> then find that someone else did it better in a library I can just import
If it involves working with some common standard or protocol, chances are it's been done before and you probably shouldn't attempt to do it yourself unless the existing implementations don't work for you.
But otherwise, why stress over it? The amount of "great" programmers in the world is tiny, so while the chances that someone did something already are high, the chances that it will be significantly better than anything you can make yourself are low.
Unless it's impractical because of the sheer size of it, the time investment involved, or some other reason, building something yourself gives many long-term benefits for the upfront investment. Owning the code, not having to deal with the community/politics, developing at your own pace, not having to worry about maintaining a fork, minimizing external dependencies and the associated risks, avoiding licensing concerns, etc.
Saying that you should use an existing library because "someone probably did it better" is F.U.D. If you're not confident in your abilities to do something better than an imaginary programmer you've never met, then you probably need to write more code and gain more confidence; and a great way to do that is to reinvent the wheel from time to time.
If it involves working with some common standard or protocol, chances are it's been done before and you probably shouldn't attempt to do it yourself unless the existing implementations don't work for you.
But otherwise, why stress over it? The amount of "great" programmers in the world is tiny, so while the chances that someone did something already are high, the chances that it will be significantly better than anything you can make yourself are low.
Unless it's impractical because of the sheer size of it, the time investment involved, or some other reason, building something yourself gives many long-term benefits for the upfront investment. Owning the code, not having to deal with the community/politics, developing at your own pace, not having to worry about maintaining a fork, minimizing external dependencies and the associated risks, avoiding licensing concerns, etc.
Saying that you should use an existing library because "someone probably did it better" is F.U.D. If you're not confident in your abilities to do something better than an imaginary programmer you've never met, then you probably need to write more code and gain more confidence; and a great way to do that is to reinvent the wheel from time to time.