In my previous post, I explained Why everyone needs to be a programmer.

‘Cut and Paste’ (CaP) programming is primarily a pejorative term; those who use the term are often implying a lack of programming competence.

There was a time early in my career where I sought out to be the ‘smartest person in the room’. To me, this meant having a command of a technology greater than my peers. In my arrogance I thought this is how I would provide the highest levels of value to a client, increasing the likelihood that I would have projects and make more money.

Deep technical knowledge is only valuable to businesses if that translates to outcomes. Having a command of tools and technology may infer a high time-to-solution (TTS) but as I learned in leading a consulting practice, sometimes the most accredited individuals struggle to deliver timely solutions.

CaP is no more cheating than including a library, package, or component (code someone else develops) into your project – which everyone does.

The best solution providers always base their projects on something that already exists.

There are CaP programmers using code to automate connecting with people, securing jobs, and finding good deals on homes, and cars. Not sure they care what the arrogant Ph.D. computer scientist thinks.

The best sources to find existing code is:

  1. StackOverflow
  2. GitHub
  3. Reddit
    1. r/Linux
    2. r/Python
  4. LinuxQuestions.org

I do not recommend that you use social media platforms. 1) the other platforms are more specialized 2) you could be distracted when you visit them.

Where to go from here

Why Linux is the best development environment
Why Python is the best development language

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