What defines a Hack?
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
I'd define a hack as any piece of code that you are not entirely happy with. That is to say if you can look at some code you've written after a couple of months and not wince then it's not a hack. :) Cheers James
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
I get this stuff all the time. The users don't have say Access installed, but it needs a database, so install a recent copy of MDAC, along with the Acess 2000 DB they can't see. Add the app to do all the processing, but wait, they need to feed the DB with their own static data, and the only two things they can get it into from their system is Excel or a csv file. And as they need to maintain it (I'm not going to let these people edit a csv in notepad), it ends up in Excel. Anyway, some double sided sticky tape later, along with some glue, carefully folder paper, and my hair going grey, I have something that works. Clients.....who needs them. :eek:
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I'd define a hack as any piece of code that you are not entirely happy with. That is to say if you can look at some code you've written after a couple of months and not wince then it's not a hack. :) Cheers James
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
All of the above! Our simulation environment is total hack! When integrating HW and SW, if the HW is out of spec, or the people installing it are total
ID-10.T's, everyone seems to think "Oh, we'll just fix it in the software..." Man, we get so many Jason McBurney wrote: "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 's it's not even funny! And as far as documentation of how we got it all to magically work... :wtf::omg::wtf: Nitron _________________________________________-- message sent on 100% recycled electrons. -
I'd define a hack as any piece of code that you are not entirely happy with. That is to say if you can look at some code you've written after a couple of months and not wince then it's not a hack. :) Cheers James
By that definition everthing I have ever coded would have been a hack. I am never fully satisfied with anything I have ever written. There is always room for improvements. There is always a more elegant, easier and more symetrical solution. Sometimes I believe life is also only a real time 3D graphics simulation. But the rules engine is really fkd up.
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
It seems that I am not the only one that has this problem. What should we as coders do? Start a union :-D we could demand that we have system aritects that know what the heck is going on in the software that we write. (yeah right) Or we can just try and rise above the hacking: we could say "hey man it will take 6 weeks to make this work correctly". When they counter and say "we need it in 2" we reply with "you should have told me 4 week sooner,huh!" then they will fire us and trash the project... (Note: insert scarsam here) Lets hold to our coding theroies of abstraction, reusability, modularity, and out of these fundamentals falls maintainability, and less hair pulling. I will someday code a project that I will be proud of. Someday I will have the huevos to tell managment that I am not going to hackup my code.
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
Here in the Northern part of Illinois we call that a cluedge. <- spelling? It seems that as soon as it comes out of engineering and hits the floor it becomes a hack. Thanks to a large part of scope creep and project managers who think you can fix anything with software. But it pays the same. Just don't put my name on it. Jeff Patterson Programmers speak in Code. http://www.anti-dmca.org
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Here in the Northern part of Illinois we call that a cluedge. <- spelling? It seems that as soon as it comes out of engineering and hits the floor it becomes a hack. Thanks to a large part of scope creep and project managers who think you can fix anything with software. But it pays the same. Just don't put my name on it. Jeff Patterson Programmers speak in Code. http://www.anti-dmca.org
Jeff Patterson wrote: a large part of scope creep I hear this ... my project started as a glorfied calculator, it has exploded to a peopleSoft like database over (insert shudder here) Access. We are doomed for failure :laugh: But the money is green, No? uggh I am such a slave to society ... :)
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Hack - Anything that makes you want to shower after coding. Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.
