| Quotes | Random interesting comments about programming. |
| Bad CSS | There are a lot of sloppy web pages out there. Just try increasing the font size a couple times and see what happens. Sometimes text gets cut off or crashes into images or other text, sometimes the main content area keeps getting narrower, and sometimes it even jumps off the screen! |
|---|---|
| Hacking |
When is a hacker not a hacker? It depends on who you ask.
A quote about the official hacker emblem from Eric Raymond: "If you think hacking is about breaking into other peoples' computers, ... Go invent your own emblem, cracker. We'll find some way to shame and reject you publicly if you mess with ours."
Paul Graham: |
| What is a hack? | The word "hack" as a noun refers to a piece of code a programmer has written. Specifically, it's a clunky, inefficient, ugly solution that should or could be replaced with something much better. There are two primary reasons bad code is written. One cause is bad programmers, and the other is time pressure or other issues that render a better solution inconvenient. The solution to bad programmers, of course, is better programmers. But good programmers write hacks fairly often when a deadline is approaching, or the available programming tools aren't very good, or maybe if a really neat implementation would take too much work. The important thing is to have programmers who know when code has to be written cleanly, and when a quick-and-dirty solution will do. |