The Trade-Offs of Software Reuse

Software reuse is meant to help standardize and control costs. But do we appreciate the price we pay?

For any large, multinational enterprise, there’s a dilemma at the heart of their software architecture. Centralization promises to save costs, providing a standardized template for how to do things and not waste effort reinventing the wheel. But local markets have unique characteristics, whether that’s customer behavior, regulations or the competitive landscape.

In this podcast (recorded during my time at ThoughtWorks), a couple of my colleagues and I explore the price of reuse: the challenges and trade offs for architects that arise from a centralized blueprint for IT.