Tim Smith wrote: Hack - Anything that makes you want to shower after coding. C'mon, somebody - that's about as quotable as it gets! :-) Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
Defn[^] /ravi Let's put "civil" back in "civilization" http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com
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All of the above! Our simulation environment is total hack! When integrating HW and SW, if the HW is out of spec, or the people installing it are total
ID-10.T's, everyone seems to think "Oh, we'll just fix it in the software..." Man, we get so many Jason McBurney wrote: "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 's it's not even funny! And as far as documentation of how we got it all to magically work... :wtf::omg::wtf: Nitron _________________________________________-- message sent on 100% recycled electrons.Nitron wrote: "Oh, we'll just fix it in the software..." :laugh: There's an old joke among musicians along those lines - "We'll fix it in the mix..." Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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It seems that I am not the only one that has this problem. What should we as coders do? Start a union :-D we could demand that we have system aritects that know what the heck is going on in the software that we write. (yeah right) Or we can just try and rise above the hacking: we could say "hey man it will take 6 weeks to make this work correctly". When they counter and say "we need it in 2" we reply with "you should have told me 4 week sooner,huh!" then they will fire us and trash the project... (Note: insert scarsam here) Lets hold to our coding theroies of abstraction, reusability, modularity, and out of these fundamentals falls maintainability, and less hair pulling. I will someday code a project that I will be proud of. Someday I will have the huevos to tell managment that I am not going to hackup my code.
You go Jason! Make a stand! We will not give up inheratance and polymorphism! We will not give up without a fight! As we go boldy into the night, let us not forget our true instinct and heritage... We are the wise and mighty avatars of object-oriented design! Long live C++! And to all those of CP, all fair and wise, I as your loyal leader and servant leave you with this message... FIGHT!! FIGHT!!! FIGHT!!!! We will never surrender! :laugh: :~ ok, im definately cut off. no more coffee or leftover halloween treats for me today :rolleyes: Nitron _________________________________________-- message sent on 100% recycled electrons.
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
A hack is a piece of code which, usually, comes back to bite you on the arse - even sooner than expected :-O
Deploying a web application without understanding security is roughly equivalent to driving a car without seatbelts - down a slippery road, over a monstrous chasm, with no brakes, and the throttle jammed on full.
Hacking Exposed - Web Applications. Joel Scambray & Mike Shema
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Have you ever talked to that one guy on your team that always come up with the ludicrious ideas. These ideas are so bad that you would be embarassed to put your name on? For example if one was writing a database application why would we want to store some of the crital information in a execl file that my users have access to? (uggh is this a hack?) Have you ever talked with your management, and they tell you "This new feature is not too hard, just add an 'if' statment?" 72 sleepless hours later you have engineered the best bandaid ever concived... Is that a hack. I think a hack is a blurred line between code as art and functional code. Hacks tend to work, but they are not pretty. How do you feel?
My personal definition is that a Hack is something done quickly and without reference to any particular design document. The more hacks, the more unstable the code will start to get. A kludge, on the other hand, is a brute force hack that not only disregards any idea concept of style, finesse or fitting in with the original design or using the current infrastructure, but goes further and bypasses the current design/infrastructure and will explode in a towering bll of flame if anything vaguely related to it is modified. cheers, Chris Maunder
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Hehehe, don't get me started about music. Fan: "Oh man, I just love that new song. It is so cool and inspired. And that one place where the drums drop out for effect, that was just brilliant. How did you ever come up with that?" Musician: "The drummer fell off his kit and we were too tired and drunk to try the track again." Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.
Tim Smith wrote: Fan: "Oh man, I just love that new song. It is so cool and inspired. And that one place where the drums drop out for effect, that was just brilliant. How did you ever come up with that?" Musician: "The drummer fell off his kit and we were too tired and drunk to try the track again." :omg: You mean you were at that session, too? Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Nitron wrote: "Oh, we'll just fix it in the software..." :laugh: There's an old joke among musicians along those lines - "We'll fix it in the mix..." Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
Hehehe, don't get me started about music. Fan: "Oh man, I just love that new song. It is so cool and inspired. And that one place where the drums drop out for effect, that was just brilliant. How did you ever come up with that?" Musician: "The drummer fell off his kit and we were too tired and drunk to try the track again." Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.
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My personal definition is that a Hack is something done quickly and without reference to any particular design document. The more hacks, the more unstable the code will start to get. A kludge, on the other hand, is a brute force hack that not only disregards any idea concept of style, finesse or fitting in with the original design or using the current infrastructure, but goes further and bypasses the current design/infrastructure and will explode in a towering bll of flame if anything vaguely related to it is modified. cheers, Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote: will explode in a towering bll of flame :wtf: ... you writing mission critical software often Chris???? Other than CP of course. Regards, Brian Dela :-)
