Code Reusability and DRY Principle
Write Efficient, Maintainable Code

Understanding Code Reusability

Code reusability means writing code in a way that it can be reused in multiple places without rewriting it. This improves maintainability, reduces errors, and saves time during development.

For example, instead of copying and pasting the same logic in different parts of the program, we can define it once as a function or module and reuse it wherever needed.

What is the DRY Principle?

The DRY principle stands for "Don't Repeat Yourself". It encourages programmers to reduce repetition in code. Every piece of knowledge should have a single, unambiguous representation within a system.

Why Repetition is Bad

• Harder to maintain – changes must be made in multiple places.
• Increased risk of bugs – inconsistent changes can break functionality.
• Bloated codebase – unnecessarily large and hard to understand.

Example Without DRY Principle

# Pseudocode to print area of a rectangle at two places

length1 = 5
breadth1 = 10
area1 = length1 * breadth1
print("Area 1:", area1)

length2 = 3
breadth2 = 7
area2 = length2 * breadth2
print("Area 2:", area2)

Output:

Area 1: 50
Area 2: 21

What's wrong here?

The logic to calculate area is repeated. If you later want to change the formula or add validation, you’ll need to update it in multiple places.

Now, Let's Apply the DRY Principle

# Function to calculate area of rectangle

function calculateArea(length, breadth):
    return length * breadth

# Using function to calculate different areas
area1 = calculateArea(5, 10)
print("Area 1:", area1)

area2 = calculateArea(3, 7)
print("Area 2:", area2)

Output:

Area 1: 50
Area 2: 21

Explanation:

We defined the formula once inside the calculateArea function and reused it. This makes the code shorter, more readable, and easier to maintain.

Question:

What if you want to log a warning if either length or breadth is zero?

Answer:

With the DRY approach, you only need to modify the calculateArea function. All usages benefit automatically from this update:

function calculateArea(length, breadth):
    if length == 0 or breadth == 0:
        print("Warning: One of the dimensions is zero!")
    return length * breadth

Code Reusability with Loops

Consider a scenario where we want to calculate areas for many rectangles stored in a list. Instead of repeating code for each one, we can loop through and reuse our function:

rectangles = [(4, 5), (6, 2), (3, 7)]

for each rect in rectangles:
    length = rect[0]
    breadth = rect[1]
    area = calculateArea(length, breadth)
    print("Area:", area)

Output:

Area: 20
Area: 12
Area: 21

Benefits of DRY and Reusable Code

• Maintainability: Fix bugs in one place.
• Readability: Code is easier to understand and follow.
• Productivity: Write less code, achieve more.
• Scalability: Add new features with minimal effort.

Conclusion

Applying the DRY principle and aiming for code reusability are essential for writing professional-grade code. Always look for opportunities to refactor repeated code into reusable components like functions or modules.

Practice Tip:

After writing a block of code, ask yourself: "Will I need this logic again?" If yes, turn it into a function!