6 ms·

New programming jargon you coined

56 points by iamanet 16y ago

ErrantX 16y ago
I have one, at work and amongst friends, named after me :( "Flakey Tom" - which basically is when someone (usually me) writes some code, tests/debugs it, runs compiler test, ensure it works etc.... and then adds "one extra quick line of code" (it will be fine guys!) before checking it into the main branch. And subsequently everything breaks for about 3 hours.
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  Ouch. I've been known to do that... and my name is Tom :(
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I'm lucky enough to currently not work with collegues that could coin names for my failures, I'd hate to imagine what a 'jam' looks like. It might be 'idiot move to add one item to a firewall access list that locks out the idiot and the rest of the internet, requiring a live body to transport himself to the hosting facility'. Of course this never happened. I wish. Shit happens, don't worry about it. And I think that there are a lot of 'Flakey Toms' on HN, even when they're named George or Sally :)
watty 16y ago
My favorite: "Barack Obama - An account in Redmine that we assign our most aspirational tickets to, i.e. the stuff we'd really like to do with a project but will probably never get approval for."
freejoe76 16y ago
My favorites: Doctype Decoration: When web designers add a doctype declaration but don't bother to write valid markup. Object Oriented Pasta: Used to describe spaghetti code wrapped in classes to make it look like an object. Hooker Code: Code that is problematic and causes application instability (application "goes down" often).
- jacquesm 16y ago
  These are really funny. Especially the Object Oriented Pasta. I've seen some of that and had to clean it up, it made me wish for a shotgun and some ammo at times.
tszming 16y ago
My favorite: Bloombug: A bug that accidentally generates money
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I have one just now, it inspired this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1332560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1332560 I noticed a certain bug actually caused me a bit of extra income so I left it in place. It still is, it still makes money, and has been going for about 5 months now.
donaq 16y ago
My favourite: Megamoth. Stands for MEGA MOnolithic meTHod. Often contained inside a God Object, and usually stretches over two screens in height. Megamoths of greater size than 2k LOC have been sighted. Beware of the MEGAMOTH!
- silversmith 16y ago
  What's worst, these usually contain mission-critical code. I have had to tackle a 6k line one, in PL/SQL. You open up a package, the line count reads 6k. You shudder. Then, you notice that the structure tree has only one entry. One procedure. Feeling of absolute defeat sets in. Fortunately, it was only about 4k of actual LoC, because the previous developers had created a ghetto version control using comments. Still, it took me the better part of the day to find what I was looking for in it.
- forinti 16y ago
  I witnessed a 64KB java method once (compiled). Since 64KB is the limit for a method in a classfile, the programmer was always running into trouble with the compiler. Not very smart.
keefe 16y ago
Having a shared vocabulary is critical for communicating and new terms are always being invented as technology progresses. Reading this actually helped clarify my thought process in some areas. A million internets to OP.
tel 16y ago
When coding in LabView I like to call the wires and blocks spaghetti and plates because it's always spaghetti code and it looks like two waiter collided on a busy day. (i.e. http://www.dieterb.de/ccdlockin/diagram.png http://www.dieterb.de/ccdlockin/diagram.png, not mine)
mkramlich 16y ago
Uh-Oh Programming I coined this as a play on "OO Programming" to refer to code that is Seriously OO With Lots of Design Patterns, many layers and too many abstractions such that what could have been a fairly simple and smaller program has become a huge mass of files, classes, interfaces, methods, each of which does very little, and is almost impossible to tell exactly what it does without stepping through it in the debugger. Whenever I've seen Uh-Oh code, it is almost always Java (because the OO/DP/injection craze was not in full bloom back when I worked with C++ a lot), almost always wired up at the very top with Spring XML, and maintained by a large number of salaried programmers in an enterprise development environment (where IT is a cost center, not the actual product they sell.) -- can you say, job security?
melling 16y ago
I'm coining "speed chess programming". Getting a bunch of programmings together to hack out a quick project with limited time to think about your next move.

