How To Write Unmaintainable Code

An anonymous reader writes "Make sure you're irreplaceable -' In the interests of creating employment opportunities in the Java programming field, I am passing on these tips from the masters on how to write code that is so difficult to maintain, that the people who come after you will take years to make even the simplest changes. Further, if you follow all these rules religiously, you will even guarantee yourself a lifetime of employment, since no one but you has a hope in hell of maintaining the code. Then again, if you followed all these rules religiously, even you wouldn't be able to maintain the code! You don't want to overdo this. Your code should not look hopelessly unmaintainable, just be that way. Otherwise it stands the risk of being rewritten or refactored. '"

Comments

Jeez, just run an obfuscator

[0kComputer]

In skimming the article, I realized that an obfuscator does exactly what hes describing. I know its a joke article, but if you really wanted to have unmaintainable code in .net for example... just compile, obfuscate, disassemble, check in viola!.

TheDailyWTF.com

[Str8Dog]

If you need a daily reminder of "what not to do", I highly suggest bookmarking TheDailyWTF.com.

This is ancient...

[zimbu]

Roedy started this back in the 90's, you could at least have the decency to link to the latest version.

Old old old

[po8]

Roedy Green's fine How To Write Unmaintainable Code has been widely cited all over the web since its original publication in 1997. Surely at least a mention of the author and date of the article could have made the front page, so that those of us who've already seen it multiple times could know to skip it?

Re:Lifetime aint always that long

[vertinox]

Our company's main system is written in FoxPro for DOS 2.6. The FP programmers here seem to have guaranteed lifetime employment :-)

I worked for a rather large ISP who in the process up and switched from a rather large home grown custom database program it had used for years to the corporate Vantive which cost them millions at the time.

I asked my manager why would they bother doing such a thing when the old program worked just fine. He said "The guy who made the program died and know one knows how to code for it."

I laughed for a moment and then by his blank face realized he wasn't joking...