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> Because 50% of my code (hyperbole intended!) was a direct copy/paste of Stack Overflow. And another 40% was a copy/paste from other scripts. Either my colleag

> Because 50% of my code (hyperbole intended!) was a direct copy/paste of Stack Overflow. And another 40% was a copy/paste from other scripts. Either my colleagues’ scripts or my own. It became repetitive. And there was little creativity or learning involved. How is this even possible? I've never had a job where copying and pasting code would have helped. It blows my mind every time I read this kind of claim, to the point that I sort of refuse to believe it's true. Are there people who get paid to do things that simple that they can be copied and pasted from Stack Overflow?

jgh 11y ago
He pointed out that it's a hyperbole.
- purpled_haze 11y ago
  It is and yet it's not. If you think about it, most of the code we benefit from each day was written by someone else from the operating system, to the language compiler/interpreter, to the frameworks, libraries, etc. Many developers get their queues about how to use a language, framework, library, or application because they learned how to use it on StackOverflow. Do you really know how much code was written to get to the point where you are sitting there, using all of the benefits of past coding, much of it thrown away to make way for other code for better or worse? All of that code is likely far beyond 50% of what your company has written.
superplussed 11y ago
For the first year or so of learning Ruby and Rails, I did end up copying and pasting alot from SO. In fact, I think I had a streak of visiting SO every day for at least a year, and that wasn't idle browsing, that was "Oh shit I'm stuck, better hit up SO". So now when I hear claims like this, I just assume it's coming from someone that is new enough to a specific technology that relying on SO is necessary for them.
- gotchange 11y ago
  I rarely visited SO for answers and I went through the novice phase like everyone else but I didn't pick the path of least resistance every time I'm faced with a technical problem, because I have a held belief that you can't accumulate knowledge and expertise if you don't polish your debugging/troubleshooting skills and make yourself go through the painful process of solving technical problems on your own without the help of someone else and I could say that help very much in honing my skills.
  - jgh 11y ago
    This thread is killing me. I have worked on a whole bunch of shit that has little to no documentation (SO included) in my career. I have had to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. SO is amazing when it has information that I'm looking for. You know why? I don't want to have to figure out literally everything. I want to save my figuring energy for tasks worth applying it to. So just get the fuckin' job done and do it right and quit pretending you're trying to achieve nirvana.
  - _up 11y ago
    If you write a paper you also first cite what is state of the art. Before you go into details what Innovation you came up with. So researching SO first, before reinventing the Wheel. Resembles more the scientific way of problem solving. You can also learn a lot by reading and understanding all the different solutions that are often given to a Problem. Your time is better used if you solve new problems or find a better solutions than reinventing the wheel and you also learn as much if not more.
    - Scarblac 11y ago
      It's hard to argue much about this because nobody so far said what kind of problem we're trying to solve. But I feel the first step should be going to the documentation of whatever language or library you're using, rather than Stack Overflow. SO will tell you the answer to a single question, the docs usually give some more information (you don't get "use this option", but "here are the options and this is what they do") so the chance is higher that next time, you'll just know the answer. Of course when inexplicable things happen or when docs are bad, SO can be pure gold.
gotchange 11y ago
It always amazes me that there are people out there willing to hire and pay full these type of workers who scour SO for answers without working hard on the problem and expanding their knowledge and expertise in the process. No wonder that our field and profession is suffering from bad image and quality problem when so-called pros copy and paste all the time on the job.
- abdulhaq 11y ago
  When the deadline is tight and you don't have to debug the bluetooth stack to see why it doesn't work on Samsung XYZ on Android ABC, then SO is a godsend.
- sohcahtoa 11y ago
  I think there are two ways to view what the job most programmers do is. IMO it isn't to write code, it's to solve business problems. Code just happens to be the tool that you use to do that, most of the time. Anyone who tries to solve a problem by staring hard at a blank piece of paper instead of just googling the answer is not making effective use of their time.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Indeed. Some would call it lazy - I prefer "leveraging the combined knowledge and experience of all humanity".
  - lubonay 11y ago
