Dark Code

I've recently encountered several articles dealing with the mysteries of modern physics. Despite most things in physics having names describing what they are, the mysteries are all named to describe that we don't know what they are: Dark Matter, Dark Energy and -- the latest member of the mysterious Darks gang -- Dark Flow.

Darks are more than just a mystery, though. Having a name makes the Darks tangible. They can stand as an answer on their own. Why do the galaxies not fly apart? Dark Matter.

Some of my fellow programmers and I started lamenting that there isn't a mystery name we can apply to something in our line of work. So that programmers, too, can wield this power, we here by dub the term Dark Code.

When someone is working with a system they helped build, but they encounter a behavior they can't account for, no longer must they moan "I'm not touching the record, but something is updating it." Instead, the answer is Dark Code. When you encounter an irreproducible bug: Dark Code.

So go forth and close all of those open issues in your issue management system for they n ow have an explanation: Dark Code.