What Is Hardcode?

Hardcoding is like a secret handshake when you're a programmer. It's saying, "I know what I'm doing." When you hardcode something in your program, you're telling the world (and your teammates) that this thing needs to stay the same unless something insane happens—like someone accidentally deleting it or a meteor hits your computer. Here's why: If you have hardcoded something and then, later on, decide that it should be changed—say if it turns out that you need to make an adjustment or fix an error—you don't just go ahead and change it. Altering the program's source code is the only way to change the behavior. No one enjoys tinkering with source code! It's like having a secret password that only you know but, unlike a personal password. The hardcoded portion of your program will never change or be forgotten, no matter how many times you change the rest of your software. You can even delete it, but it'll still be there. In other words, if the software has already been compiled and made into an executable, the hardcoded portion of the program will always remain the same, even if the software is altered. Certain constants and values that should always remain constant, such as pi or the speed of light, are usually hardcoded. Hardcoding is a common term in the programming world and one that often confuses new developers. Hardcoding is when a programmer hardcodes part of their program. In other words, they write code to replace variables with specific values. As you might think, this makes it harder to change things later. There are many hardcoding uses, but some can be considered bad practices. For example, if you wanted to use a unique serial number in your software but couldn't work out how to generate one, you might hardcode it instead! The trick with hard coding is knowing when to do it and when not to do it!