Would You Add Easter Eggs To Software Produced At Work? 747
Mr. Leinad writes "Do you add Easter Eggs to the software that is produced at the office? I mean, if you have complete control over the final product, do you spice it up with that little personal touch, which, as unlikely as it is that anyone will see, carries with it an 'I was here' signature? I've just finished the development of a large software product, and I have a couple of days left to try to add my own personal Easter Egg code, but given that the software is quite professional, I don't know if I should. What do you think? Should we developers sign our creations?"
Professional easter eggs (Score:2, Interesting)
Several large software companies have left easter-eggs in "Professional" products. Microsoft office had pinball and a flight simulator, I seem to remember.
Add something useful instead (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite often they end up being useful and get cleaned up and documented in subsequent releases.
Re:I would (Score:5, Interesting)
I already did... Long time ago, in an e-Banking application. If you pressed ctrl-alt and clicked on the bank logo, you got a picture of the development team. It was innocent stuff, but I know as a fact that they have removed it by now. It was simple code, a bit of JavaScript and a picture named as if it was an advertisement banner.
Ah, the good old days when I was young and foolish.
Professionally Signed (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal take on this is to go ahead. First, the world NEEDS to step back from the super-serious attitude, but still be polite. Second, coding is as much art as science and I think your paintings, songs, code, engineering, etc should all have your personal mark, something to make it identifiably yours. Third (kinda goes with the first) doing so can be a moral booster for you AND those who discover it.
However, there are issues to keep in mind. You must keep it professional, so no vulgarity, rudeness, or jokes about loss of data. Certainly, you should avoid all the '-isms' like the plague. And, just as important, it should be clear that the Easter Eggs do not break security in any way.
In short, make it secure, polite, fun and it should be cool.
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Interesting)
At one place I worked, the guy who wrote up the coding standard explicitly prohibited jokes in comments and humorous variable names. I'm not kidding.
Presumably he will be reincarnated as a worker ant in his next life.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, you should. Just do so in good taste. I once put The Story of Mordac(tm) into a script that I made and distributed around the office, which described in a humorous and epic way the reason for its invention: All it did was send F5 to a window with a specified name.
We were running HP Service Desk and the admins, in their infinite idiocy, disabled the auto-refresh of the views. This was because they seriously under-spec'd the server and were looking for any way possible to cut the load down. It crashed every few hours; Which is what you get for using Citrix for over five thousand workstations in six different countries for "security" purposes. And then using RAID10 on the database... oh god, the write times, they buuuurnses us. *snickers* In either event, after distributing it to our techs and letting it bounce around the working grunts in our various offices for awhile, I let it slip to a few friends about the story of Mordac, Preventer of Information Services (thank you Dilbert), who I credited with the debacle.
Two weeks later, the auto-refresh got turned back on. Many queries were made and security operations attempted to track down who had made the "unauthorized script". To this day, whenever a feature gets turned off on a server that the users liked, or some dumb "security" policy goes into place... People chalk it up to Mordac. Many of them aren't familiar enough with the strip to know of the little-known Dilbert character. ;)
Easter egg away my friend, but remember thy audience!
This might answer the other thread's discussion... (Score:3, Interesting)
Short answer: If Google can do it, then why can't you?
But about the Subject... There was a discussion about "moral" vs. "ethical". Here is a case that might help answer the question of "what is the difference"?
Adding an easter egg to your product, one that doesn't add value to the product, could be spending company resources, and getting paid, to do something that was never your job. So, it's not ethical.
But to say it's not moral? I don't think anyone would go that far.
Yes. Do it. DO IT NOW! (Score:2, Interesting)
Eastereggs are the sign that a company is proud of its software. Add something in that only people who had heard of it and were looking for it would find. If people are looking for it, they probably arent the starch shirted old people who would be opposed to a little bit of humor at work.
Maybe - Maybe Not... (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say if it is done in unquestionable good taste it is OK - I have a friend who was nearly fired over a log message that contained profanity and was written to some obscure text file - a government official was randomly looking at files and found it and alerted his superiors - it was a BIG mess...did I mention this was on a major DoD weapons system.... It is not an Easter Egg but it certainly shows the pitfalls of "personalizing software"
You tell me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I would (Score:4, Interesting)
Easter Egg Link [wikipedia.org]
Re:Well, yes (Score:2, Interesting)
There are three potential problems that you mention. a) "unauthorized script"; b)"a feature that gets turned off...that the users liked"; and c) "some dumb security policy".
