programming etiquette

[Brad]

Is there a proper etiquette when you lift code of a website and use it? Also
at what point,if any, does modification to the code change the answer to the
first question?

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

Any code that you lift should be documented as such. Give credit to the
original author where possible and even a link to the web site where you got
the code. If you modify the code in any way make sure to document what you
changed and that the changes are not part of the original code.

At no point should you try to pass of lifted code as your own. More than
once I have seen code that was obviously not written by the person posting
trying to be passed off as their own.

 

[Barb Reinhardt]

To add to that, if you document where it came from, if you have problems in
the future, you or someone else will know where to start looking for
assistance.