Use copy/paste as much as you can

Dear new developer,

Use copy and paste as much as you can. Not so much for code snippets from Stackoverflow, though that will save you some time hunting down mismatched parentheses.

But this is especially useful whenever you are searching for errors or moving information between systems.

For example, recently I had to find where java was installed and set the JAVA_HOME environment variable. I could have typed it in, but that is error prone. More than once I’ve transposed or omitted letters. Whenever I’m doing this kind of adhoc software configuration, I use copy/paste.

I also use this a lot when preparing to file an issue or ticket. First, I’ll just copy and paste the error message (removing the particulars of my system like file paths) into Google to see what pops up.

Then, if it is still an issue and I don’t see any answers, I’ll pop open a text editor and cut and paste all my notes about the issue, what I’ve tried (which often leads to more avenues to explore, rubber ducking in action), logfile lines. All this would be hellish to type, so I copy and paste away.

I hear there are systems out there with more than one clipboard spot, but I’ve always gotten by with the system clipboard. I did recently discover the magic of pbpaste and pbcopy on the mac, which let you copy file contents to the system clipboard (and it looks like there are analogs for other systems).

Anyway, make sure you know and love your system clipboard. When you are trying to copy complicated text, you’ll thank me.

Sincerely,

Dan