Slashdot Mirror
Best and Worst Coding Standards?
An anonymous reader writes "If you've been hired by a serious software development house, chances are one of your early familiarization tasks was to read company guidelines on coding standards and practices. You've probably been given some basic guidelines, such as gotos being off limits except in specific circumstances, or that code should be indented with tabs rather than spaces, or vice versa. Perhaps you've had some more exotic or less intuitive practices as well; maybe continue or multiple return statements were off-limits. What standards have you found worked well in practice, increasing code readability and maintainability? Which only looked good on paper?"
Sound an awful lot like coding in C... no bad coding practice needed...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
I've worked where we were supplied a full IDE and a 17" CRT, and the coding standard forced so much white space vertically that you had to basically remember all the code.
I can't stand seeing the closing brace of an if statement sharing a line with an else, like so:
if( condition ) {
statement1;
} else {
statement2;
}
I've always found the Joint Strike Fighter's coding standards document an interesting read. It is available from Bjarne Stroustrup's website (pdf)
This sounds like a fairytale but I work for a very large IT firm which is very well known. Serious company doesn't mean good however.
In certain files (not all apparentely) all constant variables have to be declared globally. We are talking C++ here.
Think what you want, but I don't like it. The reason for the variables placements are so "that they will be easy to find".
First off, I'd suggest printing out a copy of the /. comments, and NOT read it. Burn them, it's a great symbolic gesture.
is classic one - brilliant example of really harmful coding standard. Especially after Years of refactoring, where wParam doesn't mean WORD anymore...
Also found I prefix in .NET really bad pracitce for marking interfaces like ICollection, what about when You decide turn interface to abstract class?..
Generally embedding some semantic value into the syntactic is IMHO really bad practice.
Well, also used to work in company which decided to use Capiltalized names in Java, so instead fo getFoo, they decided that is much cleaner to have GetFoo. Of course ta the same time, the company had to accept that half of the Java frameworks, following JCS didn't worked for them...
lima
My new standard comes from a 1950's comp sci book.
"Programs consists of input, output, processing and storage."
Lose focus of that and the project will be late, over budget and most likely broken in ways no one will understand for years.
If you are using your computer right, it does not only enable you to do things, it does the boring things for you, automatically.
Checkstyle is one of the tools in a company toolkit that is often overlooked but in fact VERY handy. It enables you to define a ruleset for your source code, finding stuff which is incompatible with the coding practice in your company/team/project/whatever. Moreover, you can stick it into Eclipse using the free Eclipse-CS plugin, so it will automagically mark the places which need to be change. Last but not least, you can put Checkstyle as an Ant task in your building environment (and in your continous integration toolkit) so commited code that does not conform certain standards does not build.
As for the rules themselves, we've found these to be the most successful:
Of course, we let developers to add suppresions for the 1% of false positives. In fact, there are very few suppresion rules set.
Build a tool even an idiot can use and only an idiot will want to use it. -S.O.B.
Without developer buy-in, whatever coding standards you come up with will be useless. IOW, ask your developers to create the standard together.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Make it "cut and paste" friendly, and as small as possible.
That's a really bad idea. Cut and paste causes code cloning, which is among the most difficult maintenance problems.
Code should be designed, when possible, in small chunks (methods, functions, etc.). This keeps the need to think about refactoring to a minimum, since the code is already factored. Well factored code has many other benefits, including easier-to-write unit tests and better understandability.
I maintain software that was originally written by someone as a prototype and eventually given production status. 4 years later, I am still pulling bugs out that relate to code cloning. Think of the guys who will maintain your software, please.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
One of my friends worked at a place where you'd have to insert whitespace to place certain elements (variables, evals, etc.) to begin at a specific col in the code within every line; in addition to standard indentation of the line. At one level, I see the concept, but seriously - highlighting and search is made to solve the same problem there.
