“We’ve Been Copypasting for Years”: StackOverflow, ChatGPT, and the Myth of the New Way to Code

There’s a recurring hand-wringing in the dev world lately — that using ChatGPT or Copilot to write or fix your code is lazy, dangerous, or somehow less “real” than doing it the hard way.

But let’s be honest.

If you’ve ever copied a StackOverflow answer word-for-word into your app without fully understanding it… welcome to vibe-based development. You were already doing it. The only thing that’s changed is the autocomplete.

In this post, we’ll explore the similarities and differences between StackOverflow-style help and ChatGPT-style help, look at real examples, and highlight why much of the anti-vibe coding panic misses the bigger picture.

The StackOverflow Era: Ask, Copy, Adapt (Hopefully)

Let’s rewind to 2016. You’re a mid-level dev working on a form that needs to validate an email input.

You type into Google:

javascript email regex site:stackoverflow.com

And you land on this gem:

var re = /\S+@\S+\.\S+/;
var email = "test@example.com";
console.log(re.test(email));

Does it work? Yep.

Is it a good regex for all emails? Definitely not.

Did you paste it anyway? Absolutely.

The implicit contract was: you search, find something that seems right, maybe glance at the comments, and trust the upvotes. You might tweak a variable name or wrap it in a helper function, but often, you're slotting it into your codebase as-is.

The ChatGPT Era: Prompt, Generate, Iterate

Now fast forward to 2025.

You're using ChatGPT and you type:

Write a JavaScript function to validate an email address.

ChatGPT replies:

function isValidEmail(email) {
  const re = /^[^\s@]+@[^\s@]+\.[^\s@]+$/;
  return re.test(email);
}

Followed by:

This function uses a basic regular expression to validate the general structure of an email. For more rigorous validation, consider using a library like validator.js.

That’s already better than the SO answer.

• It includes a function wrapper
• It explains what it does
• It suggests a more robust path
• It’s contextual
• You didn’t have to dig through ads or outdated answers

It’s not just output — it’s education.

Bug Fixing: Then and Now

Let’s look at another case: debugging a React error.

In 2019, you hit a cryptic warning in your console:

Warning: Each child in a list should have a unique "key" prop.

Off to StackOverflow again. You find this post:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28329382

Top answer:

{items.map((item, index) => (
  <li key={index}>{item.name}</li>
))}

Problem solved. Maybe. (You later find out using the array index as a key has caveats.)

Now with ChatGPT, you write:

I’m getting “Each child in a list should have a unique key prop” in React. What does that mean and how do I fix it?

ChatGPT replies:

{items.map(item => (
  <li key={item.id}>{item.name}</li>
))}

Then follows with a caveat:

Avoid using array indexes as keys if the list can change. It may lead to subtle bugs in stateful components.

That kind of nuance? Rare on SO unless you're reading the 8th comment from the bottom.

Code Help as Collaboration

Both StackOverflow and ChatGPT are built on shared knowledge.

The difference is:

• StackOverflow is asynchronous, curated by many, and delayed.
• ChatGPT is synchronous, trained on millions, and instant.

StackOverflow answers were often ChatGPT before ChatGPT — crowdsourced replies from someone 3 time zones away, who happened to care enough to explain a CORS header workaround.

AI tools just compressed the time between asking and answering. That doesn’t make it less legitimate.

Why the Panic?

So why all the backlash?

❌ “ChatGPT writes bad code.”

True. Sometimes.

But so does StackOverflow. So do senior devs under deadline pressure. The quality of the code has always depended on the judgment of the person using it.

❌ “Developers won’t understand what they’re doing.”

Also true. But this isn’t new. We’ve always had devs paste in jQuery or SQL snippets they don’t fully grasp. ChatGPT just makes the ease of access undeniable.

❌ “This will replace real developers.”

Nope. It’ll replace bad habits — and amplify the good ones. Just like calculators didn’t kill math, they changed how we think about solving problems.

What Developers Still Need to Know

Whether you’re copying from StackOverflow or ChatGPT, the job hasn’t fundamentally changed. You still need:

• Contextual awareness
• The ability to test and debug
• Basic code hygiene
• A feel for architecture
• Curiosity and skepticism

What’s changed is that the tooling is better. Instead of relying on 5-year-old answers and hoping someone explained the edge case, you can prompt for clarification in real time.

That’s not a crutch — that’s leverage.

From Vibes to Velocity

Let’s stop pretending that this is a new moral dilemma.

Software has always been built on a foundation of shared knowledge, tribal lore, and snippets passed around Slack, forums, and blogs.

ChatGPT is just the next generation of that collaboration — faster, deeper, and more accessible.

Instead of “vibe coding” being something shameful, maybe we need a new frame:

Vibe coding = accelerated prototyping with informed review.

In a world where time-to-ship matters and dev resources are stretched thin, that’s not a problem. That’s a strategy.

TL;DR

If you copied code from StackOverflow in 2014, you're not new to this.

If you're using ChatGPT in 2025, you're not ruining the craft.

Both tools sit on the same spectrum of community-driven software development.

What matters is not where the code comes from — but how you use it.