How Mainstream Can Code Scavenging Go?

The time-honored tradition of code scavanging has long been a way for new programmers to "break in" to a new language or task that they may not want to build from the ground up. The re-use of old code, cleaned up and tweaked to a new purpose can help developers learn many useful skills and accomplish tasks quickly, especially for small tasks that aren't of vital importance. One blogger wondered if this process could be formalized and tools could be built to help foster and enable code scavanging on a mass level. Is this a viable option, or are there just too many things to consider?

Comments

code repositories

[drfrog]

like cpan and ruby gems etc

we scavenge code online w/e, find it needs to be used by a lot of people

so we inherit the scavenged and put it in a nice module and tada!

this is nothing new

semi-formalized

[mycall]

Some people are already doing this, such as koders, code fetch, codase, and snippets. Talk to them for formalizing as I'm sure they have some good input.

Google Code

[TooMuchToDo]

http://code.google.com/

Re:Google Code

[daveb]

for code scavenging try this instead / as-well
http://www.google.com/codesearch

Microsoft Popfly?

[im_thatoneguy]

Isn't that what microsoft is trying to do with PopFly?

http://www.popfly.ms/Overview/

The reuse of old code...

[adamkennedy]

So... the formalised use of old code... you mean like CPAN?

Re:This reminds me of another book ...

[stoborrobots]

boster suggested above that it was A Deepness in the Sky ...