[definition] What does "hard coded" mean?

The antonym of Hard-Coding is Soft-Coding. For a better understanding of Hard Coding, I will introduce both terms.

• Hard-coding: feature is coded to the system not allowing for configuration;
• Parametric: feature is configurable via table driven, or properties files with limited parametric values ;
• Soft-coding: feature uses “engines” that derive results based on any number of parametric values (e.g. business rules in BRE); rules are coded but exist as parameters in system, written in script form

Examples:

// firstName has a hard-coded value of "hello world"
string firstName = "hello world";

// firstName has a non-hard-coded provided as input
Console.WriteLine("first name :");
string firstName = Console.ReadLine();

A hard-coded constant^[1]:

float areaOfCircle(int radius)
{
    float area = 0;
    area = 3.14*radius*radius;  //  3.14 is a hard-coded value
    return area;
}

Additionally, hard-coding and soft-coding could be considered to be anti-patterns^[2]. Thus, one should strive for balance between hard and soft-coding.

1. Hard Coding “Hard coding” is a well-known antipattern against which most web development books warns us right in the preface. Hard coding is the unfortunate practice in which we store configuration or input data, such as a file path or a remote host name, in the source code rather than obtaining it from a configuration file, a database, a user input, or another external source.
   
   The main problem with hard code is that it only works properly in a certain environment, and at any time the conditions change, we need to modify the source code, usually in multiple separate places.
   
   
2. Soft Coding
   If we try very hard to avoid the pitfall of hard coding, we can easily run into another antipattern called “soft coding”, which is its exact opposite.
   
   In soft coding, we put things that should be in the source code into external sources, for example we store business logic in the database. The most common reason why we do so, is the fear that business rules will change in the future, therefore we will need to rewrite the code.
   
   In extreme cases, a soft coded program can become so abstract and convoluted that it is almost impossible to comprehend it (especially for new team members), and extremely hard to maintain and debug.

Sources and Citations:

1: Quora: What does hard-coded something mean in computer programming context?
2: Hongkiat: The 10 Coding Antipatterns You Must Avoid

Further Reading:

Software Engineering SE: Is it ever a good idea to hardcode values into our applications?
Wikipedia: Hardcoding
Wikipedia: Soft-coding