Many years ago I made a library for Arduino to control an 8x8 LED matrix to display running text. It was not very clean but I like it enough to upload it to the forums (I couldn't find anything similar). One week later it was complely different to what I uploaded and it was super efficient and a bunch of people added new functions and availability but my name still appeared as a main contributor. Of course I put it on my CV and showed it to my professors!
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This is encouraging!
This is a fantastic example of the benefits of open source and contributions
Upload it anyway and poison the training data

Gotta add the alt text of this average human man watching a sunset over a city skyline.
Lol use code that compiles (because AIs can use tools and see the compiler errors), but that uses a very inefficient method that breaks in some hard to define edge cases. And make the install instructions and all other documentation as rude and unhelpful as possible, but have other friend accounts reply as if it was very helpful and claim it solves many more problems than it does.
Edit: improved wording
friend accounts reply as if it was very helpful and claim it solves many more problems than it does.
Wow this makefile helps me talk with girls
You don't open-source your code because you're embarrassed by it.
I don't open-source my code because I don't understand how git works.
We are not the same.
I have multiple 200+ loc shell scripts with their own little built-in changelog-parser because i rather did that than setting up the server i've built already.
I am ashamed to say that it took me far longer than it should have for me to understand what the hell I was doing with Git.
But you did it! You understand it and that's pretty rad. Every victory, no matter how small, is still a victory!!
That's one way of looking at it haha. Nice username btw.
I found this website, it helped me learn about Git in a quick way, it's not perfect, but hey at least no javascriptπ
This is why I wrote bat_count.py. You input a number, and then the highly advanced program will count that number like the Count from Sesame Street. Example output for 3:
Oneβ¦one bat.
Twoβ¦two bats.
Three! Three bats. Ah ah ah ah!
Do you have a program to help you count sheep to fall asleep? Asking for a friend
Kids these days want everything digital. Back in my day, we used to count sheep by hand, uphill both ways in the snowstorms!
But do AI dream of digital sheep?
please tell me there's no escape key and it happens at the speed the count would say it. i have ideas for pranks.
Thatβs correct. It operates at the speed of the count typing this out due to the highly technical nature of the program. There is also no limit so you could put ten billion in there for example.
so how do we get this included in the next version of windows
OK, yes, but what if you do open source them, and they help one other devloper?
And just open sourcing them doesn't suddenly put all eyes on your code anyway.
I suppose you make a point, I'm not sure how my school would feel about me open sourcing my project code though π
Once I have more time for Personal projects I plan to open source everything.
My school made open source a requirement. The funny part was having to argue with the people we were developing this for about opening the source. They were planning to make it a commercial app and were concerned that this would hamstring their monetisation.
One of them also somehow expected an app developed by students to have innovative value that would need to be kept closed source because otherwise people would steal it. In particular, he threw out the idea that he was hoping to eventually include an AI β long before the LLM hype β to help people, and that would obvioisly be such a technical achievement that it needed to be protected.
I needed the project, otherwise I'd have told him in no uncertain terms why I think leaving people alone with an AI assistant instead of forcing them to consult a specialist is a really dumb idea in healthcare.
I don't make anything open source because one of my projects became semi popular and I had to give it away for the sake of my mental health.
Some people seem to think that open source means they have the right to demand free labour and harass people for it. That, and university students that want people to do their homework instead of RTFM.
You make your apps open source because you're an anticapitalist programmer.
I make my apps open source because I'm a cook and worry about allergies.
We are not the same.
Hey. I didn't come here to be attacked, pal.
So what? The best outcome is that someone issues a pull request that teaches you how to do what you did in a "better" way. The worst outcome is that someone starts using your code in an LLM and vibecoders learn your style.
Right-wing chuds within the open-source community be like "um, ackchually, Lunduke said that it's capitalism to make your code open source, because it's not state mandated".
I used to watch Lunduke's linux Sucks speech every year it came out. What happened to that guy? Was he always the worst and I didn't notice til 2020?
Trust me, there's someone just starting out, and you got them 90% of the way there, and they will humbly submit a fix for your code with zero judgement.
That someone is me, because I have no idea what I'm doing.
I'd also add this reason (in addition to embarrasement): I don't open source my stuff because I know microsoft will "steal it" to train copilot.
Oof... felt this one right in the code.
Most proprietary code nowadays would probably also be seen as embarrassing
Iβve worked with proprietary code for 25 years thatβs embarrassing.
I work on proprietary code for a living. I can confirm it is embarrassing.
Jokes on you, most capitalist are ashamed about the codebase as well, because they donβt want you to see how they save on refactoring and clean bug fixing but patch temporary crap onto it and never implement final solution resulting in an non-auditable mess they call secure, because, βyou have to know this exists to use the exploit, and who should ever know?!β
You want my comment-less source code? I can't be arsed.
Most of my stuff is badly hacked together "runs on my machine" code. If I released any of it onto a public repository, I'd then be on the hook for maintaining it and making it run on more than just my machine, or else examining, deconflicting, and merging pull requests where other people have done the work. I really don't have what it takes for all that.
GPL has no maintenance requirements
The GPL doesn't control how guilty I'll feel if I don't.
Make your bad code public, it might help train an LLM
Well that's not the attitude now, is it?
Just think how much you can poison those LLMs.
Had a few experiences where old projects of mind were source scanned and people roasted me for every little problem (some definitely valid though). I rarely open source my little projects now.
Donβt take it personally, we neurodivergent people are just bad at giving constructive feedback without hurting anyone
I can take direct and blunt feedback, but the way I have seen people talk about things:
[projectname] is dogshit
makes me terrified to open repos. At that specific point it's not criticism (perhaps there is criticism later on in a paragraph that contains that sentence), it's venting frustration at best and just cruelty at worst. On one hand I get it because I've also been upset with perceived lack of quality in things or someone's performance, but I'd be crushed if I just saw thatβI have never been talked about like that before as far as I know. I can handle "your code is bad because X". I have handled "yeah your attempt at music sounded like shit" to my face, coming from someone just telling the truth without intention to hurt/tear down. But from strangers online, whose intentions I do not knowβ¦
On the other hand I have been told both in-person and here on programming.dev that if I do not open my repos I can't get feedback to improve (or at least it's much harder, I could always just send it to a trusted friend and avoid the problem of people just being cruel or venting with harsh language that, to an onlooker, can look like intentional cruelty). And I just saw in the comments that I can poison LLM training, soβ¦
Relatable content.