"Cargo cult programming is a style of computer programming that is characterized by the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. Cargo cult programming is typically symptomatic of a programmer not understanding either a bug he or she was attempting to solve or the apparent solution..."
Interesting that you mention this. I'm almost done re-reading "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dörner and have come across this gem (p170) (s/war/software engineering/, s/commander/developer/):
"The effects of "methodism" - the unthinking application of a sequence of actions we have once learned - can have a significant impact in areas other than measuring quantities of water. The motivation is the same, however: we are most inclined to deconditionalize a form of action and use it over and over again if it has proved successful for us or for others. [Karl von] Clausewitz, from whom I have borrowed the term methodism, observed:
"So long as no acceptable theory, no intelligent anaylsis of the conduct of war exists, routine methods will tend to take over even at the highlest levels...Their only insights are those that they have gained by experience. For this reason, they prefer to use the means with which their experience has equipped them, even in cases that could and shuold be handled freely and individually. They will copy their supreme comanders' favorite device - thus automatically creating a new routine...War, in its highest forms, is not an infinite mass of minor events, analogous despite their diversities, which can be controlled with greater to lesser effectiveness depending on the methods applied. War consists rather of single, great, decisive actions, each of which needs to be handled individually. War is not like a field of wheat, which, without regard to the individual stalk, may be mown more of less efficiently depending on the quality of the scythe; it is like a stand of mature trees in which the ax has to be used judiciously according to the characteristics and development of each individual trunk."
...The methodist is not able to cope with specific, individual configurations on their own terms, for he has two or three ways of proceeding, and he uses one or the other depending on the general features of the situation as a whole. He does not take into account the individuality of the situation as it is evidenced in the specific configuration of its features."
"Cargo cult programming is a style of computer programming that is characterized by the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. Cargo cult programming is typically symptomatic of a programmer not understanding either a bug he or she was attempting to solve or the apparent solution..."