Workarounds Memes

Posts tagged with Workarounds

If Political Issues Had Issue Trackers

If Political Issues Had Issue Trackers
The handshake meme that unites developers and politicians under the common banner of "solving issues by creating new ones" is painfully accurate. Developers fix bugs by introducing three more undocumented features, while politicians solve healthcare by breaking something else entirely. It's the circle of technical debt but for society! The only difference? Developers eventually have to face their code in production, while politicians can just blame the previous administration's codebase. At least we have Stack Overflow - politicians are still using Yahoo Answers from 2005.

Developers Always Manage To Make It Work

Developers Always Manage To Make It Work
The absolute pinnacle of software engineering isn't elegant code—it's the unholy workarounds that ship products. Fallout 3 devs couldn't implement a working train, so they just strapped a train model onto an NPC's head and made him run underground. The player never sees the difference. After 15 years in the industry, I can confirm this is basically how 90% of production software works. Your banking app? Probably running on a hamster wearing a server rack hat somewhere.

Dividing By Almost Zero: A Mathematical Loophole

Dividing By Almost Zero: A Mathematical Loophole
When you can't divide by zero, but 0.0000000000000001 is basically the same thing, right? This dev is like "I'm not breaking math, I'm just... bending it a little." The classic programmer solution: if the rules say you can't do something, just find the closest loophole. It's the computational equivalent of "I'm not touching you" but with numbers that would make mathematicians wake up in cold sweats. And the best part? It probably works... until it doesn't, and then you get to spend three days debugging why your rotation calculations are off by exactly one pixel in very specific scenarios.

Just Get A PC!

Just Get A PC!
Mobile gaming setup with keyboard, mouse, and a phone rigged to a stand? That's not a workaround, that's a cry for help. The phone is literally running what appears to be a first-person shooter while connected to peripherals that cost more than a decent graphics card. Captain Picard's exasperation perfectly captures what every developer thinks when they see someone coding on a Raspberry Pi connected to 17 different dongles instead of just buying proper hardware. Sometimes the simplest solution is just... getting the right tool for the job.

Tricking Rocks Into Thinking

Tricking Rocks Into Thinking
Your hacky code works because we're all just manipulating fancy rocks. CPUs are literally silicon (sand) that we've meticulously flattened, etched, and zapped with electricity until they somehow process logic. So next time your questionable regex or bizarre workaround functions perfectly, remember: you've successfully communicated with an electrified rock. The universe is absurd and your code is just one more layer of this cosmic joke.

Replacing Commas In Strings With A Lookalike, For Security Reasons

Replacing Commas In Strings With A Lookalike, For Security Reasons
Ah, the classic "security through visual confusion" approach! This developer is replacing commas with Unicode character U+201A (single low-9 quotation mark) which looks nearly identical but won't trigger Airtable's delimiter parsing. The best part is the function name safeComma - as if this hack deserves the word "safe" anywhere near it. It's like putting a fake mustache on your data and calling it "military-grade encryption." This is the programming equivalent of writing "Not a Drug Deal" on your suspicious briefcase. Sure, it technically works, but someday, somewhere, a developer will inherit this code and question all their life choices.

Fix The Rootcause

Fix The Rootcause
That moment when your codebase is held together by duct tape and prayers, but you keep adding more tape instead of rebuilding the foundation. The Senior Dev has finally had enough of your if/else spaghetti monster and temporary fixes that somehow lasted 3 years. Every programmer knows the temptation of the quick fix - "I'll just add this one exception case" turns into twenty nested conditionals that nobody understands anymore. Meanwhile, the tech debt grows stronger than Heisenberg's empire. Time to break the cycle and actually fix the architecture... right after this one last workaround.

We Have Uuid At Home

We Have Uuid At Home
When your boss says "No, we can't use a UUID library" and you're left crafting this monstrosity. It's the programming equivalent of making a sandwich with a chainsaw - technically possible, but deeply concerning. The code is basically generating a fake UUID by replacing placeholders with random hex values. It's like putting on a fake mustache and hoping nobody notices you're not Tom Selleck. Works until it doesn't!

Rocks With Lightning: The True Magic Behind Computing

Rocks With Lightning: The True Magic Behind Computing
HONEY, YOUR HACKY CODE IS VALID! Next time you're feeling guilty about that unholy if-statement monstrosity that somehow passes all tests, just remember we've convinced LITERAL ROCKS to do math by zapping them with electricity! 💅✨ We flattened sand, injected it with lightning, and now it can run TikTok. THE AUDACITY! Your janky workaround is practically elegant by comparison. We're all just digital witch doctors performing silicon sorcery and hoping the computer gods don't notice our blasphemy.

If It Can't Be Resolved, Turn It Into A Feature

If It Can't Be Resolved, Turn It Into A Feature
The ancient art of software alchemy—transforming leaky pipes into decorative fountains! In the top panel, we see a horrified developer discovering water bursting from a pipe (labeled "Bug"). But in the bottom panel, that same leak has been gloriously rebranded as a majestic fountain (labeled "Feature"). This is basically the software development equivalent of saying "I meant to do that" after tripping in public. Can't fix that race condition? Congratulations, you've just invented "asynchronous result randomization." That memory leak? It's now "dynamic resource allocation exploration." The product manager will never know the difference!

But It Works

But It Works
The classic "I'll just copy-paste from Stack Overflow" mentality in its purest form. What starts as a simple plan to save time by reusing code quickly turns into a Frankenstein's monster of mismatched parts somehow still floating. That outboard motor strapped to Bugs Bunny who's strapped to Wile E. Coyote is basically what your codebase looks like after six months of "temporary solutions." The best part? You'll still tell your PM it's "technically functional" during the demo.

Rocks With Lightning: The True Nature Of Computing

Rocks With Lightning: The True Nature Of Computing
Your hacky code works? Don't sweat it. We're all just convincing rocks to do math by zapping them with electricity. Next time you're feeling bad about your janky workaround, remember that our entire profession is built on tricking minerals into thinking. And hey, if your solution is ugly but functional, you're basically following the grand tradition of computer engineering - flatten a rock, put lightning inside it, and hope for the best. Silicon doesn't judge.