    You are missing the forest for the trees. Reaching for Google and SO as your first impulse when confronted with a problem will deteriorate your ability to find your own solutions in the long run. Use it or lose it, as they say. And besides, any non-trivial problem can't be solved by copying code from SO alone.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Most companies don't solve non-trivial problems. For instance, 90% of web development is regurgitating the same CRUD for different customers. Most of the work consists of wiring standard components together in a standard way, and slapping some CSS on top of it. If you're trying to think too much and reinvent too much, you'll waste a lot of time. Source: did too much webdev in my life already, and wasted way too much time doing things by myself.
DennisP 11y ago
Probably because they're just manipulating some crappy, inconsistent API, or a buggy library. Nothing to figure out, just have to find the incantation that works.
FLUX-YOU 11y ago
>Are there people who get paid to do things that simple that they can be copied and pasted from Stack Overflow? Yes, because the reality is that someone has to do it, and a half-assed effort from a developer browsing SO is still better than getting a random Joe off of the street for $10/hr to try it. Not all companies have interesting problems to solve 100% of the time. It's not impossible that your company is trying to solve a problem that the majority of SO questions will answer, because your problem is just that boring. If that blows your mind, you should know there are people that get paid well to do stuff that is a lot more simple than even cobbling scripts together from the internet.
VLM 11y ago
Something no other commenters mentioned (so far) is every programming book starts out with "hello world" and this spread online not just to generic language teaching but into APIs and libraries. Bootstrapping up from hello world is nearly guaranteed to work, write the entire thing first then try it is a recipe for pain.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I would not be surprised to learn that a codebase is 20-50% made of stuff literally copied from SO (with occasional variable name change). Why? Because most work is not that unique. Rare are the jobs where you're building something new in software; usually it's solving slight variations of the same business problem. In particular, people copy-paste a lot of JS from SO, and again, it's no surprise. Most of the web development isn't done by superstar sexy rocketship startups on the bleeding edge of Node.js ecosystem - it's done by small companies employing barely competent programmers, and it doesn't require any innovation. It's just taking the same components everybody uses, configuring them in the same way everyone configures, and wiring them together in the same way everyone does.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  This was true way back when people were trying frame-based programming, 4GL's, etc. The same general components could often get the job done. So, the tools made that easy to express along with code generators to turn them into 3GL code (eg C, COBOL) specialized for the task. Both vendors and businesses developed an assortment of reusable components that became a selling point in time saving. Repeated again in past 10 years with OOP, SOA, micro-services, and so on. Applies to configurations and admin scripts, too, not just code.
lordnacho 11y ago
If what you're building is pretty standard, it might work, especially if there's no performance element. Web type stuff can often be "take this widget and glue it to this page" in which case it's almost directly from SO. Pretty much everything I do requires parts that came from SO, but it's more like I get a bunch of puzzle pieces and then think about a smart way to assemble the big picture. Then there's the profiling and arrangement that only makes sense on my particular codebase. No way to SO that.
laxatives 11y ago
Sounds like many coders from out outside the US and went to a for-profit MS program.
bluedino 11y ago
>> Are there people who get paid to do things that simple that they can be copied and pasted from Stack Overflow? Have you been on SO?
- babuskov 11y ago
  SO had a great year 1, and maybe year 2. You know, when real questions were asked. Now you have beginners asking so simple questions it's both funny and tragic at the same time. Here's the first question in the list when I opened the site today: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33989450/mysql-joins-on-two-table-with-the-same-value http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33989450/mysql-joins-on-t... Yeah. That guy is one of those who just ask others how to to their job and then copy/paste it. Who answers such questions? I have no idea. Probably the guys who are just a step above on the knowledge curve. They probably hang around to ask their own questions, and also find such questions challenging enough to bother providing an answer.
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    It's a platform for learning. The asker is a beginner. There is nothing wrong with that and someone asking with the intention of learning should never be looked down upon. If you find it so easy why are you even looking at that question? Your google-fu is sub-optimal?
    - babuskov 11y ago
      I'm not looking down on anything or anyone. I'm just analyzing the state of SO today versus the first few years when it started. As for the question, you obviously didn't read what I wrote carefully. I get served a full page of such questions every time I open the site. Finding an interesting question has became a tedious job and that's why I don't even bother to visit the site anymore. Once again, I'm not even sorry about that. It freed a lot of my time - I rarely visit the site, but I'm still ranked in top 2% users, so you can guess how active I was before.
      - 11y ago

jgh 11y ago

He pointed out that it's a hyperbole.

