you need to learn calculus if you want to model relativity. you only need fifth grade math to model a cash register.
if your team builds apps with 500k LOC, you need to be constantly focused on abstracting and factoring out patterns or you will drown in your defect rate before the project even ships. If your team builds medical device software, if you aren't doing this, you'll get someone killed.
If you're building a personal blog, your time is better spent by pasting jquery snippets.
There is a spectrum here and most projects fall somewhere in between.
Of course. And to add an example of the other part of spectrum (opposed to medical device software) - bunch of simple 2d game prototypes. There's people who do such jobs, and many similar, who'd be a fool not just "push the buttons" all the time, with basically just a quick forethought related to structurization and code quality.
if your team builds apps with 500k LOC, you need to be constantly focused on abstracting and factoring out patterns or you will drown in your defect rate before the project even ships. If your team builds medical device software, if you aren't doing this, you'll get someone killed.
If you're building a personal blog, your time is better spent by pasting jquery snippets.
There is a spectrum here and most projects fall somewhere in between.