It seems there is a common thread there. And it all seems to point to retaliation towards those making security decisions or (in general people 'higher up' making decisions). a) You said it yourself "unauthorized script". This is not an easter egg, this is an unauthorized script. b) the users are users, not security experts, and just because they liked something doesn't mean it was good. Writing a script to distribute some funny message in response is not (IMO) the right answer. c) "dumb security policy". This seems related to item b. If the policy is so dumb, then there are usually correct ways to get it changed. Writing a script (IMO) is not the correct way.
I understood what you did may have been a lot of fun, but it doesn't seem to be what is generally described as an easter egg.
The best one ever (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be the lead programmer for a Big Company (tm). We'd just completed a several year project to build and roll out an in-house ERP system. It was mid-October.
I decided we needed a little fun break. I whipped up a quick piece of code that recolored all the application screens in orange and black. Through it on the update server.
When everyone logged in on Halloween, they were greeted with orange and black screens. Everybody laughed. Even the PHB thought it was pretty funny.
If your work is so serious that you can't have a little fun, it's probably time to find a new job.
here's what I did... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only an easter egg for true geeks, but I used this value as an encryption seed:
Hexdumping the executable shows:
Since it's the file encryption seed, nobody can ever change it without destroying the program's ability to decrypt old files!
Re:Add something useful instead (Score:2, Interesting)
Professional ego's? (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you spit on the onion rings before you serve the burgers?
I'm going to side with the professionals here (and those are not Microsofties and their stupid flight-sims):
Leave the smart-ass thingies for good code and decent documentation. When the project's done, wrap it up, check the patches in, write documentary and go on to the next project. Don't waste time on funny shit.
Jeff Atwood was right when quoting "the best code is no code at all [codinghorror.com]".
Leave the funny eggs for your MySpace website.
Re:My Easter Eggs are comments and error messages. (Score:5, Interesting)
At my current place of employment, all the code we write belongs to the client (which is pretty much SOP in the field). Our clients sometimes do not share our sense of humour. As the technical lead, if I find it, you can be damn sure you're taking it out again. And I am looking :)
I'd discourage actual functionality easter eggs too, in most programs. The industry average is estimated to be 10-20 defects per 1000 lines of code. Every non-essential line of code you write risks introducing a bug.
Re:I would (Score:5, Interesting)
Be careful... (Score:1, Interesting)
Be very careful.
Some clients (like financial firms and governments) have strict InfoSec policies that frown upon Easter Eggs and other intentionally "unknown" bits of code. To them, Easter Eggs demonstrate the vendor's lack of control against unauthorized and malicious changes to the product.
When these clients find the Easter Egg (and they will find it), they will threaten to walk away from your products unless your company makes a sacrificial offering by terminating the "rouge" employee.
- Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
Re:Initial release? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also (and this is important) I'm totally up front about everything that I'm designing into the software, management is aware of what I'm doing and approves it, and there are no surprises. So yes, I do believe a developer placing unauthorized code into an application not owned by him or her is suffering from an ethical lapse, regardless of how "harmless" that code is claimed to be. Depending upon the application, the mere existence of such code can cause problems. I guess you don't work on anything that would qualify as "mission critical", that's all I can say.
And furthermore, it's not up to the individual developer to make the judgment about "harmlessness" either, not when it comes to potential legal liability, corporate PR or customer satisfaction. Just do your job to the best of your ability, and live with the knowledge of a job well done. If that's not enough for you, maybe a career change is in order.
Re:Professionally Signed (Score:2, Interesting)
Absolutely - It saved my company's ass once! (Score:5, Interesting)
I hid a secret dialog box in an application I did for a call-center project my employer was working on back in 1999. The software was to manage a call center of untrained temps calling various suppliers of a Very Large Company surveying their Y2K compliance. We were a small company run by an ex-employee (laid off and rehired as a consultant) of the Very Large Company. I hid the egg just as a joke, not really thinking about it. To hide it from the other programmer on the project, I obfuscated the code that created the egg and hid it across several modules. Anyway, about two weeks before we were to ship (and get paid), our salesguy decided to give the customer a preview of the software, which was feature complete and in final testing. He decided that rather than ask me for a demo version, it would be faster to simply send the customer a copy of the folder on my desktop. (This is when I learned to be paranoid about locking my screen when unattended!) All of a sudden the Very Large Company called us and told us they no longer needed us or our software, as they had "repurposed a software used for a previous project". The salesguy threw a fit, talking about how he had "gone above and beyond" to make the sale and "even done a demo". When asked about the demo, he admitted what he had done.