purpled_haze 11y ago
It is and yet it's not. If you think about it, most of the code we benefit from each day was written by someone else from the operating system, to the language compiler/interpreter, to the frameworks, libraries, etc. Many developers get their queues about how to use a language, framework, library, or application because they learned how to use it on StackOverflow. Do you really know how much code was written to get to the point where you are sitting there, using all of the benefits of past coding, much of it thrown away to make way for other code for better or worse? All of that code is likely far beyond 50% of what your company has written.

superplussed 11y ago

For the first year or so of learning Ruby and Rails, I did end up copying and pasting alot from SO. In fact, I think I had a streak of visiting SO every day for at least a year, and that wasn't idle browsing, that was "Oh shit I'm stuck, better hit up SO". So now when I hear claims like this, I just assume it's coming from someone that is new enough to a specific technology that relying on SO is necessary for them.

gotchange 11y ago
I rarely visited SO for answers and I went through the novice phase like everyone else but I didn't pick the path of least resistance every time I'm faced with a technical problem, because I have a held belief that you can't accumulate knowledge and expertise if you don't polish your debugging/troubleshooting skills and make yourself go through the painful process of solving technical problems on your own without the help of someone else and I could say that help very much in honing my skills.
- jgh 11y ago
  This thread is killing me. I have worked on a whole bunch of shit that has little to no documentation (SO included) in my career. I have had to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. SO is amazing when it has information that I'm looking for. You know why? I don't want to have to figure out literally everything. I want to save my figuring energy for tasks worth applying it to. So just get the fuckin' job done and do it right and quit pretending you're trying to achieve nirvana.
- _up 11y ago
  If you write a paper you also first cite what is state of the art. Before you go into details what Innovation you came up with. So researching SO first, before reinventing the Wheel. Resembles more the scientific way of problem solving. You can also learn a lot by reading and understanding all the different solutions that are often given to a Problem. Your time is better used if you solve new problems or find a better solutions than reinventing the wheel and you also learn as much if not more.
  - Scarblac 11y ago
    It's hard to argue much about this because nobody so far said what kind of problem we're trying to solve. But I feel the first step should be going to the documentation of whatever language or library you're using, rather than Stack Overflow. SO will tell you the answer to a single question, the docs usually give some more information (you don't get "use this option", but "here are the options and this is what they do") so the chance is higher that next time, you'll just know the answer. Of course when inexplicable things happen or when docs are bad, SO can be pure gold.

gotchange 11y ago

It always amazes me that there are people out there willing to hire and pay full these type of workers who scour SO for answers without working hard on the problem and expanding their knowledge and expertise in the process. No wonder that our field and profession is suffering from bad image and quality problem when so-called pros copy and paste all the time on the job.

abdulhaq 11y ago
When the deadline is tight and you don't have to debug the bluetooth stack to see why it doesn't work on Samsung XYZ on Android ABC, then SO is a godsend.
sohcahtoa 11y ago
I think there are two ways to view what the job most programmers do is. IMO it isn't to write code, it's to solve business problems. Code just happens to be the tool that you use to do that, most of the time. Anyone who tries to solve a problem by staring hard at a blank piece of paper instead of just googling the answer is not making effective use of their time.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Indeed. Some would call it lazy - I prefer "leveraging the combined knowledge and experience of all humanity".
- lubonay 11y ago
  You are missing the forest for the trees. Reaching for Google and SO as your first impulse when confronted with a problem will deteriorate your ability to find your own solutions in the long run. Use it or lose it, as they say. And besides, any non-trivial problem can't be solved by copying code from SO alone.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Most companies don't solve non-trivial problems. For instance, 90% of web development is regurgitating the same CRUD for different customers. Most of the work consists of wiring standard components together in a standard way, and slapping some CSS on top of it. If you're trying to think too much and reinvent too much, you'll waste a lot of time. Source: did too much webdev in my life already, and wasted way too much time doing things by myself.

