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Obfuscation of code is common amongst web technologies. Javascript files are minimised to save bandwidth and to avoid copying and/or theft of intellectual property(IP).
But what does visual obfuscation look like? One possibility is this:
The image being a collection of approximately three-hundred nodes iconified and stacked on top of each-other. The nodes represent the obfuscated version of the server-side code for FlowHub.org.
For me, it has visual similarities to a .tgz archive file. A compact collection of nodes reduced to the bare functionality required by Node-RED.
To create that flow, I wrote some helper code included in the introspection node package. It can be found on the obfuscation sidebar:
Why I did this was to be able to distribute code which might be useful for others without having others being able to extend or modify that code base. That is not 100% true since the code can be adjusted however it takes more time and effort than using the non-obfuscated version of the code.
The idea is that folks can install the code, try it out and even work their way through the obfuscated version of the code and then extend it. Or they can employ me to make those changes for them for a fraction of the time and cost!