Have you ever stumbled across a project and just think to yourself why does this class exist, or more specifically why did they use this design pattern? Recently I happened across one of those projects, in it the project used a Factory class that’s purpose was to instantiate and return a single class. In essence the developers knew what the Factory pattern was and utilized it without having any purpose to do so. Instead they created additional worthless code. This use of a programming pattern without the need of the pattern is known as Cargo Cult Programming

Cargo Cult Programming

The Cargo Cult Programming anti-pattern is the use of patterns, structures, or code in a project because you either always do or simply because you don’t know what it is doing but are copying it from another project or programmer. This style of programming causes unnecessary abstraction, code bloat and increases the difficulty of maintaining the project over its life span.

Want to be a better programmer? Then understand your code, don’t blindly copy/paste or use a pattern just because you can. Take your time and think is this needed, does it provide a useful functionality or enhancement to my project? or does it simply add additional code and size to the project. Don’t fall pray to becoming a Cargo Cult Programmer

Resources

• Wikipedia – Cargo Cult Programming