This seems very unprofessional to me, is this normal for developers?

Hi @StephanBranczyk while true, now a days commits are traceable via commit logs. So it's traceable, the question is how much work.

@Kilisi I'm not sure if normal, but easter eggs are not an uncommon thing in software. Even Microsoft products have easter eggs. I think the question is if these were easter eggs written secretly by an individual developer or if a team (and maybe some management) was behind them and approved.

You may be interested in reading about why Microsoft no longer allows easter eggs in their code.

@Kilisi it's the only way to add a bit of fun in a dev life ^^ a lot of game have some easter eggs in their code, it's kind of a common joke.

I do see how it would be both fun and interesting to do

It would depend on your company, industry, and customers. I do it but you would have to know the code. If someone challenges if I wrote a piece of software I can prove it.

Pressing a button 25 times is not as unlikely as you think. Imagine you have a cat, or imagine you do the same action 25 times, etc... Real easter eggs are better hidden than that.

Marking a question as "legal" but without any jurisdiction is useless. You basically cannot be fired over this in parts of Europe, while you can be fired over your new haircut in large parts of the US. "legal" needs a context.

The easter egg may have a bug in it and could cause problems in the future.

Don't forget Google has alot of easter eggs too, ranging from in browser atari games to just random stuff that makes the website slant or fall down or something. As Paparazzi stated, it would indeed depend on your company, industry, customers and product itself.

@Kilisi if you have an android phone there is an eastern egg "game" on every(I think every) version.

Looks like someone never read Murphy's laws. One variation is : "Even if it looks impossible, someone will eventually do it.".

@Brandin ... or just hold down space for a while. It's quite easy to do by accident, and if you have a lot of customers, it is going to happen :)

@camden_kid Really a bug in Easter Egg that displays a picture and some text.

This reminds me of that usability feature in Windows where you press Shift 5 times (or any other modifier) and it activates an unusual feature that you probably didn't want. Every time I've activated this has been by mistake.

You did this without permission? Once someone looks at your code, expect to be called into your manager's office for a discussion. In some shops you could be fired for this.

@Kilisi it varies from industry to industry. For gaming coders, it's almost expected. For graphics coders, very frequent, but these are fields where it is more expected. In more "professional" fields, it's frowned upon. Pull it in the financial, legal, or medical fields, it's unheard of and you WILL be fired if you pull that kind of nonsense.

I had a coworker who would write profanities in comments in code, who shrugged off my concerns because the customer would never see it. fast forward 1 year, the customer signed off with us and we handed over all assets to them... including the source code. not exactly an easter egg but an example of how things that "the customer will never see" can come around and bite you later...

Check your employment documentation. Many development companies have strict guidelines on how code can be developed. Introducing undocumented code, deviating from the development guidelines, having non-peer reviewed code, etc, etc is often prohibited. Consequences will vary from company to company.

Would you say this is in the spirit of your company, application and customers? A non-profit retro game company may like it.

Am I the only one clicking 25 times the same random key in every app to see what happens?

@Brandin To be fair, users being cats are not something I usually plan for...