No matter what you work on, programming is one of:
Check the documentation for a library, copy&paste the interface call, fill in the blanks.
Pick the best algorithm for the case at hand, copy&paste, change a few variable names.
Get out your snippets archive, copy&paste the one you need.
Write some boilerplate, copy&paste over and over, then fill in the blanks.
Look up how someone else solved your problem, replicate it in a way that doesn’t look like copy&paste.
Once in a blue moon, come up against an actually novel problem, spend some days figuring out the best way to solve it… then copy&paste the solution back into the project.
Doesn’t matter what you’re working on, in the end it’s mostly copy&paste 😂
I work on compilers (we can’t/don’t even have access to the C++ standard library in my case)… Most of the time, Google can’t help me ⚰️😅
It was definitely a bit more copy and paste when I was working on web applications… But even then, most of the code I was writing was fairly novel / more application and database architecture problems than trying tying libraries together.
What are databases, other than glorified MS Access (¹)? 😜
But seriously, if you’re working on compilers, then your “target users” are way different than the average thing: you have actual problems to solve, and can stick to the CLI.
Most copy&paste begins the closer to a GUI you get. Modern web interfaces, have also become a string of libraries and frameworks.
(¹: once upon a time… I tried to explain to a client, why there was no way on Earth to make their in-house MS Access solution compatible with personal data protection requirements for medical data, like 100% access control and logging. I failed… then some years later saw a story about the same problem on Coding Horror; still wonder if it was the same guy who got some other poor soul to try and go through with it, or if it was a more widespread problem at the time when personal data protection laws got enacted)
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Framing libraries as cheat sheets is hilarious
Some time ago:
Some other day:
Told ya.
I don’t know what y’all are working on but these comments always scare me …
No matter what you work on, programming is one of:
Doesn’t matter what you’re working on, in the end it’s mostly copy&paste 😂
I work on compilers (we can’t/don’t even have access to the C++ standard library in my case)… Most of the time, Google can’t help me ⚰️😅
It was definitely a bit more copy and paste when I was working on web applications… But even then, most of the code I was writing was fairly novel / more application and database architecture problems than trying tying libraries together.
What are databases, other than glorified MS Access (¹)? 😜
But seriously, if you’re working on compilers, then your “target users” are way different than the average thing: you have actual problems to solve, and can stick to the CLI.
Most copy&paste begins the closer to a GUI you get. Modern web interfaces, have also become a string of libraries and frameworks.
(¹: once upon a time… I tried to explain to a client, why there was no way on Earth to make their in-house MS Access solution compatible with personal data protection requirements for medical data, like 100% access control and logging. I failed… then some years later saw a story about the same problem on Coding Horror; still wonder if it was the same guy who got some other poor soul to try and go through with it, or if it was a more widespread problem at the time when personal data protection laws got enacted)
It’s kinda fun to think of programming as magic.
And “libraries” as grimoires/tomes .
It’s surprising how far you can go with the analogy.
My best comment ever in Reddit was describing Lord of the Rings as programming.