What is DRY? (And Other Things We Say at 3 AM)

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0530

There is a famous programmer joke that always gets me:

“What is DRY? Well, at the risk of repeating myself…”

It is funny, but it also hurts a little because it is so true. We all know the rule: Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY). We learn it from day one. You write a piece of code once, put it in a clean function, and never type it again.

But let’s be honest. It is the middle of the night. You are staring at your screen, your eyes hurt from the light, and you just need the server to stop crashing. What really happens? You copy that block of code from another file. You paste it right where you need it. You change one variable, save the file, and quietly hope nobody looks too closely.

Humor on Lorbic

What is DRY? (And Other Things We Say at 3 AM)