First: I think the influence of the word lazy on good programmers is to encourage them to be more efficient. I could be wrong, but that's how it feels to me. A

First: I think the influence of the word lazy on good programmers is to encourage them to be more efficient. I could be wrong, but that's how it feels to me. Although I think the author is right that copy/pasting the same function 40 times does represent laziness, it also represents short-sightedness. Something the Wall quote doesn't explicitly state is that the good programmer is looking to optimize for the sum total of effort over the project (or programmer) lifetime, not to be "lazy" in the immediate moment, mortaging the future for ease of the present.