"Code" is a four letter word

Originally posted to Shawn Hargreaves Blog on MSDN, Thursday, April 14, 2011

"Source code"

"Bedroom coder"

"Can someone explain why this code isn't working?"

"He's such a natural, he thinks directly in code"

These are dirty, dirty phrases...

code (kohd) noun
A system used for brevity or secrecy of communication, in which arbitrarily chosen words, letters, or symbols are assigned definite meanings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/code

Yet all the best programmers I know strive to make their programs as clear, consistent, elegant, and easily readable as possible.

Ironic that we refer to the fruit of our labors using a term that generally means the exact opposite of how we hope this fruit will turn out!

Blog index   -   Back to my homepage