Do most programmers copy and paste code?
- by John MacIntyre
I learned very early on that cutting & pasting somebody else's code takes longer in the long run that writing it yourself. In my opinion unless you really understand it, cut & paste code will probably have issues which will be a nightmare to resolve.
Don't get me wrong, I mean finding other peoples code and learning from it is essential, but we don't just paste it into our app. We rewrite the concepts into our app.
But I'm constantly hearing about people who cut & paste, and they talk about it like it's common practice. I also see comments by others which indicate it's common practice.
So, do most programmers cut & paste code?