Phrases in Programming That Irk Me

Irksome Lingo

It is common amongst the non-executive types to deride so-called ’execu-speak’. That is, words and phrases which sound trite, stupid or (sometimes) like disingenuous euphemisms. While there can sometimes be some justification for such criticism, quite a lot of that vocabulary is simply, in essence, the jargon of that field. Software developers are actually at least as equally guilty of overusing sayings, re-using lexicon from somewhere else such that it makes little sense in the original context,¹ and just plain using words and phrases that irritate me. I present below an incomplete list of said words and phrases in alphabetical order, with a brief description of why each one irritates me. I imagine that you find some of them perfectly fine or useful terms of art, and probably some things I say would irritate you.

Also, I’m likely to keep updating this over time, so you if you like some of this, you might be interested in coming back periodically.

B

Battle-tested

This is just so darn overblown and self-aggrandizing. There’s an extremely high likelihood that your code won’t actually be used in a battle, so why are you talking about it going to war? If you really were developing software which could be used in a real-life battle, the idea of programming in Ada wouldn’t sound weird and foreign to you. You likely wouldn’t be programming to run in the cloud however, much more likely you’d be developing for an embedded subsystem of some military vehicle. So if it’s incredibly unlikely people will die as a direct consequence of bugs in your code, stop describing it in military terms, you tosspots.

Those people who develop software for military purposes and have seen it come out the other side smelling of rainbows really can use the phrase “battle-tested” because it’s true. All the rest of you: find something less insulting to people on the front lines of the world’s conflicts.

R

Rich

Everything seems to be “rich” lately. Type systems, core libraries, user interfaces, the small group of people that tech firms actually give a hoot about. In some circumstances, using the word does somewhat make sense, but it’s another one that has been overused to the point of meaninglessness. Much like when you keep repeating the same word over and over until it just sounds weird (I think that is referred to as ‘semantic satiation’).

S

Single Pane of Glass

I get why this one was originally coined. It was possibly meant to refer to the actual panes of glass used in old CRT monitors, or just the idea that you have one window onto a situation through which you looked for everything. It’s just that this one has been used ad nauseam, so it bugs me.

Story

I remember reading a rant many years ago from a then-software developer complaining that absolutely everything was being described as a “solution”, even when that made basically no sense. I vaguely recall the phrase “a paperclip is not a solution.” The word “story” seems to have replaced “solution” for this purpose. Everything now either is a story, or has a story. “What’s the story around ‘X’ concept in ‘Y’ programming language?” “Does ‘P’ have a good story for ‘Q’?” No, it reads and sounds like Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’—incoherent and incredibly dull.² Pretty much every time I hear someone use story in this sort of fashion it bugs me intensely.

I think this is one of those misused words that came straight out of Agile (or one of the things it kinda sorta amalgamated, or one of the things that latched onto it) with user stories. Which, while I find horrendously overused in some ways (not every single task description needs some inane, tortuous, imagined novella from the perspective of a nonsensical character), does in and of itself make sense. Somehow, though, the use of the word story leaked out and spread its smelly, greasy oil slick over our pristine beach, but celebrities have cleaned all the cute animals in media-friendly photo opportunities, and I’m left metaphorically scrubbing with only a toothbrush mucky rock after mucky rock of people misuing the word “story”.

Honestly, this is probably the one which bugs me the most of anything, because ALMOST ALWAYS WHEN SOMEONE SAYS “STORY” IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT THESE DAYS IT MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE.

Some Things That You Might Think Would Bug Me, But Actually Don’t

B

Bikeshedding

Ok, this one does kinda irritate me because I hate people turning other types of words into verbs like that. I would prefer something like “discussing the colour of the bike sheds to death” instead, but that’s rather more of a mouthful, so I can appreciate why it ended up that way. The idea behind the phrase is good, though, because it does communicate well something that happens in meetings and discussions the world over. Namely, that people really do have a tendency to fixate on trivial details and speculate on irrelevant matters when they should be focusing on much weightier, but less straightforward, issues. I don’t have any better way to describe the idea than this, yet I observe it frequently in practice.

Y

Yak Shaving

This phrase actually sounds pretty stupid, and doesn’t really give you any concept of its meaning when you first read it. It actually does (kinda) make sense, however – sitting there trying to shave a yak does seem like it would be awfully tedious and maybe feel a bit pointless – and it covers something that there isn’t really another phrase for. Plus, it gets a bit of a free pass from me since it’s a Ren & Stimpy reference.