>What does this word mean then? :) What's the correct word instead? ...
Nadya,
Steve was referring that hardcoding anything is usually a bad idea as it requires code changes to adapt to later business changes. Hardcoding is something to be avoided unless ther is a very strong reason to do it.
For example, with your idea if I decide later to add 6 more checkboxes and to remove 3 of the ones that were there I have to remember to change the hardcoded array stuff also or else the form will fail. With Marcia's idea I can add and remove checkboxes as I like and never have to visit the code that reads their values because it is not hardcoded.