Acceptable Reuse of Code vs. Theft

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Before we begin, we must first ascertain the difference between acceptable reuse of code and theft. The reuse of code can fall in too both categories, However this can be perfectly legal to do, it can also be considered theft. The reuse of your own code creations is just fine, but the use of third-party code may not be the case. There is a difference between the reuse of code and the theft of intellectual property.

What is code reuse? Literal definition: Code reuse is the practice of using existing code over again. There are some benefits and drawbacks to code reuse as is defined here. If you take the literal meaning of the terms you end up with simply using your code or bits of code in various other areas of your program or even in completely different programs.

One benefit of code reuse is speed. You can very quickly reproduce certain aspects of a program by copying and pasting you pre-existing code, or code found on the internet. There doesn't have to be much time spent to just duplicated code to another applicable areas of an application or to an entire new program application. Yet another benefit to code reuse is in the debugging stage of the programming development. Likewise, if the code segment works in one area of the program it is sure to work in another. Finally, the biggest advantage to code reuse is that you do not have to reinvent the wheel. Above all, when you find a segment of code that works and meets your needs then use it.

However code reuse does come with some drawbacks. One such disadvantage is that you may not own the code segment and have to give credit too or even pay out royalties to a third party for its use. According to (number one) another major drawback is program Maintenance; that if you need to make a change you will have to make the same changes to all copied sections of code and that this creates for a program maintenance nightmare. I have found that from the learning perspective as a student it is not very beneficial to reuse code. All things considered in my opinion I have become more acquainted and experienced with the programming code if I invent a new program creation each time I write a program.

In my personal research and limited but growing coding experience I have found little draw backs to code reuse.

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