DennisP 11y ago

Probably because they're just manipulating some crappy, inconsistent API, or a buggy library. Nothing to figure out, just have to find the incantation that works.

FLUX-YOU 11y ago

>Are there people who get paid to do things that simple that they can be copied and pasted from Stack Overflow? Yes, because the reality is that someone has to do it, and a half-assed effort from a developer browsing SO is still better than getting a random Joe off of the street for $10/hr to try it. Not all companies have interesting problems to solve 100% of the time. It's not impossible that your company is trying to solve a problem that the majority of SO questions will answer, because your problem is just that boring. If that blows your mind, you should know there are people that get paid well to do stuff that is a lot more simple than even cobbling scripts together from the internet.

VLM 11y ago

Something no other commenters mentioned (so far) is every programming book starts out with "hello world" and this spread online not just to generic language teaching but into APIs and libraries. Bootstrapping up from hello world is nearly guaranteed to work, write the entire thing first then try it is a recipe for pain.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I would not be surprised to learn that a codebase is 20-50% made of stuff literally copied from SO (with occasional variable name change). Why? Because most work is not that unique. Rare are the jobs where you're building something new in software; usually it's solving slight variations of the same business problem. In particular, people copy-paste a lot of JS from SO, and again, it's no surprise. Most of the web development isn't done by superstar sexy rocketship startups on the bleeding edge of Node.js ecosystem - it's done by small companies employing barely competent programmers, and it doesn't require any innovation. It's just taking the same components everybody uses, configuring them in the same way everyone configures, and wiring them together in the same way everyone does.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
This was true way back when people were trying frame-based programming, 4GL's, etc. The same general components could often get the job done. So, the tools made that easy to express along with code generators to turn them into 3GL code (eg C, COBOL) specialized for the task. Both vendors and businesses developed an assortment of reusable components that became a selling point in time saving. Repeated again in past 10 years with OOP, SOA, micro-services, and so on. Applies to configurations and admin scripts, too, not just code.

lordnacho 11y ago

If what you're building is pretty standard, it might work, especially if there's no performance element. Web type stuff can often be "take this widget and glue it to this page" in which case it's almost directly from SO. Pretty much everything I do requires parts that came from SO, but it's more like I get a bunch of puzzle pieces and then think about a smart way to assemble the big picture. Then there's the profiling and arrangement that only makes sense on my particular codebase. No way to SO that.

laxatives 11y ago

Sounds like many coders from out outside the US and went to a for-profit MS program.

bluedino 11y ago

>> Are there people who get paid to do things that simple that they can be copied and pasted from Stack Overflow? Have you been on SO?

babuskov 11y ago
SO had a great year 1, and maybe year 2. You know, when real questions were asked. Now you have beginners asking so simple questions it's both funny and tragic at the same time. Here's the first question in the list when I opened the site today: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33989450/mysql-joins-on-two-table-with-the-same-value http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33989450/mysql-joins-on-t... Yeah. That guy is one of those who just ask others how to to their job and then copy/paste it. Who answers such questions? I have no idea. Probably the guys who are just a step above on the knowledge curve. They probably hang around to ask their own questions, and also find such questions challenging enough to bother providing an answer.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  It's a platform for learning. The asker is a beginner. There is nothing wrong with that and someone asking with the intention of learning should never be looked down upon. If you find it so easy why are you even looking at that question? Your google-fu is sub-optimal?
  - babuskov 11y ago
    I'm not looking down on anything or anyone. I'm just analyzing the state of SO today versus the first few years when it started. As for the question, you obviously didn't read what I wrote carefully. I get served a full page of such questions every time I open the site. Finding an interesting question has became a tedious job and that's why I don't even bother to visit the site anymore. Once again, I'm not even sorry about that. It freed a lot of my time - I rarely visit the site, but I'm still ranked in top 2% users, so you can guess how active I was before.
    - 11y ago