There is an interesting related paper "Copy and Paste Redeemed" [1] that is based on the assumption that a lot of copy/paste happens (and discusses why this is

There is an interesting related paper "Copy and Paste Redeemed" [1] that is based on the assumption that a lot of copy/paste happens (and discusses why this is not necessarily a bad thing). [1] investigates how copy/paste can be auto-detected, how similar pieces of code can automatically be merged together, and how abstractions can be automatically created from copy/paste code. I have not used the tool myself, so I cannot comment on how well it works in practise. But I found the idea intriguing. [1] K. Narasimhan, C. Reichenbach, Copy and Paste Redeemed http://creichen.net/papers/cpr.pdf http://creichen.net/papers/cpr.pdf