• damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes, because till University, you’re trying to learn something new. And the best way to learn is by doing.

    At work, all you’re trying to do is save money (for the corporation). Best way to do that is to reuse, recycle.

  • Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Chunk@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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 😈

    • llama@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    When I get helper functions from stack overflow or similar, I normally add a comment with a link to the article, mostly for my own sake so if there’s any problems later I can re-read the article to get more info, or use it to try and find other solutions.

    • 6xpipe_@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re supposed to do that anyway. Code on SO is licensed as CC BY-SA, which requires attribution.

        • 6xpipe_@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The links from that post and top comment point out that that initiative was dropped. It got mired down in bikeshedding from hundreds of opinions and SO eventually just said, “Fuck it.”

          The MIT announcement thread was edited with the cancellation announcment:

          Update: January 15, 2016

          Thank you for your patience and feedback. The changes proposed here have been delayed indefinitely - we’ll be back later to open some more discussions.

          The top comment from your link points out the current license:

          TL;DR: Source code on SO is still licensed under CC-BY-SA.

          And CC BY-SA is the only license listed on the official help page.

          • Content contributed before 2011-04-08 (UTC) is distributed under the terms of CC BY-SA 2.5.
          • Content contributed from 2011-04-08 up to but not including 2018-05-02 (UTC) is distributed under the terms of CC BY-SA 3.0.
          • Content contributed on or after 2018-05-02 (UTC) is distributed under the terms of CC BY-SA 4.0.
      • Johanno@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I used to do that on complete copy and paste parts.

        Now we aren’t allowed to do so. If stackoverflow.com is used you have to adjust the answer so that in court your code will not be a copy. They are afraid of users licenseing their code afterward.

    • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      For JS shit I usually have to rewrite them because they aren’t production quality in terms of readability. Still really useful for getting answers on obscure stuff

      • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        The quality is definitely varying, the hardest part is to find a example that fits what you expect, or looks like it can be refactored into what you need.

  • Still@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    well using someone’s code properly licensed isn’t plagiarism

    a fair few of my uni classes were like take this guys code and make it do this, which were like 4 lines changes

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “Here’s this header file that implements 99% of the mathematics, because I’m not paid to teach mathematics.”

      Ironically I learned a lot more about linear algebra from that header file than from my actual teacher.

      • intelati@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I just saw a “faster linear algebra” package scroll by on pacman. I almost pulled up the source/documentation.

        The only thing that stopped me was that I have about 199 things more relevant to my usage than linear algebra.

  • visor841@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Plagiarism isn’t just using someone else’s work. It’s when you use someone else’s work and claim it was your own. The programmers aren’t plagiarizing as they’re being freely admitting it’s not their work.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      If you’ve ever copied and pasted code from StackOverflow without mentioning the author, linking the creative commons license, and linking to the author’s account you’ve technically violated the creative commons license and I’d argue you’ve technically plagiarized.

      Does anyone care? No, not really.

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Uh oh. So you think legal might be on to us, like, existing?

          I know I’m safe though because every line of code I have ever written came to me in a vision as I stared at a flat white wall.

          • jeff 👨‍💻@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            flat white wall

            Hey guys, look at this light mode user! My wall is dark mode. 😎

            In a serious note, a developer should be aware of how licenses work. Just copy pasting from Stack Overflow likely breaks the defaults license. You could open up yourself or your company to serious legal trouble. And it really isn’t ethical. I wouldn’t want code I shared in a certain context be stolen by a large corporation and make them money

            • Zink@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              Lol! I figured a plain white wall was as featureless as you could get for something to stare at while you mentally conjure code.

              And since I’m in the office today (voluntarily!) there is literally a white wall to stare at above my monitors! But there is also a window slightly to the side, so my “staring blankly while totally thinking of something that will help the company” game is strong.

              Dark mode is definitely the way to go though. I have three monitors and one phone in front of me, and 3/4 currently show a dark background in the application on them.

  • Codex@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    All code already exists in Plato’s world of perfect abstractions. Programmers merely view this ideal world darkly and scribble what imperfect algorithms they can vaguely remember.

    • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃@pawb.social
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      1 year ago

      Stackoverflow is platonism for the masses, a means by which to copy perfect code from “programmers.”

      The “other programmers” are dead. There is no perfect algorithm. And so we must become programmers unto ourselves…

  • llama@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Public domain? Creative commons? MIT? BSD? GPL? You mean I’m allowed to use these things without failing?

  • Rheios@ttrpg.network
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    1 year ago

    Unless there’s a bug. Then it is my code and I have to fix it. Immediately. No, I don’t want to discuss my thought process for “why I made that decision” I want to fix it. Why are we having a chat about milk pouring technique while it is dripping off the fucking table. Prod is burning and you want to fiddle! (Meanwhile this is a minor bug that nobody has ever actually complained about but just the knowledge that it was my fault…)

  • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    I have a suspicion that the reason universities crack down on plagiarism this hard (to the point of outright making up offenses like ‘self plagiarism’), is that it’s the only form scientific misconduct that is easy to prove and investigate.

    If you are wondering if it’s true, just look at how long it took for Hendrik Schon to get caught. And even then, the smoking gun was reusing (fake) graphs in a publication.

    • notabot@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      They crack down on plagerism because they’re trying to teach and assess you, not whoever you copied from. If they wanted copied answers, they could just photocopy the answers for you and save everyone a lot of effort.

      The real world may be different, but the idea is to get the knowledge and, more importantly, the way of thinking about your particular subject, into your head. Once you know that, you know what to copy.

      • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        I was trying to make a larger point about the concept of plagiarism as a form of scientific misconduct. In a teaching setting you are just perpetrating exam fraud and should get nailed to the wall.

        • notabot@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Ah, fair enough, I think I misunderstood your point.

          Yes, plagiarism as scientific rather than academic misconduct is cracked down on hard. As you said, it’s easy to prove, and, I suspect they don’t like the idea of having their own work copied without attribution.