{"id":3553,"date":"2022-03-30T10:16:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T09:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/technocript.com\/?p=3553"},"modified":"2022-12-07T21:10:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T21:10:46","slug":"do-developers-copy-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technocript.com\/do-developers-copy-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Developers Copy Code? (Numbers from StackOverflow)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Developing software programs usually involves dealing with many common and repetitive problems. These frequently encountered issues can be often found solved elsewhere by someone else. Copying and re-using others’ solutions could easily save hours and maybe days implementing the same solution over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of developers do copy code most of the time. They copy their own code or other developers’ code that can be accessed online. StackOverflow itself has captured more than 40 MILLION copy commands on its pages in only two weeks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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Nevertheless, copying others’ code snippets might be tricky and prone the entire software to unexpected faults. It could also put the developers in trouble facing legal issues due to breaking the license of the re-used code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we discuss why developers copy\/paste others’ code, when, and how often. We also check to what extent it is legal to copy code from common platforms such as StackOverflow and GitHub. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Do Developers Copy and Paste Code?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of their purposes and complexity, all computer programs consist of many small and self-contained code snippets. Each of these aims at solving a specific programmatic problem while providing a part of the final solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most cases, there will be a very high chance these smaller problems have already been encountered before. They perhaps have been also solved by other programmers in many different contexts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, many programmers can benefit from the code that others write to help them solve similar issues. In this context, do developers actually copy code when developing their projects?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Certainly, the majority of developers do copy code most of the time. This might be their own code that they previously produced, code from public repositories, open-source code, or most often code from StackOverflow’s answers and comments!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n

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The key reason behind this is that most likely a solution for the same problem already exists, and sometimes two or three. Thus, it is just a waste of time reinventing the wheel by re-writing the same solution for the same issue that has been solved by someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Wagon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Accordingly, copying and pasting code like repetitive functions and code snippets are quite common tasks in the developer’s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of that, a useful skill of good developers would be to search for and quickly find answers to programmatic questions. And eventually, to decide which solution is the best or most applicable in their case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Is It Okay to Copy Code?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Copying code snippets for common tasks usually save too much effort in recreating the solution from scratch. Nevertheless, blindly copying and pasting code without understanding the underlying solution is totally a bad practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In most cases, it’s totally okay for developers to copy code in their projects, providing they understand what they are copying, and the code license permits re-using it in the way intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Do NOT Copy the Code, Copy The Solution! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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Depending on the nature of the function or script, developers should be aware of the solution they are going to reuse. This must include: understanding the problem it solves, how this code deals with it, what the advantages and disadvantages of this solution are, and which exceptions this solution might raise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Developers do not STEAL code, they just REUSE it!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Technocript.com<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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As a result, and based on all mentioned points, developers should determine if it’s okay to inherit the solution and re-use it in their program. This couldn’t happen without reading along the whole code, understanding every single instruction, and knowing how it can be modified and properly used in various contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, it will be highly important to check the code documentation (if exists) as well as all its comments and discussions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. How Often Do Developers Copy Code?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although cloning others’ code is a fairly common practice in software development, the majority of the developed software is usually written from scratch. Typically, copy\/paste tasks cover only common and repeatedly encountered problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, how often do developers copy and paste code?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is no practical way to measure how often developers copy code or the proportion of the copied code in comparison to the originally created one. However, StackOverflow has captured more than 40 Million copy commands from their questions in only two weeks.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n

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Accordingly, let us resort to some stats from the preferred source to copy code for most programmers, StackOverflow<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on an article on their official blog<\/a>, StackOverflow installed a system that captures every time the visitor copied something from their website. The collected data covers two weeks from March 26, 2021, to April 9, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"StackOverflow<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Here are some of the pretty interesting facts this experiment has revealed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n