Is the copy/paste approach professionally viable when working with the Google Maps API?
- by Ian Campbell
I find that I understand much of the Javascript concepts used in the Google Maps API code, but then again there is quite a bit that is way over my head in syntax.
For example, the geocoder syntax seems to be of Ajax form, though I don't understand what is happening under the hood (especially with lines like results[0].geometry.location). I am able to modify the body of if (status == google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) for different purposes though.
So, being that I am able to take various code from the Developer's Guide and rework it to an extent for my own purposes, all the while not fully understanding what Google Maps is actually doing, does this make me a copy-paste programmer?
Is this a bad practice, or is this professionally viable? I am, of course, interested in learning as much as I can, but what if time-constraints outweigh the learning process?