He left that job quickly.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
At my first industry job (internship) I quickly realized their coding standards were very different from mine. So I spent the first 2 hours after lunch on day 1 with GNU Indent, working up a script that would convert my code into the company's coding standard for indentation.
Let the tools do the work for you. Just don't forget to run 'indent' before you check in your code.
the most egregious bug I think I ever introduced was due to code cloning. It was awful. I did not bother to properly refactor (hey it was 12 years ago) and as a result we ended up with diverging clones that needed to be separately maintained.
I worked for a company that was destroyed by a bad coding standard.
This was a small company, that, back in '96, was awarded the contract for a POS application for a regional store chain, with back-office servers that would be updated nightly by modem.
The guys who ran the company weren't programmers (though one of them knew enough to be dangerous); they were technical salesmen. They were also big fans of Microsoft, with "MVP" plaques on the walls, and every employee except me having Microsoft certs.
I worked for them part-time while also working for another company. I advocated Unix (mostly BSDI and SunOS at the time), and always argued with them about why Unix was better (technical superiority vs. potential for big profits).
When their big project was well underway, they brought me in to do the communications part of it, where the POS terminals would contact one of several servers by modem each night ("why not just ethernet them together, get a dialup PPP connection, and use IP? the interface is so much more reliable..." Request denied).
The app was Visual Basic, with third-party "custom controls" for things like talking to modems. My part went fairly smoothly, and I was eventually asked to help out with the main application, which was suffering from unexplained crashes. When I looked at the code, I found something... strange.
For error handling, they had elected to use a program called "VB Rig" (the name came from the rigging used on sailing ships, which prevents a sailor from falling to his death. Sometimes.) What this program did was to examine the source code, and then add error handling boilerplate at the start and end of each and every function. It inserted the exact same error handling code into every function.
Because the error handler had to be all purpose, it was about 20 lines of code per function - sometimes much larger than the regular part of the function. And, worse, because it was the same for every function, and it made use of the same variable names, that meant either every variable had to be global, or you'd have to declare the ten or so standard variable names at the start of every function (they opted for the "everything is global" approach).
Which led to things like this (forgive the syntax errors, it's been years since I've touched VB):
On Error goto my_data_file_read_function_VBRIG_TRAP
open MyDataFile for writing ...
goto my_data_file_read_function_VBRIG_CLEANUP
my_data_file_read_function_VBRIG_TRAP:
on error 101 'Permission Denied
delete MyDataFile
resume
on error 102 'File Not Found
MessageBox 'Cannot read ' + MyConfigFile
resume
my_data_file_read_function_VBRIG_CLEANUP:
blah blah
my_data_file_read_function = SUCCESS ' return
As you see, the error handling code - which had to be exactly the same for every function - made use of global variables (names like DataFile1, MyFile1, UserName, etc.) to figure out what to do for each error. That meant, that if there was any possibility you might have a "File Not Found", you had to expect the filename where that might happen to be in a particular global variable - say, MyFile1 - and hope that the calling function wasn't using that name too, for the same reasons.
Naturally, files were being created and deleted at random, and the programmers often spent hours on the phone with the customer trying to figure out why the Access database had disappeared *again*.
I asked if we could just write the error handling by hand, and use appropriate local variables; or take the standard VBRig error handling and trim out the lines that weren't relevant for a particular function (as subsequent VBRig runs wouldn't touch its code region if it saw that it had been customized).
Request Denied. "This is our coding standard. We carefully reviewed the options before making the decision to use t
.
Coding guidelines are typically justified because, as it goes, most of the time is spent fixing bugs in existing code than writing new code. The guidelines are needed because it helps others to come up to speed quickly while they try to figure out the code in which they have to fix the bug(s).
I think that is the wrong focus, as it tends to reinforce incorrect behavior, i.e., the writing of buggy code.
Coding guidelines should focus instead on the techniques that help reduce the number of bugs in code. How is that done? It takes someone (typically a senior person) looking at the the bugs that have been found in the code, categorizing their cause, devising a way to prevent those bugs from occurring, then putting that into the guidelines.
