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What Programmers say vs What they mean

2 min read31 Oct 2014
2 min read
What Programmers say vs What they mean

This was something going around the internet in 2014, I’m not sure on the original source. There does seem to be an updated version here now.

What we say What we mean
Horrible hack Horrible hack that I didn’t write
Temporary workaround Horrible hack that I wrote
It’s broken There are bugs in your code
It has a few issues There are bugs in my code
Obscure Someone else’s code does not have comments
Self-documenting My code doesn’t have comments
That’s why it’s an awesome language It’s my favourite language and it’s really easy to do something in it
You’re thinking in the wrong mindset It’s my favourite language and it’s really hard to do something in it
I can read this Perl script I wrote this Perl script
I can’t read this Perl script I didn’t write this Perl script
Bad structure Someone else’s code is badly organised
Complex structure My code is badly organised
Bug The absence of a feature I like
Out of scope The absence of a feature I don’t like
Clean solution It works and I understand it
We need to rewrite it It works but I don’t understand it
emacs is better than vi It’s too peaceful here, lets start a flame war
vi is better than emacs It’s too peaceful here, lets start a flame war
IMHO You are wrong
Legacy code It works, but no one knows how
^X^Cquit^\[ESC][ESC]^C I don’t know how to quit vi