So a week later, my boss and I paid the Very Large Company a visit to meet with the manager who was our contact. He and his boss very proudly showed us his call floor with about 60 people working at workstations running a very familiar-looking piece of software, talking about how they had this "just lying around" and "forgot they had it" and were "really very sorry".
So I asked if I could see the "software that beat us". Before he could say anything, his boss said "Sure, go ahead!", and he didn't argue. So I sat down at a workstation, opened the about box on the software, and noted that the text strings had changed but not the layout. So I clicked where my hidden button should be, and sure enough, there was the hidden dialog box with my name, the date, the company's name, and a large picture of Sailor Moon and Chibi-Usa.
My boss was livid. The manager turned white as a sheet. All of a sudden he didn't want to talk to us anymore! He called security to show us to the door, but the damage was done. Both he and his boss had seen what I did. His boss was not pleased. Apparently he had claimed "finding" the software as an expense. After some discussion between them and our lawyer, it was decided that in exchange for us not suing them and not telling anyone about it they would pay us four times our original contract value. The manager responsible was fired by the Very Large Company, and we fired the salesguy for exposing the company to such liability.
So yes, absolutely, I hide some sort of identifying mark in everything I do. You never know when you might need to prove you worked on something.
Re:Professional easter eggs (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, and it seems very unprofessional of them.
I find it a little annoying that OpenOffice has an entire Space Invaders game in it (put =GAME("StarWars") in any Calc cell) when the suite is so slow and bloated. It makes the statement that they they don't care about streamlining.
Re:I would (Score:5, Interesting)
Just think it could be a bit of JavaScript sending bank and user details to someone. I would think that banks would be pretty strict on the code being written since their customers rely on it.
Especially when things like a major bank like Commonwealth Bank of Australia takes out a withdrawal twice, and keep the second withdrawal themselves. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,,24703544-2,00.html [news.com.au]
Re:Maybe - Maybe Not... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do I even have a job?
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Re:My Easter Eggs are comments and error messages. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd discourage actual functionality easter eggs too, in most programs. The industry average is estimated to be 10-20 defects per 1000 lines of code. Every non-essential line of code you write risks introducing a bug.
You're a moron for not understanding statistics. That may be true for a random sample, but if you're adding extremely simple code that just displays some type of notice or picture, and doesn't interact with any other aspect of the software (why would it?), then the chances of introducing a bug is just over zero.
When was the last time that you tracked down a bug in your software to the About box?
Re:My Easter Eggs are comments and error messages. (Score:3, Interesting)
*Unless this is some kind of health care or military or other critical safety related application
Re:I would (Score:1, Interesting)
Stop being so naive. Remember the Global Financial Swindle? It was last week wasn't it? You're berating banks for maybe not writing their database and applications correctly. Banks were the ones that loaned trillions of dollars to people who couldn't repay in the Subprime Mortgage Swindle. Then they bundled up the bad loans and sold them as good investments in the Credit Default Swap Swindle. Then they refused to lend each other money in the Let's Crash The Financial System So We Can Dump All Our Bad Loans Swindle. Then they dumped all their bad loans and got government approval of their fraud in the Demand Bailout From The Taxpayers Swindle.
How long are you going to be paying extra tax to pay for the bank, car company, etc, bailouts? How much did you lose when the value of all investments crashed when they pulled all the above swindles? Do you think it really matters if the bank takes two withdrawals out of your account? They can just take the whole thing any time they want.
What is "money"? You think that some numbers stored in a database in a bank computer is "money". Guess what? If the bank pulls down the steel shutters tomorrow and then never opens them again, your money is gone. You can stand outside the bank rattling the shutters for as long as you want, they won't come out and give you your money. Yeah it'd be great if banks would handle deposits and withdrawals correctly. It'd also be great if they wouldn't commit global fraud and crash the financial system. But it's not going to happen is it? Watch how quickly the bank executives are thrown in jail for fraud.
