medical software is not DRY

DRY - Don’t Repeat Yourself - is an important principle in software development.

It makes modifications and additions easier - if you do it right, you just have to change things in one place. It reduces interdependencies and theoretically makes your software less prone to “spaghettification.”

There is a deeper, much more important principle in software development though: don’t kill your users.

Sometimes a module might work as it was originally intended - and have an unintended consequence.

Treat every line of code in medical software as net new, even if you’re just calling a function. Follow the thread of logic and test every point of mutability.

It’s much better to have two similar functions than to have a fatal recall.