> As for solving the Easter egg problem, the incentive would be diminished if credit was given where credit was due (e.g. a documented credits screen). I don't

> As for solving the Easter egg problem, the incentive would be diminished if credit was given where credit was due (e.g. a documented credits screen). I don't know so much about that. When I worked at Redgate the About boxes in all of our tools would, after about 30 seconds, fade from the product logo to a photo of the team that developed the product. I always quite liked that - it added a personal touch to the software - but it certainly didn't stop the practice of Easter Eggs. Most were small but one of my colleagues did embed a complete version of the game Asteroids into one of our SQL tools. Doctoring the team photos also became increasingly popular for several years. I haven't put an Easter Egg into an application in more than a decade (at the end of the day you have to know whether it's acceptable or not to your employer) - though there has been the odd somewhat on point symbol name - but I do think people get unduly bent out of shape about this stuff. Lives depended on the sofware run by the Apollo Guidance Computer and yet it contains symbol names such as BURNBABY, POOH and (I think) POOHDOO. E.g., https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/content/sha1_git:665f8e95921e92776819b719f780ddbece2b78ac/?origin_url=https://github.com/virtualagc/virtualagc#L62-L81 https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/content/sha1_git.... I think it's important that people experience some joy in their work, and put something of their personalities into it, because the overall effects are both higher engagement and higher quality. Some will judge and say, "Well, if you had time to do $FRIVOLOUS_THING then you had time to do $MORE_SERIOUS_AND_WORTHWHILE_THING so why didn't you?" Maybe, but that's not really how many people work. These things aren't just vanity: they're often a sign that staff are putting some love into what they build.