While on the way back from our coffee excursion, we began talking about throwaway code, and how our temp directories are filled with lots of random files, like foo.c, q.py, blargo.bat, and so-forth that do one shot things like “replace the letter ‘L’ at the end of even numbered lines.”  We discussed how we usually clean out our temp directories every once in a while, and always end up deleting code that might end up being useful in the future.

We started talking about committing our throwaway code into SVN, and perhaps organizing it a bit to keep it in our back pocket in case we need it again. Then Jason said it: Let’s start a website to collect it. I thought it was a fantastic idea, and here we are!

We started thinking about names for the website. Jason remembered a quote from The Pragmatic Programmer:

When woodworkers are faced with the task of producing the same thing over and over, they cheat. They build themselves a jig or template. If they get the jig right once, they can reproduce a piece of work time after time. The jig takes away complexity and reduces the chances of making mistakes, leaving the craftsman free to concentrate on quality.

We’re actually co-opting this from The Pragmatic Programmer and repurposing it just a little bit (around the edges) for this site.

They were referring to writing code that writes code, but those dusty brain cells of Jason’s responsible for remembering that context failed him during that discussion.

WordNet offers up this definition:

A device that holds a piece of machine work and guides the tools operating on it

Well, that’s much closer to what we were thinking.  Weird searches and replaces, things that update ini files, code frobbing, getting file versions, batch version  controlled file renames, dead code finding hacks and the like.

So please, enjoy the site – and feel free to send us your own jig code – we’d love to see it! And who knows. You could help some other programmer out in the process.