certificate of birth, snow, and reinventors of the wheel

This morning I called the civil registry office because I needed a certificate of birth and thus wanted to ask how to apply for such a document. The officer told me that there is no need to apply for that document but I could just come along with my ID card and some money for the fee and get it --- immediately. I was confused! She also told me that it is possible to issue the document on international formulas if I need it for foreign countries. I was shocked! I am now living for 28 years here in Germany and my experience with German bureaucracy told me that there must be something wrong with that. I immediately took the car to drive there and try what I almost couldn't believe. And actually I got exactly what I wanted. Perfect service! --- Amazing! I still wonder whether there is some special trick I did not notice yet...

To have enough time to think about this amazing experience I did my regular running exercise. Today this was really hard because gusty winds did occur and made the snow lying around everywhere to be blown all over the streets and running on soft snow is much more laborious than running on plain ground. Additionally it was that cold that the water from my breath was freezing in my beard.

Later that day I was shocked again by a new example of people from the reinventors-of-the-wheel community. People from this community are those that invent something that does exist already for years but in a much better way. --- I mean the original version is the better one not the new one. This time it was again a special purpose programming language for an application for engineers. It is always the same: There is an application for which an automation component should be added. Instead of reusing a well established programming language with libraries that fit the need they decide to design a more simple language that does fit the need better because they don't need all the funky features of a full blown programming language. But then there are two problems. First they have no clue how to design a programming language and thus reinvent all the problems others have already solved years ago. Second they find that they actually need a full blown programming language and thus blow up their special purpose language with hundreds of thousands of special cases because their original language design does not support all stuff that is needed. This all does not lead to a programming language but to a horror story. --- Please, if you are the developer of a special purpose tool, learn to reuse stuff others have thought about for years and don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can invent the perfect version without prior knowledge in only a few weeks instead. --- It simply does not work!