Chapter 43: 043 Don’t Reinvent The Wheel
In Rongdu’s Penguin Building, there are thousands of employees, of which only about half are formal Penguin Company employees. The other half are all outsourcing, that is, temporary workers who can settle accounts and leave once the project is done. However, these outsourced workers are basically all in art or voice acting roles. While planners and programmers are almost all formal employees.
The reason is simple: horror games and shooting games require completely different art styles, and the voice acting styles are vastly different. It’s too wasteful for the company funds to always pay high prices to keep talents who only excel in one style, so high-price short-term contracts are the most rational choice, acceptable to both parties. Programmers belong to core roles, and high-level talents can adapt to different kinds of games, even thrive on projects outside of games, so they can naturally be kept long-term with steady work.
Therefore, Feng Zhuo was naturally very puzzled as to why his superior insisted on hiring an external programmer. He became even more puzzled once this outsider arrived—a mere first year university student, almost ten years younger than the backbone members of the project team. What could such a little kid do?
While explaining the project pipeline setup ideas to Wang Heng, Feng Zhuo secretly grumbled to himself. Although the colleagues nearby didn’t speak, the glances they occasionally cast showed they were also ready to watch the spectacle.
After rattling off a bunch of professional terms, Feng Zhuo summarized: “Our train of thought is more or less like that. Sister Lu also said to make yourself at home and voice any opinions. So, what do you think? Got any ideas now?”
Wang Heng nodded: “Yes.”
Feng Zhuo was momentarily stunned, then said with some amusement: “You really do? Alright, what opinions do you have? Let’s hear them.”
Wang Heng: “Do you know the saying, ‘don’t reinvent the wheel’…”
Before he finished speaking, Feng Zhuo laughed: “Who doesn’t know that!”
Don’t reinvent the wheel—this is a well-known maxim in the IT world. It means there’s no need to redo what others have already created, or even try to replace their position. As long as someone else’s wheel is proven effective, you can just take their achievement and use it.
Wang Heng explained: “In the development schedule you just mentioned, there’s one item where someone has already created almost the exact same achievement. Their achievement is open source—do we really need to redo it ourselves?”
Feng Zhuo scoffed: “Let me tell you, when we made this schedule, we checked every development tool on the market. There’s absolutely no reinventing the wheel here!”
Seeing the other party really didn’t believe him, Wang Heng could only open GitHub and show him.
So-called GitHub is a famous code hosting platform. Programmers from all over the world can put their achievements there for everyone to reference and discuss.
In less than a minute, Wang Heng found a free open source project.
“Here, take a look at this.”
Feng Zhuo stared at the screen, glanced at the project description, and was immediately stunned.
This seems exactly the same as a certain tool they were about to make… no difference at all?
Feng Zhuo grew nervous, grabbed the mouse, and scrolled down with the wheel. Those lines of code made him contemplate for a long, long time.
After a long while, he finally confirmed it was truly identical—at least this large segment of code’s train of thought was exactly the same as what the project team was going to do.
“But, does this code actually run?”
Feng Zhuo was just muttering to himself, but Wang Heng reminded him: “You can copy it and try it out.”
Open source code on the GitHub platform can be directly copied with zero cost. To judge if any piece of code truly works, the most convincing way is to run it and see.
So Feng Zhuo immediately copied and pasted this project’s code and ran it.
“It works… it’s already this mature? But how is that possible!”
Seeing this senior’s face stiffen, Wang Heng kindly reminded: “This project started over two months ago, and the last segment of code was posted last week. Perhaps you did check every development tool on the market, but forgot to update?”
Feng Zhuo’s expression softened a bit: “It must be something like that…”
————
Wang Heng settled into his temporary workstation, opened the mind map Lu Qi had sent in the group chat, and silently contemplated.
Feng Zhuo sat nearby, occasionally sneaking glances at him, his eyes still holding some inexplicable shock—although that segment of code wasn’t written by Wang Heng himself, to quickly find the most useful one among the vast sea of projects on the GitHub platform demonstrated a level of skill that Feng Zhuo could hardly imagine.
A first year university student, an eighteen years old young man, already at such a level—his future was truly limitless!
Of course, Feng Zhuo could never guess that Wang Heng’s clarity on this wheel came mainly from seven extra years of memory. In those memories, there were even more wheels that would be created in the future but didn’t exist yet…
Looking at those project development requests, Wang Heng realized several were very suitable for him. In other words, very suitable for letting him take shortcuts.
While silently contemplating, Wang Heng’s mobile phone ringtone rang.
He then realized he had forgotten to mute his mobile phone, so he quickly silenced it and hurried toward the pantry.
The office pantry was usually empty during work hours. Seeing that he was indeed alone here, Wang Heng answered the call.
From the other end of the phone came a certain young girl’s playful voice: “Agent classmate, where are you?”
“This form of address is too weird…” Wang Heng said helplessly, “And didn’t I tell you I was coming to Penguin Building today?”
Pei Ningle: “I know, that’s why I’m asking which floor of Penguin Building you’re on?”
Wang Heng: “Why are you asking that?”
Pei Ningle: “Because I’m already downstairs.”
Hearing this, Wang Heng jumped in shock. He quickly pulled open the curtain and looked down—sure enough, at the building’s main doorway, there was indeed a familiar young girl figure. Though the top-down perspective was a bit unfamiliar, he could still recognize her as Pei Ningle.
“What are you doing running over here!”
Perhaps because Wang Heng’s tone was a bit irritable, the young girl’s voice carried a hint of hesitation: “Because the hotel room’s booking time is up. I wanted to extend it, but I don’t have enough money… And you said you’d help me find a rent a house.”
“When did I say I’d help you find a rent a house?”
Wang Heng remembered he had told her to find her own place to stay.
The young girl asked weakly: “But you’re the agent, right? Shouldn’t an agent help with things like this?”
Wang Heng rubbed his forehead and sighed: “Alright, I get it…”
————
To emphasize, all companies and place names appearing in this book are purely fictional. Even if they share names with real-world entities, it’s just for the convenience of the novel’s narration and has no relation to real people or events. The author has limited knowledge, so readers shouldn’t take it too seriously（ laugh）.
