a hef=“http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-did-it-for-the-lulz”
Did you hef for the lulz? 
Nice riff on the whole “carbon credits” BS as well 
@Jon C: I’m pretty sure the 1:10 metric means that they consider good code to cost a lot more to produce than bad code
Your ambition is noble, but your website screams “1997”. For your own credibility - get a professional designer.
Re: Matt B
Or maybe it’s a way to re-kindle thedailyWTF’s spluttering fire. I used to read it alot… Now I check it about once every month and its filled with classic (AKA: old) posts and/or total crap.
This is a sure fire way that they can get others “bad” code for free… make personal gain from advertisement’s and now sales whilst keeping the WTF train rolling.
Boo
I meant of course the Code Offset website, Jeff’s site screams “minimalistic stylishness” 
I enjoy the “emission” of bad code.
Least I could do ?
Yeah, I’ll get right on that… Right after I finish buying these indulgences for Purgatory.
Abolsutely ridiculous.
I write bad code. Everyday.
And I do it because of a few things:
-
I work for a company. Deadlines are usually pressing and we cannot afford wasting time with good code that will invariably result in the same thing as bad code; i.e. an application
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Programming languages (all programming languages) encourage bad code. They practically beg you to write bad code. From the “shot your foot” languages like C or C++, to “save coders from themselves” languages like C# or Java, all languages make sure of one thing: If you write bad code, you will complete your project faster. Writing good code is only an afterthought.
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Users appreciate bad code better than they do good code. A patch is an highly anticipated event. A reason for celebration. Conversely, an application without patches lives a dull life in the noisy marketing land.
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Operating systems turn good code into bad code. They don’t actually do it, of course. What they do is give the impression on the user your code sucks because your application fails. And it can fail because the operating sucks, or the operating system doesn’t suck but you think it does because in fact what made your application fail was some device driver made by someone else. See the snowball?
…
So why on earth would I ever want to write good code? My bad code is better than any good code. I’m done with it faster, I’m respecting the programming language tenets, I get more market visibility with my continuous presence and I don’t waste my time on things that some operating system, processor, driver or combination thereof can invariably ruin.
So you know where you can shove your certificates…
Long time reader, first time poster…
Oh please… you have become too much like Joel… thinking that every software developer out there is making a fortune and can waste their money on this crap.
I must say I wasn’t impressed until I saw the THE JON SKEET is a chair member of the organizations board. You should of mentioned that earlier!
Thats all the advertisement you need !
Jeff,
I know you’re not really from the business world, but it is where most programmers reside. In listing the possibilities to overcome bad code I think you are missing one essential item that is as important as the skill and dedication of a programmer.
I’m talking about resources. For example, a project with so much time pressure that developers are forced to cut corners. Or, a business hiring developers so junior/cheap that it is impossible to get any quality. Or, a business who saves on proper hardware and software, frustrating the productivity of the developer.
Stupid business. Yes. But it’s business, and it’s how it works for a lot of us. My point: poor code quality cannot be directly related to poor developers, that would be a gross simplification of the truth.
Brilliant! I’m still laughing. I don’t know about jQuery or Postgres but Apache projects aren’t necessarily leading the charge against bad code. In fact, I’ve seen significant quantities of pollution bellowing from the smoke stacks over there on occasion.
What we need a is foundation that works on existing open source projects with no other purpose than to improve bad code.
And after that we need a new development methodology with a cool name and a requirement incorporate code offset billing into code reviews. Every time “WTF” is heard in a code review, the developer gets charged an offset credit! The developer still needs to fix the bad code from the review, the offset is an acknowledgment of the bad code he or she will be pumping into the universe that won’t be reviewed.
Just like cashiers who come up short, your bad code offsets get deducted from your paycheck.
In my view they should be tax deductible. This gets better and better!
This is hilarious…it’s like you cross-bred Indulgences with Carbon offsets. And in truth, the absolute LEAST you could do, is nothing. Which almost everyone will do. But I’m hooked, I’ll buy a few as gifts for my colleagues. Fun idea.
Basically you want to create incentives for all the lousy programmers to code-golf their bugs into the smallest number of lines possible. Won’t the lousy programmers spend all their time reducing offset costs rather than producing more . . .
Hmm . . .
I may be over analyzing this (what, me?) but I see a major inconsistency here with the same concept of carbon offsets.
People who buy carbon offsets usually do so because they are either unwilling or unable to reduce their carbon emissions any further through direct means. (So far so good). But the reason the carbon offset concept works is that most times is that operating in a way which ememits extra CO2 is usually CHEAPER. Thus, the extra money can be payed to help motivate/restrict others from doing the same.
The bad code parallel doesn’t hold up as far as I can see. This is because, as we all know, writing bad code is MORE EXPENSIVE. If you write lots of bad code, you’re going to need that extra money down the road to fix or just maintain your own mess, which you might otherwise send to a worthy cause such as bad code offsets.
Of course I might be missing the point entirely and should just see this as a clever wait to spin a fundraising effort for worthy open source projects.
The more I think about this the more I am convinced that donating the money to OS projects is the wrong way to go. Instead the money should go to paying bad developers to stop writing code.
As in, “Here’s your $300 in code credits, Jeff, go home and don’t write any code at all today.”