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Since a few years I hear and read the term the coding when they mean the code more and more often. Personally this sounds so absolutely wrong to me and I think it is.

A few examples:

  • "Can I have your coding?"
  • "The coding is buggy"
  • "The coding (containing the invalid instructions) was done years ago"
  • "In this coding you can find xyz"

I would appreciate it if someone (other than me for strategic reasons) could clearly and as concisely as possible summarize when to use:

  • the term coding
  • the term code

so that I can point people to this question every time I hear/read this and they immediately understand the difference (and hopefully start using those terms in their (original) meaning).

PS: My question aims at the context of software development exclusively (so e.g. code as in cryptography or security or other fields are out of context).

Edit: Enhanced 3rd example because the semantics were unclear.

Alex
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    Not to deny the reality of your claim, but I have never heard this misusage. – Jeff Zeitlin May 25 '18 at 14:42
  • Here a few examples: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22give+me+the+coding%22&oq=%22give+me+the+coding%22 – Alex May 25 '18 at 14:49
  • This may be related. I've found that there are some people (including myself) that treat "code" as a mass noun, and others as a singular.

    An example of the first style: "I've got some buggy code to fix before noon."

    An example of the second style: "Give me a code that does the signal manipulation."

     – user888379 May 25 '18 at 14:57
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    The third example does not fit the other three. In that example, coding is actually the better term to use: coding is done, code is written. You wouldn’t say that anyone “did the code” years ago; they either did the coding or they wrote the code. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 25 '18 at 15:11
  • @Janus Agree... bad example because it can be interpreted in both ways (my intention was "The code was written years ago") – Alex May 25 '18 at 15:26
  • @user888379 I've never seen that usage in connection with program code, and it feels quite wrong. "A code" is something quite different: a code for Germany is "de". – Michael Kay May 25 '18 at 18:40
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    I would speculate (though I can't confirm it) that most of the cited examples of "give me the coding" are Indian English: or at any rate, not British or American native speakers. – Michael Kay May 25 '18 at 18:47
  • I don't find a good reference but they are both used for both noun (product) and verb (process). Coding is more general. If someone said this is bad coding it is more likely to mean bad practices in general. This code is bad could be just short segment with a minor error. – paparazzo May 25 '18 at 19:53
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    Where are you located? Are native English speakers saying this? Only #3 is acceptable to me as a native speaker of AmE (who does code daily). – Azor Ahai -him- May 25 '18 at 19:55
  • this sounds almost certainly like a symptom of english as a second language – NKCampbell May 25 '18 at 20:02
  • @AzorAhai: as an AmE speaker who also codes daily, If have encountered forms of the others. Its it bit of a shibboleth though; in my experience, anything other than #3 means that the speaker is a) old, b) doesn't know anything about computers or programming and c) is either family of mine or ranks above me in the business hierarchy. – sharur May 25 '18 at 20:12
  • @ Azor/Michael I'm working with international teams. But granted - I cannot remember a single native english speaker saying/writing this. I observe it frequently when talking/reading/writing with persons from european or eastern countries. – Alex May 26 '18 at 00:32
  • Speaking as someone who has been programming since 1968, the first and 4th examples are a little odd, but the second and third are perfectly normal, in a reasonable context. – Hot Licks May 26 '18 at 01:26
  • Your would be better occupied with correcting your own English. "Since a few years" works in many languages but not English. "For many years I have heard…" And your sentence is ungrammatical when you say "they mean…" without any previous noun for the pronoun to refer to. You need to have some antecedent like "I have heard people say…". Finally an English Language site is not the ammunition for your campaign. Research the published output of large US software companies for evidence. You are a computer person. You should know how to do that. – David May 31 '18 at 19:05
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is about English usage in a particular professional sphere, which can be beter answered by applying the technology of that discipline. – David May 31 '18 at 19:07

6 Answers6

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Code is the result of a coding process. The coding (process) of an algorithm results in executable code (product).

There is a similar question about learn to code vs learn coding. In that case they are equivalent, as they are both verbs.

In your example The coding was done years ago, the usage is arguably correct when you talk about the process. With a different verb it would not work:

*The coding was written years ago
The code was written years ago

Edit: Just for completeness, to code is also a verb. A code is a mapping between symbols, eg Morse code mapping e to '.' and t to '-', or ASCII mapping 32 to ' ' and 65 to 'A'.

Oliver Mason
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2

Say you want to tell your friend that you are going to write a program that would find the solution to a quadratic equation. So you can say,

I am going to code a program that would find the solution to a quadratic equation.

Or you can say,

I am planning on coding a program that would find the solution to a quadratic equation.

You can also say,

I am going to write a program that would find the solution to a quadratic equation.

Also, "code" may be used in a sense that you are going to write the program but haven't started yet. "Coding" in that sense is used when you have stated to program.

Alpha Delta
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1

A code is a product, and coding is an action.

user298438
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Elsa Wood
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1

Code is the main word of programming, and coding is the process of programming. This is the really important difference between code and coding.

user298438
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0

I'll give it a try myself because I think I have a slightly more formal answer than the answers provided up to now (Oliver and Elsa are going into the same direction but the answers are a little bit vague in my opinion). I'll let the voters decide on the final accepted answer later.

My try:

  1. "Code" is a noun ("here is my source code")
  2. "to code" is the verb (I code, you code,...) and the present participle is "coding".
  3. "Coding" is a Gerund (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerund): a verb form that functions as a noun

The intention in the examples is to talk about the (code) object/thing and not about the (coding) action/process (Oliver and Elsa mentioned this as well and I think this is an important distinction). Therefore the noun should be used which is "code" and the examples would be correct if the word "Code" would have been used:

  • "Can I have your (source) code?"
  • "The (source) code is buggy"
  • "The (source) code (containing the invalid instructions) was done years ago"
  • "In this (source) code you can find xyz"

So why would someone use "coding" instead ? I assume this comes from the Gerund mentioned in 3) because the Gerund by definition is used like a noun. But the meaning of the Gerund is similar to the verb because it aims at the action/process and this is not what the examples try to express. Therefore the usage of "coding" in the examples is wrong.

Alex
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  • When you read the 1st sentence in my question I stated "...I hear and read the term 'the coding' when they mean' the code' " – Alex May 26 '18 at 01:35
  • One would use "coding" when the subject under discussion is the manner of programming rather than the product of programming. "The coding is buggy" means that there are aspects of the way the code is written which are apt to lead to bugs -- poor formatting, poor variable naming, lack of "structure", etc. – Hot Licks May 26 '18 at 01:39
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One shouldn't use the words "code" or "coding", these should be limited to the output of the compiler, and what the compiler does.

What one does when programming is that one "writes sources". A programmer is writing sources for people, mostly. When needed, the compiler transforms the source into code. It also means a programmer is a writer, not a "coder".

Why? "code" and "coding" has meanings such as "hiding", "obscuring", "ciphering". A programmer is not trying to mask his work, but on the contrary to make it as clear and as easy to understand as possible. It's been a very long time since mainstream programmers have had to decipher or cut code directly.

The use of the "code" and "coding" words is a common mistake in our industry, and comes from mistaking the result with the origin.

Thierry
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