And don't put easter eggs in your application. What if you put in your game of doom or whatever and it introduces a killer bug that nobody notices until after you ship? You'll feel pretty bad then. It's not worth the risk of adding bugs to a polished application, surely.
Re:Easter Eggs are unprofessional (Score:5, Interesting)
Your examples are horrible: Do i want a doctor leaving anything abnormal behind in my body? Fuck no. Do i care if a piece of software i use has an easter egg that shows the dev team when i hold Shift+F8 and click on some logo? No, i don't care at all, they are completely different things!
Now i know you say you worked on mission-critical software for the police, etc, and if there was a place i might omit an egg, it would be there, but that doesn't mean that easter eggs are universally horrible, and you don't seem to get that.
And i get paid on salary, which means i get paid to get my work done. I already work over 8hrs every day, and if i have already gotten my work done and I decide to stay an extra half hour and screw around, that's MY decision, on MY time. That's not "screwing the pooch and exploiting [my] employer" as you put it (which i would say borders on stupidity, given the possible situation i just described). Of course i know someone else is paying for the software and i know that my screwing around would never be okay if it was detrimental to the final work, but i don't consider easter eggs detrimental, if they are simple and harmless.
Simple and harmless may seem like an innocent and uniformed concept, but honestly, unlike what another commenter said, i just don't agree that software is infinitely complex. It's SOFTWARE for christ's sake, it's made to run on a machine that only understands two states, 0 or 1. Software is absolute, and it is one of the simplest things you can encounter, when correctly designed. If i write code that checks for keypresses by running some function in every portion of my program just to have an egg, that could very well lead problem, but if there is a reasonable place to deal with keypresses and i am already using that input for legitimate things, adding one more case is is in most situations going to be completely harmless. I would never encourage a novice to add an egg, but i can't say it's horrible if you know it won't cause damage.
And ultimately, yes, it is unprofessional, in the sense that the ideal professional never has fun, and only does their job, but don't you think you should lighten up just a bit? I do.
-Taylor
Re:Easter Eggs are unprofessional (Score:2, Interesting)
I was working on Air Traffic Control software at a sub-contractor and dismayed at how the company had recruited Ada/VMS programmers to program C with X Windows/Motif on Unix, since they had no knowledge of common C programming flaws, or even handling pointers. Together with being given the "dead wood" employees of a sister company sharing the same site to save on redundancy costs it wasn't a good start. Coupled with this was the shoddy quality control practices that management were complicit with.
A contractor who Barked out hundreds of SLOC in a short time, thanks to poorly structured code that needed re-factoring, would be praised and given a rise and the next piece of work. That his was some of the most buggy code and didn't meet the spec. in many ways was ignored. Others would be given his crap to fix when a week later the problems came to light in testing; management wouldn't pull him off the new piece to do it. Time and time again this was repeated.
Fagan Inspections were mandatory. But few programmers put much effort into them; as long as they could find a spelling mistake or two in a comment to validate their "claimed" one hour preperation time management was happy.
The testing tested only the positive outcomes; did X happen when Y occurred? Good. Did X happen at any other times? Who cares.
So I added a new image to the existing set. I called it "ignored". It was a plane buried nose-first in the ground, smoke rising from it, with a little parachutist floating above. You'd think that might stand out in ATC software. I added code to display it under certain conditions; all the relevant variable names followed the rest of the code but with "ignored" instead of "foo". The image went, with all the others, through Fagan Inspection and was, theoretically, checked against a spec. picture that didn't exist. The code was inspected a line at a time, including, theoretically, against the spec. that gave the logic for when the picture should appear. And the end result went through run-time testing by a large test team against test plans.
It wasn't discovered. Ever.
Finally, after many months, when I was about to leave I pointed out it was there. It was removed and no one complained that I'd done it. They all knew too well that it showed my verbal complaints about the process were valid; they just wanted it swept under the carpet.
Today, that ATC system is controlling the airspace in and out of a major Western country with some of the busiest airways in the world. Oh, and we had a project football team. It was called "Go By Boat".
Re:I would (Score:3, Interesting)
Does a rooted backdoor count as an easter egg? :D
To anyone else, yes. According to Sony, well, not really...