Keep the focus of the guidelines where it should be: to increase the quality of the software.
On the strange side is the omission of vowels on functions and varible names to save text space (it's not required, but should be consistent for similarily names objects). It sounds weird, but is still quite readable.
There are several tools that can detect cut and paste code:
Simian: http://www.redhillconsulting.com.au/products/simian/
PMD: http://pmd.sourceforge.net/
DuplicateFinder: http://www.codeplex.com/DuplicateFinder
And probably others
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Every compiler made in at least the last two decades has a warning for the same purpose. This type of unnatural ordering of comparisons to force compiler errors where an equals sign is left out usually signifies a code base that is in such a bad state that the developers turn off or ignore compiler warnings.
Make it "cut and paste" friendly, and as small as possible.
Cut and paste causes code cloning, which is among the most difficult maintenance problems. Code should be designed, when possible, in small chunks (methods, functions, etc.).
Wait.. are you trying to say that copying the same lines of code over and over again must be avoided? So tell me genius, how else would you implement such a function without copying?
You just got troll'd!
The difference between ""cut and paste" friendly code" and "use Cut and paste" is the difference between "bake a nice cake" and "get obese and prone to illness".
Code that is well-factored can be (incidentally) suitable for cut-and-paste, but using cut and paste is the problem.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I've come across, been subject to, and written many coding standards during my career and have come to the conclusion that coding standards are, for the most part, useless.
It is much better to let coders program to whatever style they are most comfortable with. Forcing specific bracing and indentation styles just leads to ill-will from most coders and creates a bureaucratic overhead that is more more trouble than it is worth. As long as the style is consistent within a single file, most programmers will have no trouble following it and have no trouble maintaining the code.
The only standard I think is worthwhile, when coding API libraries and such, is a naming standard. For example, a coder should not have to guess whether the method to get a property value is getProperty() or property_get() or propertyValueOf() or whatever. I don't care what the naming standard is, as long as it is consistent across the API.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Apparently, the bastardized version of Hungarian Notation got popular: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Wrong.html
zm
Sig ?
Each language or environments have their own features, and require different standards. One of the big things is that hopping from one project/company to the other should be intuitive (something thats basically forfeited in environments such as C++, and accepted as to not be possible, more or less) When the language is mainly controled or orchestrated by a single entity (Sun for Java, Microsoft for .NET, etc), people should set aside their own opinion and stick to the main guidelines (and complete them for areas where the main design guidelines do not cover).
So for example, in .NET, stick FxCop or Code Analysis on, disable the rules that aren't relevant to your company (ie: localization rules on an app that doesn't require them), and stick to that. C++/VB6/Java/Smalltalk conventions have no place in there, so leave em out.
Same holds true for any other environment. Don't use VB6 conventions in Java/C++ (I know the thought alone seems mind boggling, but I've seen it countless of times....ugh!), and so on.
The biggest issue with conventions is just that: people take conventions that are specific to one language/environment, and don't realise that they are, so they port them everywhere else, so you have a program in language X that literally looks like if it was written in language Y (and takes twice as much code, is twice as buggy, is half as readable...)
multiple return statements were off-limits
Despite the fact that it's not part of the coding standard where I work, I have a few coworkers who take this to the extreme. They surround every single function they write with: ... } while(0);
do{
And then, inside the "do" block, they just put "break" in any place where they would have otherwise put "return." It drives me insane; they insist that having a single exit point from your function makes it easier to debug, but I just don't get it. I've never even seen them use gdb, anyway, so I think that abusing "printf" is their idea of "debugging"...
One thing in our coding standard that I do like is that all variables that store units must have a unit specification at the end of their name -- in other words, all frequencies might have "Hz" or "MHz", distances might have "m" or "mm", times have "sec" or "msec", and so on. This is really helpful in my field -- it's not uncommon for me to open up a file that I've never looked at before and need to make modifications to it, and if the units everything things are stored in weren't immediately obvious, I'd have to go track down somebody and ask them. The annoying thing here is when people decide not to follow this standard because they think it should be obvious...
