
Introducing Bad Code Offsets - phsr
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Introducing-Bad-Code-Offsets.aspx
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mquander
_The dollars you spend purchasing Bad Code Offsets are donated to various
worthy Open Source initiatives that are carrying the fight against bad code on
a daily basis. These organizations currently include jQuery, PostgreSQL, and
The Apache Software Foundation._

Very clever! In my grand naivete I assumed that my $.50 would go toward
actually cleaning up bad code, but instead, it decreases the _relative_ impact
of my bad code by producing more bad code, which will help distract from mine.

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mru
Clever indeed. Does that mean I can offset my carbon emissions by buying some
shares in a coal power station?

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mquander
Sure, you can buy shares in various worthy clean coal stations, which, of
course, are carrying the fight against global warming on a daily basis.

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ryanpetrich
Clean coal is still pretty dirty.

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mquander
Yes, that was exactly the point.

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davidw
Reminds me of this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Abuses>

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maurycy
<http://codeoffsets.com/>

Also, I think that the idea is not that stupid. Bad code have many (business
also) consequences and I can imagine a savvy company that punishes teams for
poorly written code with similar mechanism.

For instance, let's say that team has $100k bonus budget for a year. Every
poorly written SLOC means $1, or $10, less in a budget because the company has
to spend this money on QA or customer service.

Of course, what's really complicated is how to measure poorly written code
(cyclomatic complexity, length of methods etc. basic metrics?), and how to
adjust it to the deadlines.

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Robin_Message
This reminds me of <http://www.cheatneutral.com/>

I'd say both of these parodies show why carbon offsetting doesn't really work.

\---

When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in
the atmosphere.

Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and
NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a
clear conscience.

Can I offset all my cheating? Well, first you should look at ways of reducing
your cheating. Once you've done this you can use Cheatneutral to offset the
remaining, unavoidable cheating.

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fsniper
Is this some kind of joke? Or they are for real? Funding floss by paying for
not feeling guilty writing bad code? Strange idea...

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steveklabnik
It's social commentary of Carbon Offsets.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset>

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Mark_B
Pretty much! :-)

Also, I can confirm that the whole thing is indeed completely legit. The Open
Source projects listed really are benefited from the proceeds and in return
you get bad code offset cards in the mail.

