the.com/obfuscation
Making code unreadable on purpose, usually right before you forget what it does.
means The act of deliberately making something — code, language, or an explanation — confusing or hard to understand, often to hide intent or avoid accountability.
from From Latin obfuscare, 'to darken' — a fusion of ob- ('over') and fuscare ('to make dark,' from fuscus, 'dark brown or swarthy'). The word has always meant clouding something that was once clear, whether that's a sky, a meaning, or, these days, a codebase you're trying to protect from prying eyes — or from yourself, six months later.
- security use
- hides logic from reverse engineers, not just coworkers
- javascript world
- minifiers do it by accident while saving bandwidth
- job security myth
- written to be clever, read by nobody, including you
- contest exists
- obfuscated C contest rewards the most unreadable working code