Thief or Composer

I really came in with zero knowledge, other than a copy/paste/adjust into myspace every once in a while, lol. Its turning out that I'm liking this even more than I expected! However! At this point in the class I'm not really sure if I'm "getting it" or if I'm just a clever thief. Seems like every "advanced" type assignment that we have I'm just taking code from earlier examples or even straight from the Prof's folder....copy pasting, duplicating, positioning the code...checking the page...adjusting...checking the page....adjusting...checking the page, etc... Is this how the semi-experts work as well? Stealing code and adjusting it all to make a genus site? Or are they like neo from Matrix just tapping away code...never running to another site for a quick copy/paste?