What came first, the programmer or the code?

alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to Programmer Humor@programming.dev – 1228 points –
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Anyone can copy code. Making the copied code work well in your own codebase, and fixing it when it doesn't, is what requires skill and experience.

When I was 8 I was making a "video game" (a complete bundle of code trash 😉) and I would copy people's code and everything would melt down. I would spend hours debugging just to realize I needed to pass an extra argument or indent or something.

Today I'm better at my job. I am now the one writing confusing function APIs 😈

It's no exaggeration sometimes it takes a dozen different how-to blogs and stack overflows to find an example where somebody has exactly what you need and nothing more. So many people add so much fluff and unusual structures that the thing they're claiming the code does can't even be found.