Meanings
present singular third person softcodes · participle present softcoding · participle past softcoded · past softcoded
- computingTo construct a program in a way which ensures that certain values and methods of operation are adjustable at run time.
I have used this technique to build very flexible code generators, softcoded calculation engines for users, and much more.
1999, Steven Feuerstein, Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features, O'Reilly Media, Inc., →ISBN, page 764 more examples
Keep things soft (as in softcoding) wherever possible. Visit a lawyer and make 'parameterisation' your middle name; it'll sound good at parties, and changes to the system will be far less painful.
1992, John W. O. Brinkworth, Software quality management: a pro-active approach, →ISBN1997, Barbara L. Maia Goldstein, Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, Plug and play software for agile manufacturing, SPIE-International Society for Optical Engineering Best of breed component approaches are better supported because of the softcoding of much of the factory model and integration logic.
[…] you will need to consider the business requirements first, and only then encode them in your application. Let's discuss two approaches to this: the traditional “hardcoded” technique and the “softcoded” rules-based approach.
2004, Dave Minter, Jeff Linwood, Building Portals with the Java Portlet API, Apress, →ISBN, page 289Given the rationale for softcoding, it is clear that you should softcode attributes that may not be known until run time. For simplicity and improved performance, you can hardcode attributes that are certain.
2010, Michael Blaha, Patterns of Data Modeling, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 175
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
From soft + code, modelled on earlier hard code.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
softcode. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/softcode
“softcode.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/softcode. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “softcode,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/softcode.
Source: softcode on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.