Attention boys and girls! Before we start having fun solving all our problems with elegant code, we’ve got an important rule to discuss. The Internet is a great resource for software developers, but beware. Control-V should be used with caution. Don’t copy-paste code unless you fully understand what it’s doing. We’ve all seen this situation:
A friend copies a code snippet he finds online. He doesn’t quite understand what it’s doing, but it does what he needs done. He intends to go back and figure out what’s going on later, but right now he’s got a deadline to meet. Later on, a bug is discovered that may or may not be caused by the code snippet copied from the Internet. My friend doesn’t know because he doesn’t quite understand the snippet. Now he’s got to grok the snippet before he can even begin figuring out what the problem is.
Like most developers, I’ve always got at least one browser window open to any number of community sites. I can almost always find answers to code questions I have, but I always make sure I completely understand those answers before I implement them. I’ve been burned before by no doing so. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about not turning to the online community for help, but try to understand that help you find online. You’ll become a better developer, and that can’t be a bad thing.
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