this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
800 points (100.0% liked)

Programmer Humor

31506 readers
1210 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 43 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (5 children)

I go back and look at my old code and find it clear and beautiful, easy to understand, a pleasure to read. "Ah yes," I'll say to myself, "that approach was clever and elegant. Gosh, past me was pretty smart!"

I like to appreciate it in this manner. Because that way, for a moment at least, I can forget about how it doesn't actually work.

[–] chocrates@piefed.world 1 points 1 hour ago

I love when someone opens a bug in my code and I get to "how the hell did this ever work?"

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 12 points 4 hours ago

But it would work beautifully, if it would work.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

That's what happens when you take your code from a Stack Overflow question.

[–] Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Am I the only one too paranoid to ever copy paste code from the internet and/or AI?

Code that I don't understand feels like a dead pixel when I try to picture the whole piece of software in my head. I even search for what all those one letter flags mean for a command or function before I feel confident in using it.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago

No, that is a healthy thing to do.

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Don't forget AI (that scraped Stack overflow) providing a slightly different basic solution, that usually works (at least until you think about improving it).

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

And that is before it hallucinates a package that has been typo squatted by malware authors.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

It can work or it can look good, you can't have both

[–] scutiger@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] foofiepie@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I recoiled in horror. Thanks.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yeah, JavaScript is a true nightmare

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

TFW you realize you haven't grown as an engineer