Modifying third-party libraries directly (changing the code in 'node_modules')

Directly modifying third-party library code may quickly solve problems but can lead to severe consequences. During team collaboration, other members may encounter inconsistent code behavior after installing dependencies. Library version upgrades can overwrite the modifications. A common cause is time pressure leading developers to take risks. Typical practices include directly editing files in `node_modules`, runtime monkey-patching, Webpack alias replacements, or locking versions and committing changes. These practices make projects difficult to maintain, create challenges for new members setting up environments, and increase debugging time during framework upgrades. Error stacks may not match the source code. Long-term accumulation can lead to bizarre symptoms, requiring manual patching after dependency installation and reapplying secret modifications with each update. Eventually, a complete rewrite of the project may become necessary. Advanced destructive patterns include establishing patch registries, writing automated detection tools, or even modifying the package manager itself. These practices push technical debt to the extreme, plunging the project into an unmaintainable abyss.

Over-engineering (abstracting a button click event into 5 layers of interfaces)

In front-end development, overengineering is a common anti-pattern characterized by an excessive pursuit of extensibility and low coupling, leading to complex abstraction layers. A simple button click event is split into five layers of interfaces, including an event listener wrapper, business logic dispatcher, domain service abstraction, DTO transformation layer, and response processor. Each layer only performs trivial forwarding, ultimately making the data flow difficult to understand. Overengineering results in interface bloat, indirect calls, zombie code, configuration fatigue, and abstraction leakage. Reasonable abstraction should keep the call stack no more than three layers and avoid reserving extension points for hypothetical requirements. The costs of overengineering include cognitive load, debugging difficulties, performance overhead, modification resistance, and testing complexity. Refactoring recommendations suggest adopting straightforward implementation methods to improve readability and maintainability.

"Don't touch it if it works."

This passage sarcastically summarizes how to create an unmaintainable code monstrosity through a series of terrible programming practices, using the programmer world's "slacker bible"—*if it runs, don't touch it*—as a lead-in. Methods include rejecting abstraction, directly copying and pasting code, relying on global variables, using magic numbers and hardcoding, insisting on callback hell, refusing type checking, writing no comments, mixing coding styles, skipping tests, blending old and new syntax, writing excessively long functions, and ignoring browser compatibility. While these practices may seem absurd, they genuinely exist in many projects, resulting in code that's hard to maintain, difficult to debug, and incomprehensible to new members—ultimately forming an indestructible "shit mountain."

Hardcode all configurations (API addresses, keys directly written in the code)

Hardcoding configuration information directly into the code may seem convenient but is actually fraught with problems. The article lists various so-called advantages of hardcoding, such as improving security (making it easier for hackers to find sensitive information), being version-control friendly (permanently preserving historical records), and simplifying key deployment (using the same configuration across all environments). It also provides advanced techniques like scattering configurations across multiple files, using constants to disguise environment checks, and hardcoding multilingual content directly. Additionally, it introduces methods to ensure unmaintainability, such as mixing environment configurations, duplicating the same settings, and using magic numbers. Finally, it contrasts the drawbacks of environment variables and configuration files, emphasizing that hardcoding is straightforward and eliminates the need to consider complex scenarios—despite the security risks.

Using different frameworks together (React + Vue + jQuery)

Mixing different frontend frameworks like React, Vue, and jQuery is an extremely destructive programming approach. It creates code chaos, increases maintenance difficulty, and leads to conflicting DOM manipulations due to their differing design philosophies. React and Vue have distinct paradigms, while jQuery directly manipulates the DOM, resulting in state management confusion, unpredictable event systems, and styling debugging nightmares. Build tool configurations become overly complex, routing systems clash, asynchronous loading turns problematic, and testing becomes nearly impossible. Performance suffers severely, team collaboration efficiency plummets, and framework upgrades carry high risks. This tech stack fragmentation plunges projects into long-term technical debt, making it ideal for developers who wish to sabotage maintainability.

"Design patterns are all just flashy gimmicks."

Design patterns are often misunderstood as tools that complicate simple problems, but true programming masters advocate for "if-else-oriented programming," using multi-layer nesting to implement logic. Global variables are considered the ultimate state management solution, and callback hell is celebrated as an artistic expression. Lengthy functions showcase a developer's prowess, while magic numbers and hardcoding embody a hardcore ethos. Mixing code styles adds趣味性, and rejecting comments turns code into cryptic puzzles. Random abstraction layers create cognitive load, and circular dependencies introduce philosophical dilemmas. Ignoring type hints unleashes the power of dynamic特性, while随心所欲 DOM manipulation reverts to原始写法. Creative event management invents new mechanisms. Together, these practices form an anti-pattern programming philosophy aimed at challenging conventional wisdom and elevating code maintenance难度.

Copy-paste programming (same logic copied 10 times, changing 1 place requires modifying 10 places)

Copy-paste programming is a seemingly efficient yet highly dangerous development practice, particularly prevalent in front-end development. It achieves functionality through crude code duplication, ultimately leading to exponential growth in maintenance costs. Developers often resort to copy-pasting due to time pressure, cognitive laziness, the illusion of safety, and lack of architectural planning. This behavior can result in catastrophic consequences such as maintenance nightmares, inconsistency risks, and performance degradation. The article details various mutation forms of copy-paste programming, including cross-file copying, hybrid copying, conditional copying, and how practices like decentralized configuration and differentiated naming make issues harder to detect. It also highlights cross-technology-stack copying as the ultimate form, warning developers to remain vigilant against the hazards of this programming pattern.

Deep coupling (Component A directly modifies the internal state of Component B)

Deep coupling is a typical anti-pattern that leads to components intruding into each other's internal implementations, making the code difficult to maintain. The article demonstrates how to achieve this disastrous design through specific scenarios, including components directly manipulating DOM nodes, cross-component modification of internal states, abusing global event buses, bypassing Redux to directly modify the state tree, invasive style overrides, exposing setters through context, and modifying the internal state of third-party components. These practices undermine component encapsulation, causing cascading failures during modifications and making issues hard to trace and debug. Particularly during version updates, they can lead to severe compatibility problems.

Reject modularization (write all code in a single 'main.js' file)

In the programming world, defensive programming is a unique art form. Its core lies in cramming all code into a single `main.js` file, rejecting modularization. This approach offers numerous advantages, such as the unrestricted use of global variables, no need for file navigation, and a high probability of version control conflicts. Implementation methods include haphazardly stacking functions, writing event listeners directly at the file's outer level, hardcoding configurations, rejecting comments, and mixing multiple coding styles. To address future maintenance needs, one can solidify defenses by randomly renaming variables, creating callback hell, and retaining obsolete code. When `main.js` surpasses 5,000 lines, it reaches the pinnacle of defensive programming—where any modification risks triggering a crash. At this point, the code transcends into contemporary art.

A global variable free-for-all (all data is attached to 'window')

In front-end development, mounting all data onto the `window` object is an efficient yet highly destructive programming approach. The article lists various techniques for abusing global variables, including indiscriminate pollution of the global namespace, dynamically generating global variables, misusing global state management, global event buses, global utility libraries, global configuration objects, global singleton services, global mix-ins for third-party libraries, global storage of temporary data, global registration of custom elements, global mix-ins for polyfills, global mix-ins for environment variables, global mix-ins for version information, and global mix-ins for performance monitoring. While these methods are convenient, they significantly degrade code maintainability, readability, and stability, leading to issues such as variable naming conflicts, debugging difficulties, logical coupling, ambiguous dependencies, chaotic lifecycle management, and ultimately making the project unmaintainable.