We Need a New Term for "Softcoding"

[Vulcano]

As we all know, softcoding is an incorrect term, unless we use barrels in the build area. The best I could come up with is "Plastic Coding", as it is easily malleable, but not soft. Is there an actual term for it? I doubt it as this isn't really an issue when you have OOP, but I'd imagine a language without OOP would have a term for it.

 

[LooserRIP]

i know you are going to disagree with me, but here's my take on it:
Softcoding should stay softcoding
what df players USE the term softcoding for (a.k.a efficient coding) should just be "good coding"
and hardcoding, a.k.a Jank coding or "bodge" coding, can be called "Plastic Coding" since plastic is easily malleable but hard to change after it hardened. it's also cheap and unreliable.

 

[Vulcano]

i know you are going to disagree with me, but here's my take on it:
Softcoding should stay softcoding
what df players USE the term softcoding for (a.k.a efficient coding) should just be "good coding"
and hardcoding, a.k.a Jank coding or "bodge" coding, can be called "Plastic Coding" since plastic is easily malleable but hard to change after it hardened. it's also cheap and unreliable.

The issue with inefficient code is it isn't easily malleable

 

[RolandMC123]

DF Players use "softcoding" as code that is easily changeable and efficient. I know this isn't the correct definition, but even if you replace it with "good coding", then people aren't gonna say "yes, let me goodcode this system" (It sounds wrong). Yeah, softcoding is overused and often wrong, but people got too used to it now, and I don't think you can find a new word for it that would describe the concept well since everyone knows it as "softcoding".

 

[Vulcano]

DF Players use "softcoding" as code that is easily changeable and efficient. I know this isn't the correct definition, but even if you replace it with "good coding", then people aren't gonna say "yes, let me goodcode this system" (It sounds wrong). Yeah, softcoding is overused and often wrong, but people got too used to it now, and I don't think you can find a new word for it that would describe the concept well since everyone knows it as "softcoding".

It is incorrect, and we should urge players to use a better term... You should not stick doing something wrong just because you're used to it, you should work to fix your mistakes, no matter how small.

 

[Maxs]

Well it's not technically wrong, when in DF speaking people use the term to refer to a common thing, which doesn't need to necesarily be the same as it's global use, some regions or countries when speaking a language use a word to refer to something that isn't the same as the language's original use. I believe that while yes it could be encouraged to use a better term to avoid confusion, it's not a must and you mustn't force someone to change the way they think about something just cause it's different from the original.
As in terms of what it could be called what we call softcoding, it pretty much is nested coding, like make a function in a function to make repeated actions take less space and be more organized.

 

[SamMan_]

to answer the question, here some terms that can be used:
dry (dont repeat yourself) - taking common code & extracting to a function
orthogonal - modules of code are isolated from eachother & changing a single module produces no side effects

i've never quite understood the backlash against softcoding. whilst plenty of people will misapply it & overengineer, this isn't softcoding's fault. it could be called square hamburger code & people would still use it wrong.

 

[SamMan_]

just came back to this post a little while later & just realized the original point of this thread was to replace a non-standard definition (soft coding) with a non-existent definition (plastic coding).

not quite sure why we would invest time into making up a new term if it has the same issues

 

[Vulcano]

just came back to this post a little while later & just realized the original point of this thread was to replace a non-standard definition (soft coding) with a non-existent definition (plastic coding).

not quite sure why we would invest time into making up a new term if it has the same issues

Because everytime someone says softcode there's someone complaining that it's an incorrect definition (which it is). I don't entirely care much about whether it is technically correct or not...

 

[RDM]

I like plastic coding. Maybe not the most accurate term, but I'm down with it.