RajScribes: Are You A Copy & Paste Programmer?

This is an excerpt taken from a dream-in-code newsletter. It sounded important so thought of sharing.

As I've had the opportunity to interview developers for various positions over the years, I've noticed there are two distinct types of "programmers". Those that can actually program from scratch in an IDE/editor (or on a white board as we ask them to do in interviews), and those that can Google and press Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V very effectively.

With the explosion of Q&A sites focusing on providing quick and ready to copy and paste answers and code, the Copy & Paste Programmer is alive and well.

Unfortunately for the first group of developers who can actually write code and don't spend all their days trying to make someone elses code work, the Copy & Paste Programmer has created quite a problem. Taking away jobs, perpetuating a culture of unmaintanable, and undocumented code that the Copy & Paste Programmer never understood to begin with.

At Dream.In.Code, we're often criticized for asking members to put forth a little effort and try to actually learn a little and understand what it is they are doing. This is apparently too much to ask for the countless lazy students and young professionals that would rather be handed 100 lines of code they can pass off as their own than spend a few extra minutes learning how to actually solve a problem. What's sad is, this used to be limited to academic settings, but as those individuals graduate and enter the work force, we're seeing more and more questions from "professionals" who need someone to write their code for them. This is disgusting, and it's being supported by other programmers who will gladly do their work for them.

While there is nothing wrong with doing some research and finding a snippet or two to help you complete an application, if you find yourself assembling programs entirely from code copied from forums, Q&A sites, etc. You are a Copy & Paste Programmer and you are not only hurting yourself, but you're hurting your entire industry.

Dream.In.Code does not and will not support a culture in which programmers can not write code from scratch or complete basic troubleshooting and debugging. This is why we encourage discussion, learning, and a good faith effort from everyone receiving help. It may not be the easy or popular thing to do, but for those genuinely interested in having a successful career as a programmer, it's the right thing to do.

Dream in Code

H A P P Y 2 0 1 1 !

I've started blogging again and plan to do it in a regular basis since I personally think I might have more things to share around in 2011 with significance.

I Will be continuing my personal blog here while starting a new blog at pub•débug for my profession related posts.

I was at the church mass last night and would like to share the wonderful message delivered by the preach. It was based on 2 stories from the

bible, The parable of Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) and The parable of the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16).

The message was about jealousy, comparison and unsatisfaction. The examples were the eldest son in the parable of prodigal son and the workers of earliest hours in the parable of the vineyard. We always have more than we need, but we are always concerned about the things that others have. Always step on someone's head and climb up. No matter how good we think of ourselves, each one of us have been in this situation more than once in our lives. We try to justify it, in the sense, the elder son's complain was logically correct, "Father I've always served you, I've never betrayed you, but you haven't given me a goat to be merry with my friends" and the early workers complain was true, "We worked more hours than them but why do we receive equally?".

However, in both cases, comparison, jealousy leading to unsatisfaction was evident. When you see someone getting more than you when you already have enough but still think that you should have gotten more, when it should be an innocent sin that leads to dangerous consequences. The father's reply was, "Son, everything I have is for you, your brother was lost and now he has

returned. So we should joy with him" and the Vineyard owner's reply was, "I gave you the price I promised and you should be satisfied with it".

Have a moment of thought, how many times have you eavesdropped even on your friends to compare, the be unsatisfied and get jealous finally leading to cracks in your relation?

Lets try to change ourselves and determine to give meaning to our lives in this wrapped out new year!

So let the year twenty eleven be declared as the year of promoting positive thinking and adding values to our lives +++++

GOD Bless You!

Are You A Copy & Paste Programmer?

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