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I work for a major software vendor. The particular group I work in wrote the application framework for a suite of apps. Our code is mostly quite nice. There were about 20 people working on it during development and there are a few pieces that are crap, but for the most part, it's quite well designed and written.
Now, there are other groups that use this framework. One group in particular, has pretty much the same standards that our group does. The difference is, however, that their manager never had them do code reviews and so people pretty much ignored the standards. I've now been tasked with working with that group and their code is a complete nightmare. For example, a single form class with something like 16 tab pages (spread among 3 or 4 tab controls), over 200 controls, and over 9000 lines of spaghetti code.
Had this group done code reviews, this class never would have passed, and it wouldn't be such a nightmare to deal with. At this point, we're already shipping the second version, so a complete rewrite of the various nightmare components of this app are out of the question, which is too bad because it's going to be a nightmare to maintain, especially when the guy who wrote it leaves.
I've always hated doing code reviews, but this experience has made it abundantly clear to me how important they are for minimizing the damage a single clueless programmer can get away with.
I've never been convinced by any hard-and-fast coding stylistics. Sure, it's possible to write good code and bad code, readable code and unreadable code, but beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, and, also, it depends a lot what you are trying to do. Insisting on one inflexible set of stylistics works about as well as telling people never ever to split infinitives or never ever to use the word 'said'.
Last night I came across this in the documentation for CPAN's Net::Server (you probably guessed from the above that I'm not a Pascal programmer):
You may get and set properties in two ways. The suggested way is to access properties directly via
my $val = $self->{server}->{key1};
Accessing the properties directly will speed the server process - though some would deem this as bad style. A second way has been provided for object oriented types who believe in methods. The second way consists of the following methods:
my $val = $self->get_property( 'key1' );
my $self->set_property( key1 => 'val1');
This struck me as remarkably sensible - the author of the module puts his prejudices on the table, but tells you how to do it a different way if you like. (And, personally, I prefer the first example, because it's just as clear, faster, and I've never managed to take OOP in perl entirely seriously - a problem that Larry Wall appears to have too.)
You judge good style in any particular case by looking at the overall work, not by nit-picking about the punctuation in isolation.
Virtually serving coffee
Duh, you so need to learn about this little thing called structured programming, which can totally help cut down on code duplication like that crap.
Here's a hint:
See? Much easier to understand than your spaghetti code, and much more maintainable too.
If it's assembler then write pseudo ADA comments which bear no resemblance whatsoever to the badly commented code following - Bonus points if the pseudo code itself has bugs...
If it's Delphi code make all units UNITx, all forms FORMx and all variables equally inanely named - if it's good enough for most Delphi books then obviously it's the right way to do things
Avoid function prototypes - if it was good enough for Brian and Dennis it's good enough for anyone
Overload operators in surprising and pleasing ways, preferably so that "-" does bitwise set inclusion
Use macros extensively (without ()() because everyone knows only losers need them).
Mix tabs and spaces indiscriminately
Pick at least *two* styles for braces - Bonus points for gratuitously adding them where they aren't needed - (to really make the reader happy use the "{" on next line style here)(extra points if you are mixing tabs and spaces)
Use if (1==x) , (x==1) and just plain old if (foo) randomly to add variety
Write big huge case (switch) statements spanning 5 pages because no one would possibly understand dispatch tables
Seriously though, if you're programming anywhere you're expected to conform to the local customs, wacky and out of it or not. It's part of the adaptability expected of a programmer...
Andy
Forget this pointless stuff about tabs and spacing, I've seen some really brain-dead policies.
1) Source Control Substitute
At one shop, there were designers who edited XML + image files (kinda like web pages, but not quite). There was a compiler that built this all into a single executable. They were not permitted to edit the source directly, and had to work on copies. And those copies must be on the network instead of their local drive. And source control was not allowed.