56 points by iamanet 16y ago

I have one, at work and amongst friends, named after me :( "Flakey Tom" - which basically is when someone (usually me) writes some code, tests/debugs it, runs compiler test, ensure it works etc.... and then adds "one extra quick line of code" (it will be fine guys!) before checking it into the main branch. And subsequently everything breaks for about 3 hours.

tlrobinson 16y ago
Ouch. I've been known to do that... and my name is Tom :(
jacquesm 16y ago
I'm lucky enough to currently not work with collegues that could coin names for my failures, I'd hate to imagine what a 'jam' looks like. It might be 'idiot move to add one item to a firewall access list that locks out the idiot and the rest of the internet, requiring a live body to transport himself to the hosting facility'. Of course this never happened. I wish. Shit happens, don't worry about it. And I think that there are a lot of 'Flakey Toms' on HN, even when they're named George or Sally :)

watty 16y ago

My favorite: "Barack Obama - An account in Redmine that we assign our most aspirational tickets to, i.e. the stuff we'd really like to do with a project but will probably never get approval for."

freejoe76 16y ago

My favorites: Doctype Decoration: When web designers add a doctype declaration but don't bother to write valid markup. Object Oriented Pasta: Used to describe spaghetti code wrapped in classes to make it look like an object. Hooker Code: Code that is problematic and causes application instability (application "goes down" often).

jacquesm 16y ago
These are really funny. Especially the Object Oriented Pasta. I've seen some of that and had to clean it up, it made me wish for a shotgun and some ammo at times.

tszming 16y ago

My favorite: Bloombug: A bug that accidentally generates money

jacquesm 16y ago
I have one just now, it inspired this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1332560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1332560 I noticed a certain bug actually caused me a bit of extra income so I left it in place. It still is, it still makes money, and has been going for about 5 months now.

donaq 16y ago

My favourite: Megamoth. Stands for MEGA MOnolithic meTHod. Often contained inside a God Object, and usually stretches over two screens in height. Megamoths of greater size than 2k LOC have been sighted. Beware of the MEGAMOTH!

silversmith 16y ago
What's worst, these usually contain mission-critical code. I have had to tackle a 6k line one, in PL/SQL. You open up a package, the line count reads 6k. You shudder. Then, you notice that the structure tree has only one entry. One procedure. Feeling of absolute defeat sets in. Fortunately, it was only about 4k of actual LoC, because the previous developers had created a ghetto version control using comments. Still, it took me the better part of the day to find what I was looking for in it.
forinti 16y ago
I witnessed a 64KB java method once (compiled). Since 64KB is the limit for a method in a classfile, the programmer was always running into trouble with the compiler. Not very smart.

keefe 16y ago

Having a shared vocabulary is critical for communicating and new terms are always being invented as technology progresses. Reading this actually helped clarify my thought process in some areas. A million internets to OP.

tel 16y ago

When coding in LabView I like to call the wires and blocks spaghetti and plates because it's always spaghetti code and it looks like two waiter collided on a busy day. (i.e. http://www.dieterb.de/ccdlockin/diagram.png http://www.dieterb.de/ccdlockin/diagram.png, not mine)

mkramlich 16y ago

Uh-Oh Programming I coined this as a play on "OO Programming" to refer to code that is Seriously OO With Lots of Design Patterns, many layers and too many abstractions such that what could have been a fairly simple and smaller program has become a huge mass of files, classes, interfaces, methods, each of which does very little, and is almost impossible to tell exactly what it does without stepping through it in the debugger. Whenever I've seen Uh-Oh code, it is almost always Java (because the OO/DP/injection craze was not in full bloom back when I worked with C++ a lot), almost always wired up at the very top with Spring XML, and maintained by a large number of salaried programmers in an enterprise development environment (where IT is a cost center, not the actual product they sell.) -- can you say, job security?

melling 16y ago

I'm coining "speed chess programming". Getting a bunch of programmings together to hack out a quick project with limited time to think about your next move.