this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
788 points (99.2% liked)
Programmer Humor
28488 readers
1155 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
When sharing links with people in places where there’s a character limit or to avoid polluting visuals.
Also, when sharing like orally or showing it to someone else when you have no other way to communicate it: ex, the link of a shared cloud file
Infuriatingly, URL shortners are often used in QR codes because they have a character limit-ish (longer strings make for more detailed QR codes, which are harder to scan from further away so it's a trade-off). but if the QR points to a shortened link then it's more difficult to assess where a QR code is pointing without blindly following the link.
My biggest bugbear relating to this is the lack of a short text alternative for QR codes, especially with long URLs.
If the URL is too long to fit into a QR code, then it's also too long for me to type in manually!
I think I like an alternative that uses full words instead of a string of no sense symbols and mixed case letters.
Something like what What 3 Words does but for short URLs. That would be easy to convey and type
That's a very good idea.
Beside the number of permutations it gives, another benefit of using three words is they could form the border of the QR code, with the fourth side being the domain name
Yessss