[tptacek]

I'm sure there is when you're just getting your sea legs in some environment, but at some point most of the code you write in a given environment is rote. Rote code is both depleting and mutagenic --- if you're fluent and also interested in programming, you'll start convincing yourself to do stupid stuff to make the code less rote ("DRY it up", "make a DSL", &c) that makes your code less readable and maintainable. It's a trap I fall into constantly.

[kiitos]

> but at some point most of the code you write in a given environment is rote

"Most of the code one writes in a given environment is rote" is true in the same sense that most of the words one writes in any given bit of text are rote e.g. conjunctions, articles, prepositions, etc.

[tptacek]

Some writers I know are convinced this is true, but I still don't think the comparison is completely apt, because deliberately rote code with modulated expressiveness is often (even usually) a virtue in coding, and not always so with writing. For experienced or enthusiastic coders, that is to say, the effort is often in not doing stupid stuff to make the code more clever.

Straight-line replacement-grade mid code that just does the things a prompt tells it to in the least clever most straightforward way possible is usually a good thing; that long clunky string of modifiers goes by the name "maintainability".

[ehutch79]

If your code is that boilerplate you can do it by rote, you need to abstract it already. Or write a generator/snippet

[tptacek]

See, I get what you're saying, but this is my whole thing. No. Abstracting code out or building a bespoke codegen system is not always or even usually an improvement on straight-line code that just does what it says it does.