Olin Lathrop wrote:
> It was always completely opposite for me.  There was no fun in duplicating
> something someone else did.

Exactly!
There's a lot of subtlety, especially in hardware design, that goes unlearned
and unappreciated by just copying. Thinking it through makes one intimate with
the requirements, the parts, the process, and the success. Learning someone
else's design to the level you'd know your own probably takes the same order of
magnitude in time. Learn less by not delving deeply and just copying and you've
left goods on the table you could have benefited from... The 'why' is as
important as the 'how'. Not to mention, it hones your cognitive processes as
well, having decided some component will work there and then finding it won't
and figuring out why it won't and why you thought so in the first place.

Used often, it may bring new and interesting ideas or inventions. If you end up
designing something (like a protocol) that has been done before, you've made
the same journey few others have, and will be able to offer insights and
perspective only few can.

That doesn't say copying is universally bad, but it isn't a good educational
activity either. After becoming experienced in thinking it through, you're
better able to select something to copy and/or modify, and you can tell a good
example from a bad one. We haven't even discussed the negative side of learning
from bad examples while thinking they're good ones. ;)
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