So instead of people having local copies and then committing their work, everyone made a duplicate copy on the network for each thing they did. It took hours to make the copies, and the compile times went from a few minutes to 45 minutes. Plus, the network drive kept running out of space due to all the gzillions of copies of everything.
2) Making the "minimal" change required
I worked for a US government contractor and they wanted each change to have the minimal impact on the system that was possible. So, basically nobody ever removed code, only added. One time I encountered a huge nested if statement that spanned hundreds of lines. Upon looking at the cases, I noticed that many of them were the same. Like:
if (a)
if (b)
do x
else
do y
else
if (b)
do x
else
do x
which can, of course, be simplified to:
if (a and not b) do y else do x
This was because people had to make the MINIMAL change required each time a change was made. And removing a level of the if statements was more lines of code modified than just changing "do y" to "do x"
Imagine this, but with dozens of cases spanning hundreds of lines. I spent almost a day to build a chart listing what each combination of variables did, and finally chopped hundreds of lines of code to about 10 lines. Turns out that after years of changes, most of the cases now did the same thing.
Some programmers think they should be able to do anything they want.
That might be OK if you live in your parents' basement and code for yourself, but in the real world it's a bad (and selfish) idea.
Strict adherence to a standard is helpful in code review and in cases where a component is taken over by a new maintainer.
This is always important, but it's particularly important in a genuinely open, community-driven project.
The Drupal project is an example. It has a coding standard derived from the PEAR project that applies to any code submitted for inclusion in the core.
Contrib authors are encouraged, but not required, to follow it. The good ones do.
The Drupal Coder module does a very good job of nagging at you until you get the formatting right, and also helps with code migration and updating when the API changes. And it finds some common bonehead mistakes that can create security issues.
Adhering to a standard doesn't have to be painful. Using a properly configured text editor helps. There is good support for Drupal standards and conventions in OpenKomodo and the commercial Komodo IDE, as well as some other editors.
The 3 year olds were at test at Stephens College (Columbia Mo) in their preschool education classes around 1986 or so. There are published papers but I've got no idea where to find them to cite them.
These 3 year olds were given a 10 minute time out and a grape juicebox. During the timeout, the 3 year olds developed time travel, went back, deleted the test and grape juiceboxes.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
If you are using your computer right, it does not only enable you to do things, it does the boring things for you, automatically.
Exactly. Use the tools.
In the .net world, check out
fxCop: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb429476(vs.80).aspx
StyleCop: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/sourceanalysis
These can both be used to prevent code building if it doesn't meet standards. Sadly, the first task for me is usually to turn on "warnings as errors" and get the code up to that minimal standard.
Also check out Resharper: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/
for flagging some code problems.
The problem with code standards is that your best coders are probably using a standard already; and the while the worst can be dragged onto a standard, they will write bad code even with it.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I'm sorry, but that code goes against our coding standard by having non-const parameters and a goto. I suggest the following before submitting your changes:
-1, Dense
We found that it doesn't really help to enforce a *formatting* style on developers because everyone has their own. The only thing you really should be enforcing is tabs vs spaces (and it should be spaces) because mixing the two can produce some really ugly results.
We have a much better rate of return running tools like JSLint or PMD to catch issues that are syntactically valid but will be sure to cause problems down the line
Try multiplying it by -1 and see if your stack is large enough.
I believe the worst standards are the ones that limit the languages to make them work as another language. Typically it's C++, or even Java, transformed into C. "No operator overloading, no virtual methods, no multiple inheritance, no function/method overloading, no const, no 'non-standard for' constructs, no return statements (other than at a function's end), no function call inside parenthesis (as an operator, or as an if/while test), no class constructors/destructors, no STL/Boost/whatever, no long (+15 chars) identifier names".
Amazingly, even Google (which you would expect to only hire high-level developers) has some of these guidelines for C++.
