Magic is often used to describe confusing code

Re:Magic is often used to describe confusing code by placeybordeaux on Friday March 25, 2016 @05:58PM (#11362996)

In practice, at work, I haven't found people using magic to describe code that they don't understand, but rather code that uses obscure or somewhat hidden features to try and do things in a smart way.

For instance if a method relied on it being modified at run time by it's caller to ensure sanity of it's input I would call it magical.

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Re:Magic is often used to describe confusing code by braythwayt on Saturday March 26, 2016 @09:32AM (#11365587)

I hope you appreciate that the word “magic” is relative to the person using it. For you, it’s self-modifying code. But to someone else, it’s mapping. And to a third person, it’s monkey-patching. And to a fourth person, it’s lazy evaluation of infinite streams, and to a fifth person, it’s ...

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Re:Magic is often used to describe confusing code by jschwartzi on Saturday March 26, 2016 @11:03AM (#11365875)

...and the point is that magic is a word that's often used alongside readability to deride source code that isn't done the way you would have done it.

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Re:Magic is often used to describe confusing code by braythwayt on Saturday March 26, 2016 @11:24AM (#11365974)

“Intuitive equals familiar”—Jef Raskin

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