Just as a counterexample to this, my last gig (I got out after 4 months thankfully) was written with some of these "do copy and paste" and "write a big lump of

Just as a counterexample to this, my last gig (I got out after 4 months thankfully) was written with some of these "do copy and paste" and "write a big lump of code" principle and it was an absolute nightmare to work with. Most functions were hundreds of lines long and files were huge. The code had no architecture and was very hard to reason with or modify. Most of the work was to fix a steady inflow of bugs which had no concrete repro steps and happened sporadicly. People rag on premature optimization but I will take it over no optimization at all. Someone who prematurely optimizes at least has good intentions in their heart and is trying to do better. At the end of the day, every day, even every hour as a developer you constantly have a choice - be lazy or be good. If you are lazy you will add one more if then statement to the already huge function. If you are good, you will refactor it. Its OK to be lazy every once in a while, but thats a very slippery slope and years of laziness will crush a codebase in its own eight.