The best guideline is no guideline at all. Take your potential guideline, and present the rationale to the developers, with colorful examples to show what problems the guidelines are trying to avoid. Show them what "bad code" looks like and as soon as they realize they will naturally avoid it. If they argue against a specific rule it means that it's either a silly one (and should be discarded) or the guy is too dense to understand the problem (which means he needs more training, like maintaining a really awful code base).
In a way, the languages, tools, and libraries prescribed (if any), also constitute a sort of coding practice, in the sense that they impose limits on how you can structure your code.
- The language you work with gives you certain language constructs. These constructs vary per language, and determine how you must express things and what abstractions are available to you. This has a huge impact on the structure of your code.
- Most tools like to structure and format your code a certain way, particularly when the tool generates the code. This is usually a great boon, because it will make it easy for programmers to adhere to the same coding standard and hard for them to deviate. Of course, if what you want is not what the tool wants, the tool starts getting in the way.
- The libraries you work with determine the APIs available to you. This also has a strong influence on the structure of your code. It also interacts with the language constructs available to you, as they may or may not make it easy to build an API you like to work with on top of the API that a library exposes.
Abstraction is particularly important. If a language offers powerful enough abstractions, you can structure your program so that it is easy for humans to understand what it does, and have the compiler translate it to whatever the libraries make available to you. Better abstractions also make your code more reusable.
As an example, in C, strings are character arrays. Arrays in C don't have a size associated with them. The end of a string is indicated by a character with value 0. Furthermore, the type of an array of characters is actually the same as a pointer to a character. C also doesn't have automatic memory management. Suppose now that you wanted to concatenate two strings. There are various ways to do so, but the most obvious one is the strcat function:
This function appends src to dest and returns dest (a pointer to the concatenated string).
That is, provided there was actually enough space in dest to hold the combined contents of dest and src, and the terminating NUL. If there wasn't, the function overwrites whatever came after dest, which will usually lead to your program crashing or executing code supplied by a cracker attacking your program.
The correct way to use strcat, then, is something like:
But wait! That's not all! Since the type of an array is actually a pointer, and pointers are allowed to be NULL in C, first and second in the above could actually be NULL. If either one of them is, the program will crash. So we need to add extra code to check for that ...
All those many things to remember to concatenate two strings. It doesn't have to be that way. In OCaml, for example, a string is a string, not a pointer to a character, and never null. You don't have to worry about allocating a large enough block of memory, because memory will be allocated as needed, and reclaimed when no longer reachable. As it happens, OCaml also has an operator that concatenates strings. That is besides the point here, but I had to tell you that to explain what the code looks like in OCaml. Namely:
Not only is it much shorter than the C code, it's also easier to understand what it does, and more robust.
I think this sort of thing matters a lot more than how you format or indent your code, and pretty much everything else that normally falls under the nomer of "coding standards".
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Now why would anybody do this? I've always assumed code like this was basically what inexperienced people would use:
Why not just return immediately if any basic conditions or assumptions are not met and prevent that completely unnecessary indentation? The only advantage I can see is that you could miss the return statement when reading the code.
:/- spoon(_).
Linus Torvald Linux Kernel coding style http://lxr.linux.no/linux/Documentation/CodingStyle
Bjarne Stroustrup C++ Style and Technique FAQ (Trivia and style section) http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq2.html
The most of so called "Hungarian notations"(including the ones previously recommended by Microsoft) is the wrong interpretation of the original ones. No wonder that Torvald , Stroustrup, Sutter and Alexandrescu don't recommend them. However, the original notation are quit reasonable and can be found here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260976(VS.60).aspx
Finally, there is the good book C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices By Herb Sutter, Andrei Alexandrescu
The best advice from this book " Don't sweat the small stuff. (Or: Know what not to standardize.)". For example " Don't specify how much to indent, but do indent to show structure" etc.
Having to skim through thousands lines of html to find some embedded control statement.
