Knuth also reuses code by (oh, horror!) copy-pasting it. See e.g. http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856 http://www.informit.com/articles/artic

Knuth also reuses code by (oh, horror!) copy-pasting it. See e.g. http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856 http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856 (search for "re-editable" code). Another fun example: a common sentiment of distrusting comments and documentation. The title of https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CodeAsDocumentation.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CodeAsDocumentation.html reads as an antithesis to literate programming. Of course the reality is that most (but not all) code is so mundane that if it needs additional comments, it means that it was not properly written! What the article and these examples highlight is the difference between a research scientist and an industrial programmer. The former's job is to produce optimal algorithms, the latter's job is to produce working solutions. And to be fair to the former, producing a working solution is often not possible until proper algorithm is devised.