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The Codeless Code

 The Codeless Code
type
TVTItem
 The Codeless Code
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The Codeless Code
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TheCodelessCode
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The Codeless Code: Fables and Koans for the Software Engineer, is a series of stories by Qi about the programming monks of the Temple of the Morning Brass Gong, parodying the style of Zen Koans. Each story (or "case") is meant to humorously illustrate a principle of programming philosophy or best practices.
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2023-09-03T13:29:25Z
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2023-09-03T13:29:25Z
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DBTropes
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Lampshade Hanging
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comment
Lampshade Hanging: "As documented in cases 61, 62, 67, 120, and probably others besides, abbots of the Spider Clan have the life expectancy of a dolphin in the Gobi Desert."
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The Dreaded
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comment
The Dreaded: The Clan of the Wolf's Bitter Breath is responsible for testing. Their appearance means a bug is about to be reported against your code.
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type
Implied Answer
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comment
Implied Answer: "Null" and "Wu." Either one means "I'm not answering because you're asking the wrong question." Suku's "phi" is another one. It means "Your question is a False Dichotomy. Take the two options you gave me, and try combining them."
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Secret Test of Character
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comment
Secret Test of Character: Banzen tests a series of monks, apparently studying their source code. In fact, he's testing if they'll clean up the paper sack he discarded in the corner of the interview room (and by extension, whether they clean up their code properly). Jinyu keeps some wooden building blocks in the interview room, and she can see what a candidate is suited for by what they build with it.
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type
Hidden Purpose Test
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comment
Hidden Purpose Test: Jinyu poses one interview candidate a question involving multiple inheritance, which has no elegant solution in Java. She wants to see how he will work around this problem.
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Disproportionate Retribution
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comment
Disproportionate Retribution: Monks can be killed (or seriously hurt) for making mistakes in programming. The customer (the Emperor) is just as demanding.
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Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp"
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Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Call a programmer a monk (or nun), call a manager an abbot, call a company a temple, and call the customer the Emperor.
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Viewers Are Geniuses
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Viewers Are Geniuses: You'll need to know a bit of programming to understand most of the koans. The moral of each story is generally implied, rather than stated outright.
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Author Avatar
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Author Avatar: Qi, the scribe, appears as a character in a few cases.
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ThoseTwoGirls
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Those Two Girls: Yiwen and Hwidah.
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Face Your Fears
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Face Your Fears: Zjing suffers from a crippling fear of heights, and since the Temple is up on a mountain, she normally works remotely from a nearby valley. However, on two occasions, she has something important enough that she is willing to make the climb and visit the temple in person.
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Amusing Injuries
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Amusing Injuries: Wayward monks are corrected in painful, but amusing ways.
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 The Codeless Code / int_7cdfe326
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Cosmic Retcon
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Cosmic Retcon: The scribe does this in Version Control. Kaimu claims that his "Ideal Undo" does this.
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 The Codeless Code / int_8071af62
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Don't Think, Feel
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comment
Don't Think, Feel: What Bawan appears to teach. It turns out to be "Don't Think. Know."
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Scrapbook Story
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Scrapbook Story: Each case is a standalone story, but the characters recur and there's some continuity between stories.
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Laser-Guided Karma
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Laser-Guided Karma: The Masters do the laser-guiding, punishing poor practices in a way that demonstrates their flaws. For example, when Hwidah writes a program that fills the log files with useless messages, Yishi-Shing forces her to search for a white pearl in a field of snow.
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Death by Irony
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Death by Irony: The punishment for particularly bad practices.
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Laborious Laziness
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Laborious Laziness: Avoiding this is the moral of case 199. Djishin was too lazy to find third-party libraries, so he took up the much more arduous task of making the ones he needed by himself. Banzen's error was that he tried to dissuade Djishin from this path instead of letting him fail on his first try, because he was too lazy to ask Jinyu (who knew about Djishin's flaw years ago) for advice. Discussed again in case 206. Laziness is in fact considered a virtue of great programmers, but it has to be the right kind of laziness. note "The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it."
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Red Shirt
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Red Shirt: A mismanaging abbot won't survive to the end of the story. Lampshaded in later cases.
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Tap on the Head
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Tap on the Head: Very common. No head injuries ever result, although that's small consolation, as the Master is probably setting up a more elaborate punishment while they're unconscious.
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False Dichotomy
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Suku's "phi" is another one. It means "Your question is a False Dichotomy. Take the two options you gave me, and try combining them."
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Badass Bookworm
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Badass Bookworm: The monks and masters are all programmers, but that doesn't stop them from producing an array of martial arts weapons when they need to.
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Shout-Out
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comment
Shout-Out: The title references The Gateless Gate, a famous collection of Zen koans. Also, some cases include Qi's commentary and a poem, similar to Mumon's commentary and poems in The Gateless Gate. One case references the monks of the "Harmful Go-to Clan," a reference to Djikstra's famous memo "Goto Statement Considered Harmful."
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Spin-Off
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Spin-Off: The Applicant, a series of side stories about a novice journeying to join the Temple.
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The Perfectionist
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The Perfectionist: Zjing. To the point that she attempts to retie the knots of a rope bridge because they looked ugly. While standing on the bridge.
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Very Loosely Based on a True Story
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Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In-universe. In Case 144, Djishin admits that the stories in The Codeless Code are embellished by the scribe to make them better lessons.
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 The Codeless Code / int_e544a7f6
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Koan
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Koan: Averted. While the stories are inspired by koans, Qi admits he doesn't follow the style very closely. In particular, the stories tend to have a clear moral (since unlike Zen, programming has a clear "right way to do it").
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Old Master
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Old Master: Bawan, Banzen, Kaimu, Suku, and Jinyu.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

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Author Avatar / int_b5436177
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Implied Answer / int_b5436177
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Red Shirt / int_b5436177
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Secret Test of Character / int_b5436177
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Short Story / int_b5436177