Is it possible to hide a field on a form without writing code? there are good instructions on hiding a field using a hook.

Is there a simpler way of doing this? I would like to hide a term reference field on a node edit form but use the default value for it.
If you simply want to hide the field and have the default value saved, you should be able to simply hide the field with CSS. Find the ID of the wrapper surrounding the field and set it to display: none;.  Here is a working example from my D6 site:

#edit-field-vendor-sort-order-0-value-wrapper {
  display: none;
}