documentation Memes

So we're looking at a "design pattern" that involves an air vent leading to Saddam Hussein hiding under some rubble. For those blissfully unaware, this references the infamous meme format showing Saddam's hideout diagram - a weirdly specific architectural blueprint that became internet gold. The joke here is treating this absurd hiding spot layout like it's a legitimate software design pattern, complete with UML-style diagram aesthetics. You know, like Singleton, Factory, or Observer... but make it "Dictator in a Hole." Honestly, this pattern has better documentation than half the legacy code I've inherited. At least the entrance requirements are clearly specified: "hidden by brick and rubble." That's more clarity than most PRs I review. Potential names: The Bunker Pattern, Singleton (literally), or my personal favorite - Dependency Hiding.

Job security through obfuscation - the oldest trick in the book. That lead dev really said "documentation is for people who plan to leave" and then peaced out for half a year. Now you're staring at 2000+ lines of critical infrastructure code with zero comments, variable names like x1 and temp_final_v3_actual , and the only person who understands it is currently sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere with their phone off. The real power move here is making yourself irreplaceable not through excellence, but through creating a knowledge monopoly. It's like holding the entire company hostage with your brain. Can't fire you, can't promote you away from the code, can't even let you take PTO without the whole system potentially imploding. Toxic? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely. Pro tip: This strategy works until the company decides it's cheaper to rewrite everything from scratch than deal with your ransom demands. Then you become the legacy system that gets deprecated.

Companies love to brag about "sparing no expense" on their tech infrastructure, then proceed to hire exactly one developer to babysit 2 million lines of undocumented legacy code. Because why hire a team when you can just slowly crush the soul of a single engineer? The Jurassic Park reference is chef's kiss here—Newman's setup perfectly captures that "I'm surrounded by chaos I didn't create but am somehow responsible for" energy. At least Newman had dinosaurs as an excuse. Your solo dev just has management's budget cuts and unrealistic expectations.

You know that feeling when someone asks you to explain a function you wrote six months ago? Or worse, one you wrote last week? Your brain goes into full panic mode trying to deflect like a politician at a hearing. "The DOW is over 50,000 right now, that's what we should be talking about!" Yeah, and that nested ternary operator you wrote is a crime against humanity, but here we are. The desperate subject change is real when you realize you have absolutely no idea what that 47-line function actually does anymore. You just know it works... probably... don't touch it. Pro tip: This is why comments exist. But let's be honest, you're not going to write them either. We'll just keep playing this game of "it works, ship it" until someone brave enough asks questions during code review.

COBOL assignments are already punishment enough without the professor's commentary. First they tell you to add comments, so you write "*> move A to B" which is literally just repeating what the code says in slightly different words. Then they hit you with the "explain WHY not WHAT" lecture, so you craft these beautiful explanatory comments about copying values around. The code went from self-documenting to over-documented faster than a mainframe processes a batch job. Nothing says "I understand good practices" quite like explaining why you're moving variables in a language where everything is already painfully verbose.

Oh fantastic, you finally decided to check the documentation after hours of suffering! And what do you find? Instructions so vague they might as well be ancient hieroglyphics. The documentation literally shows you how to put a square peg in a round hole—technically correct but COMPLETELY useless for your actual problem. Thanks for nothing, documentation writers who clearly moonlight as abstract artists! Nothing says "helpful" quite like instructions that make you question your entire existence and career choices.