can cut. In almost all cases it’s much better to do some due diligence and use an off the shelf component where you can. Invest your time, passion and expertise in your actual product.
在软件开发过程中我们会发现大量的软件工具被重新发明制造，重新发明工具是非常浪费时间的，许多项目都可以避免这一部分。在大多数情况下我们应该保持适度的谨慎，使用现有的工具，将我们的时间、热情以及专业投入在实际的产品中。
Save your energy for your real innovations
保持精力专注于产品创新
Engineers are smart. Sometimes we get cocky and think because we know how to build the best X on the web, we also know better about everything else too. Don’t fall into this trap. It’s very unlikely a genius web developer can really create a better database than off the shelf. There are too many good ideas begging to be programmed. Don’t waste time on something that’s outside your core innovation. The world needs customer focused applications that work well with people. Don’t waste your time creating the ten thousandth backend widget you could have gotten for free on the internet.
软件工程师都是聪明能干的，有的时候甚至是狂妄的，在自己专注的领域可以构建最好的产品，所以也认为在其他领域也可以。请不踏入这个误区，一个天才的Web开发人员能够构建出优于现存的数据库是不太可能的。请不要浪费时间在核心业务之外，这个世界需要能够使得客户专注，并且与人能够很好协同的应用程序，请不要浪费时间来创建可以从Internet上很容易得到的工具。
Existing protocols are good
存在的就是好的
Nothing makes me crazier than software that implements a broken version of a standard protocol. You can spend time designing a brand new protocol, but if you are doing something that is well known on the net, you should try hard to work with existing protocols. Existing protocols have some miles on them and are usually good compromises for everything they do. Designing and testing new protocols is just quicksand for most projects. If you can’t say that the new protocol is the heart of what’s cool about your product, then don’t make a new protocol.
让我觉得荒唐的是那些实现了一个标准协议的破碎版本的软件。你可以花费时间来设计一个崭新的协议，而不是那些众所周知的已经存在的协议，应当充分利用这些现存的协议来进行工作，这些协议在其所涵盖的范围内已经有了很多、很好的权衡、折中。对于大多数项目来讲开发并且测试一个新的协议时非常危险的，如果你不能说这个新的协议是你产品最酷的部分的话，请不要开发一个新的协议。
Get your design patterns off the shelf
运用现有的模式
Most software project fall into some pretty well known patterns. Console applications, three tier web applications, client-server applications and peer to peer applications are very common patterns. If your product falls into any well known pattern, follow the best practices for your pattern. Innovate where you are really on the cutting edge and try to use cookies cutters wherever else you can.
大多数软件项目都可以应用一些已知的、可以良好运行的模式。控制台应用程序，三层结构的web应用程序，客户端－服务器端的应用程序以及点对点的应用程序都是非常常用的模式。如果你的产品开发使用了这样的模式，要追踪最佳的实践方式。要充分利用已有的工具，在领先的地方持续进行改进革新。
原贴地址：http://blogs.msdn.com/dustin_andrews/archive/2008/08/25/please-stop-re-inventing-the-wheel.aspx
翻译的不准确的地方请大家批评指正。