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In a perfect world those kinds of comments would never be written. Unfortunately there are times when there simply isn't time to do it the Right Way (tm). In

In a perfect world those kinds of comments would never be written. Unfortunately there are times when there simply isn't time to do it the Right Way (tm). In those times when you have to do it the Fast and Ugly (tm) way, it's nice to make a comment that you really don't like the code. It adds some humor, and lets the maintainer know that there is no emotional attachment to that section of code.

gruseom 18y ago
there simply isn't time to do it the Right Way Of course, this is the first thing that everybody says. And since everybody says it, everybody thinks it must be true. But my experience has been that if you really want to do good work, it turns out not to be true (say) 80% of the time. So the next time you find yourself making a mess because you believe you "have to", you could try stopping and questioning that assumption. You might surprise yourself. How do you think I learned this? Certainly not by following what the majority of programmers believe. Edit: Rather than using phrases like "the Right Way", I'd suggest toning things down and looking for a way. There are many ways. If you get in the habit of thinking there's only one, and it's capitalized and trademarked, the bar seems a lot higher than it really is.
- cconstantine 18y ago
  In the dev team I'm on we are constantly working within "aggressive" deadlines. Almost daily we come across a problem, brainstorm the ways of fixing it, and choose a path. Most of the time we can pick the one everyone agrees is the best way, or the Right Way. Every once in awhile we're stuck at 3 days to code freeze (the product isn't a website, so we physically send out a DVD with our product on it, so quietly pushing out hotfixes isn't an option) and come across a bug that almost no user will care about that has two solutions: 1) Fix the problem the correct way. We don't know exactly what the correct way is, but we know it'll take a month or longer to code. 2) Apply some hack that gets it to work. This is usually something ugly and imperfect, but it's possible to do in 2 hours. We can tackle the problem again and attempt to get at a better solution. If we don't ship on time, we lose piles of money. Guess which one we end up choosing ;) Option 2 is fairly rarely chosen, but all it takes is for it to happen once or twice to have comments like the above in code, and forgotten. Right... that whole Right Way (tm) thing is mostly tongue in cheek. It almost always refers to the way I want it done, and is a fairly flexible way.
- DanHulton 18y ago
  Clearly you have never worked in a situation with a looming deadline. Sometimes there is simply no time to clean things up, you just have to extend from whatever code you have, no matter how ugly, because you aren't given the go-ahead to spend the extra time cleaning.
  - gruseom 18y ago
    Clearly you have never worked in a situation with a looming deadline. I've made my living writing code for the last 12 years. How likely do you really think that is? There's a deep streak of passivity among a lot of programmers. That's part of why they (we) tend to be downtrodden. The belief that one must do shoddy work unless "given the go-ahead" to do good work is as much a part of the problem as anything else.
    - gnaritas 18y ago
      Exactly, stop seeking permission and just do good work all the time. It takes how long it takes and those people making up deadlines will be forced to adjust to the speed at which you work. They don't know whether you're doing it right or wrong or clean or ugly, they don't know what the fuck you do anyway, so do it how you like to please yourself.

gruseom 18y ago

there simply isn't time to do it the Right Way Of course, this is the first thing that everybody says. And since everybody says it, everybody thinks it must be true. But my experience has been that if you really want to do good work, it turns out not to be true (say) 80% of the time. So the next time you find yourself making a mess because you believe you "have to", you could try stopping and questioning that assumption. You might surprise yourself. How do you think I learned this? Certainly not by following what the majority of programmers believe. Edit: Rather than using phrases like "the Right Way", I'd suggest toning things down and looking for a way. There are many ways. If you get in the habit of thinking there's only one, and it's capitalized and trademarked, the bar seems a lot higher than it really is.

cconstantine 18y ago
In the dev team I'm on we are constantly working within "aggressive" deadlines. Almost daily we come across a problem, brainstorm the ways of fixing it, and choose a path. Most of the time we can pick the one everyone agrees is the best way, or the Right Way. Every once in awhile we're stuck at 3 days to code freeze (the product isn't a website, so we physically send out a DVD with our product on it, so quietly pushing out hotfixes isn't an option) and come across a bug that almost no user will care about that has two solutions: 1) Fix the problem the correct way. We don't know exactly what the correct way is, but we know it'll take a month or longer to code. 2) Apply some hack that gets it to work. This is usually something ugly and imperfect, but it's possible to do in 2 hours. We can tackle the problem again and attempt to get at a better solution. If we don't ship on time, we lose piles of money. Guess which one we end up choosing ;) Option 2 is fairly rarely chosen, but all it takes is for it to happen once or twice to have comments like the above in code, and forgotten. Right... that whole Right Way (tm) thing is mostly tongue in cheek. It almost always refers to the way I want it done, and is a fairly flexible way.
DanHulton 18y ago
Clearly you have never worked in a situation with a looming deadline. Sometimes there is simply no time to clean things up, you just have to extend from whatever code you have, no matter how ugly, because you aren't given the go-ahead to spend the extra time cleaning.
- gruseom 18y ago
  Clearly you have never worked in a situation with a looming deadline. I've made my living writing code for the last 12 years. How likely do you really think that is? There's a deep streak of passivity among a lot of programmers. That's part of why they (we) tend to be downtrodden. The belief that one must do shoddy work unless "given the go-ahead" to do good work is as much a part of the problem as anything else.
  - gnaritas 18y ago
    Exactly, stop seeking permission and just do good work all the time. It takes how long it takes and those people making up deadlines will be forced to adjust to the speed at which you work. They don't know whether you're doing it right or wrong or clean or ugly, they don't know what the fuck you do anyway, so do it how you like to please yourself.