In Wheel Reinventor’s Principles, Tobias Løfgren writes about the benefits of reinventing the wheel.
He lists four reasons for Wheel Reinventor to reinvent wheels: Learning, Specificity, Innovation and Enjoyment, all very valid reasons.
I like to learn by doing and sometimes the best way to learn how something was built is by building it myself. I really like Tobias’ remarks on the limitations:
The Wheel Reinventor must therefore first and foremost be deliberate. They must consider whether it is appropriate for a given wheel to be reinvented, especially when accountable to others.
If you’re always reinventing the wheel, you’ll get nowhere but for the purposes of any or all of the four reasons listed above, it can be a very good choice.