Best practices Memes

Posts tagged with Best practices

When You Start Coding In A New Language Without Reading The Documentation

When You Start Coding In A New Language Without Reading The Documentation
Playing ping pong with a pool cue is exactly what happens when you dive into a new programming language without reading the docs. Sure, you might hit the ball occasionally through sheer luck, but you're basically just hacking away with completely wrong tools. The worst part? Sometimes your janky solution actually works, and then you're stuck maintaining that monstrosity for years because "it's in production now." The real pros know that 15 minutes reading documentation saves 8 hours of Stack Overflow archaeology.

If It Works, Don't Touch It

If It Works, Don't Touch It
The most sacred commandment in all of software development, passed down from one traumatized generation to the next. You could have a function held together by duct tape, string, and a prayer—running on hardware that's one static shock away from becoming a paperweight—but the second someone says "maybe we should refactor this," everyone suddenly becomes deeply religious about not tempting fate. The code might be an eldritch horror that makes junior devs cry, but hey, at least it works . And in this industry, that's practically a miracle worth preserving.

If It Works, Don't Touch It

If It Works, Don't Touch It
When you see "FREE PROGRAMMING ADVICE" you get excited, only to discover it's just "IF IT WORKS, DON'T TOUCH IT" - the universal law of production code that's saved more careers than version control. That feeling when your perfectly functioning spaghetti code is held together by duct tape and prayers, but the client is happy so you slowly back away from the keyboard. The first rule of legacy systems: nobody talks about refactoring legacy systems.

Unforgivable Crime

Unforgivable Crime
Prison seems like a fair punishment for running SQL directly on production. The hardened criminal confesses to skipping code review and executing queries straight on the live database—a cardinal sin that makes even murderers question their life choices. Nothing says "I enjoy chaos" quite like bypassing all safety protocols and potentially nuking customer data because you couldn't be bothered with proper testing. At least the murderer had the decency to commit only one crime.

The Duality Of Software Engineering

The Duality Of Software Engineering
The metronome of developer conscience swings violently between best practices and pure chaos. Monday morning: "I'll architect this properly with clean interfaces and dependency injection." Friday at 4:55 PM: "This monstrosity works and I'm not touching it again." The eternal battle between the software engineer you aspire to be versus the code terrorist you become when deadlines loom. We've all written that 7000-line abomination while our CS degree silently weeps in the corner.

Deploy To Production: The Eternal Temptation

Deploy To Production: The Eternal Temptation
The eternal struggle between doing things right and doing things fast. Two buttons: one inviting you to safely deploy to test with a friendly "YES" button, and the other—surrounded by hazard stripes—screaming "Deploy Directly to Production" with a firm "NO" button. Yet there you are, sweating profusely, knowing deep down that you're going to bypass all those carefully crafted CI/CD pipelines because "it's just a small fix" and "nobody will notice." Narrator: Everyone noticed. Seven years of building robust deployment processes, and we still hit that production button like it's the last slice of pizza at 2 AM. Pure self-sabotage wrapped in the sweet illusion of efficiency.

Where Is Backup?

Where Is Backup?
The ultimate sysadmin nightmare in four panels! First guy panics: "Server has crashed. Where is backup?" Second guy's face says it all when he realizes the backup is... wait for it... "On the server." It's that gut-wrenching moment when you discover your disaster recovery plan has a single point of failure. Like keeping your only house key inside your locked house. The digital equivalent of storing your umbrella exclusively for use during floods... in your basement.

The Three Types Of Code Documentation

The Three Types Of Code Documentation
Left side: "My code is self-documenting!!" with a sketch of someone looking distressed at the lowest end of the IQ bell curve. Middle: Actual documentation with detailed comments about monster attack algorithms in a game. Right side: Someone who just writes "// this is bridge" next to a drawing of a bridge, sitting at the other low end of the IQ curve. The perfect balance? The 130+ IQ person with comprehensive, helpful comments that actually explain the why behind complex game logic. The eternal developer struggle: write no comments and claim "self-documenting code," write useless comments stating the obvious, or be the rare specimen who documents the intent and reasoning. Most of us oscillate between all three depending on how much coffee we've had.

Usually Come Crawling Back Though

Usually Come Crawling Back Though
Look at me ignoring that README file like it's my ex's text messages. We've all been there—excitedly diving into a shiny new library, completely bypassing the documentation because "how hard could it be?" Then two hours later, after fighting bizarre errors and contemplating a career change to goat farming, we're crawling back to that README with our tail between our legs. The documentation was there the whole time, patiently waiting for us to admit we're not as clever as we thought. It's the programming circle of life.

The DIY Random Number Disaster

The DIY Random Number Disaster
Senior devs watching juniors implement their own "random" number generator: 4... chosen by fair dice roll... guaranteed to be random. Nothing strikes fear into a cryptographer's heart quite like someone deciding to roll their own randomness. Sure, importing libraries feels like cheating, but at least your app won't have the security strength of a wet paper bag.

Expectation vs. Reality: Data Organization

Expectation vs. Reality: Data Organization
The top panel shows a beautiful hierarchical file structure—the kind they teach in CS courses. Neatly organized projects, experiments, and data types, all properly labeled with sensible naming conventions. Meanwhile, the bottom panel reveals the horrifying truth: a dumpster labeled "TEMP" overflowing with digital garbage. That's where your production data actually lives—right next to yesterday's lunch and those "I'll sort these later" files from 2018. The "HAZARDOUS" label is the chef's kiss here. Nothing says "enterprise-grade solution" like a folder that could metaphorically give you tetanus. Who needs database normalization when you can just ctrl+F through 8GB of unsorted files?

True Crime: Type Safety Edition

True Crime: Type Safety Edition
The real criminal here is declaring a variable that can be both boolean and null . That's like giving your function three possible states of existence when two would suffice! The triple equals comparison cascade is just the accomplice to this type-safety felony. TypeScript developers are screaming internally right now. The proper way? An enum or a proper nullable boolean with explicit handling. This code is basically begging for a runtime exception to break into your production environment at 2 AM.