That's not what "copypasta" means, you're thinking of "copy and paste."
"Copypasta" is when you copy sections of code from one or more program's source code and paste it into another, trying to pluck specific functionality from them, and create a mess in the destination program doing it.
What the fuck did you just fucking post about me, you absolute beginner? I'll have you know I worked for ten of the biggest silicon-valley industry companies, and I've been involved in over two hundred top secret projects including NodeJS. I am trained in refactoring the most fucked up code, and I'm the top C++er in the entire fucking internet-connected universe. You are nothing to me, but just another IP. I will fucking revoke your commits from your gitlab account with absolute dedication using only one Rasperry Pi client. Mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with posting that shit on one of my numerous very personal blogs? Your devices are fucking bricked, kid. My attack software can be anywhere, anytime, and it is tasked to remove your entire git contributions from planet earth. Not only am I extensively trained in remote cross-firewall device-hacking, but I have access to over 100 of the United States CIA and NSA git repositories. If only you could have known what doom-bringing C-one-liner you have raised from my fucking hands, maybe you would have held your fingers. But you could not. You did not. And now you're paying the price, noob. I will hail havoc upon your puny online-presence and you will drown in your own badly designed software. You're fucking offline, kiddo.
While a clever interpretation, that's not what copypasta means. It's literally a permutation of the phrase 'copy and paste'; popularized on 4chan, as a term for posts that would be repeatedly copy/pasted.
There's something special about it when applied to code though. Spaghetti code that's been copy/pasted is, in particular, quite worthy of being called "copypasta".
I have never seen the term being used in programming (for code) this way to refer to spaghetti code. Unless your definition caught on, using it that way would just confuse people, because copypasta already means something else.
I concur that this is an interpretation I encountered, that is bad copy/paste of possibly good code (often from stackoverflow) that results in spaghetti/pasta code, due to pasted code not being reformatted/refactored to fit surrounding code.
To be clear: specifically when copy-pasting, just particularly when the code is already spaghetti. (Because who commits just one sin?) The copy/pasting is the critical element.
Actually the previous assertion predates 4chan. Anecdotally I recall using "copypasta" in the late 90's when working with code that had obviously been copied from another source and turned into a a spaghetti code mess. I don't doubt that it has taken on many other meanings, but I know for a fact that it means what naikrovek is not alone with that definition.
Yes. My exposure to the term is from slashdot and IRC in the late 1990s.
Can't believe I got downvoted for having more time on the internet than some others here, learning during that time, then making a statement based on what I learned.
