The internet has made it possible for just about everyone to build various scripts. Because with the wealth of tutorials and code snippets published all over the web it is now highly possible that you could write a piece of code that you have no idea how it works. Helping out with various wordpress support forum problems and such i was initially shocked at the lack of understanding of php a skill i thought was a given to be hacking on wordpress.
However, the idea seems to be that even if i don’t know how it works someone else does. The problem with this philosophy ends up being that chances are whoever wrote the snippet you are using probably didn’t test it very thoroughly (i don’t) before posting it, assuming you just need to be pointed in the right direction. The other problem is that if you don’t fully understand what the code you are using does, and how it does it fixing bugs will be very frustrating.
Cut & Paste programming has always been taboo in the world of Computer Science, however the internet has turned it from taboo to common practice, resulting in the propagation of bugs, and the creation and recreation of “Frankenstein’s Monster”.
