No, the responsible thing to do is to build tools that do them for you, and then other tools that check they're being done correctly. Failing that: often, prod

No, the responsible thing to do is to build tools that do them for you, and then other tools that check they're being done correctly. Failing that: often, products are made or broken on the ability to get the mundane parts done efficiently and properly. If anything, this means those parts deserve the attention of a more experienced engineer; otherwise, you'll end up rewriting them anyways, or at the very least spending more time in supervision than you would have to just write the damn thing. (And if you don't spend that time in supervision, well, you probably shouldn't be in a position to mentor anyone.) I couldn't agree more with GP: good programmers are the ones who bring the same standard of work to the mundane tasks as to the fiendishly challenging ones. I'd go further: the best programmers are those who look at the supposedly challenging tasks and ask: "Why are we solving this problem? Is there a mundane problem we can substitute to achieve the same result?"