Cargo cult programming

A coworker, who is much more experienced and smarter than I, used the phrase “cargo-culted” the other day. Not knowing what the phrase meant, I decided that I’d look it up.

The following is a definition from Wikipedia.

Cargo cult programming is a style of computer programming characterized by the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. Cargo cult programming is typically symptomatic of a programmer not understanding either a bug they were attempting to solve or the apparent solution.

This serves as a reminder to me to do a better job of fully understanding an issue before trying to fix it.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Eric Binnion

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading