cargo cult programming

programmingops culture

Copying code or rituals that seem to work without understanding why, in the hope the result follows.

The phrase adapts Richard Feynman's "cargo cult science": going through the motions and expecting the outcome to appear. In code it looks like pasting a config, an incantation, or a boilerplate class because it worked somewhere else, without grasping what it does. The cure is understanding, not more copying.

Also known as: cargo cult, cargo-cult

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