Or you could, you know, use an editor that does proper syntax highlighting (usually switches background color between HTML, Javascript or PHP) and has a proper search function.
As a bonus, those editor are usually capable to reformat the code spacing and make it compliant with standard rules used in the code repository, so you'll have your "else" where *you* like it, and the editor will put it back in place for the others.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This exposes an implementation detail to the user of the Object
In many languages, an interface is not an object.
and makes it difficult to refactor
Refactor how, and how often do you do this? Reply under this comment, please.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
For one thing, they is grammatically plural.
--MarkusQ
The prohibition on "multiple exits" or returns comes from a misunderstanding of early program proving technology. As one of the few people who ever built a real proof of correctness system, I know that's just not a problem.
There are some topological restrictions on program proving, but you can't violate them with "break" or "return". You need "goto" to really screw up. The actual topological constraint is that backwards control paths must not cross.
The basic requirement for proving loops is that there must be some section in the loop through which control must pass on every iteration. Somewhere in that section must go the loop invariant and the termination measure.
Nobody does this for software any more, although, interestingly, full-scale machine proof of correctness of hardware logic in VHDL is not that unusual. There are commercial tools for that.
Only bad coders/dumb asses write 20 lines of code for basic arithmetic.
Only bad Slashdotters (if there can be any such thing)/dumb asses miss entirely such an obvious joke.
I gotta say, nice code snippet though. I would have never thought of that one!
You just got troll'd!
When you copy code you also copy whatever bugs exist in that code. If something needs to be reused several times then it should be made into a function.
Crap, you're right! Fortunately there's an easy way to fix this :
:%s/x+=b/x = addition(x, b)/
You just got troll'd!
How about just x = a * b;
How about just WHOOOOOOSH!!
You just got troll'd!
Am I missing something, is the International Sarcasm Missing Day today??
You just got troll'd!
Even in languages that recurse properly that'll overflow on big numbers. To not overflow in properly recursing languages, you need:
That way you won't create an extra copy of the variable when returning the value, it saves like an entire registry cell!!!1!
Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
Most people's ... programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt.
—Blair P. Houghton
This sig cannot be proven true.
When doing maintenance on someone else's code, use their style, even if it is one you hate.
I don't see why anyone should have any coding standards at all.
Think of it this way - there are a million code re-formatters that do a great job getting code into whatever form you like to see. So why not let someone work on code that is the most readable and ascetically pleasing to them?
What really should happen is that operations to a source code control system all go through a filter that formats the code on the way in and out. Depositing source into a repository should format to a canonical standard that was acceptable - but anyone could re-format on checkout to whatever form they liked. Repository differences would work since the code would always have the same form. Diffs against you local changes could be presented against older code forms that were run first through your chosen filter so that diffs would appear in the form most pleasing to you.
So all coding standards would be essentially local, except for the people who chose to work with the un-tweaked canonical format from the repository. An additional benefit was when it was time for layoffs, obviously anyone who cared about the code so little they did not seek to customize the view they have of it could be the first to go.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You'd better hope so. For loops and sparse data usually make a pretty inefficient combination...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
We're in an age of log server worship, where debugging is buffered & takes 50 macros to get working & as long as the program doesn't crash before the buffer is flushed, you get your trace, assuming you got all 50 macros set right.
Uh, no, not really. Especially when driven by specific profiling. I've gotten some pretty serious gains in tight loops on modern hardware with intelligent unrolling. If you've got stuff organized properly to stream out of memory and into the processor, you can get rid of pipeline stalls and significantly improve throughput for certain classes of loops.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
Let's not use exceptions but use a C++ integer named "ok" with an initial value of 1. Now write code like this:
int ok = 1; ...
if(ok)
ok = MethodCall();
if(ok)
ok = expression;
return ok;
They argued it was easier to step over in the debugger and it saved you from checking code exits (code exits only allowed in the last statement).
In Java Eclipse you can click the return value and all method exit point show up (including those for checked exceptions). For those Java programmers missing this brilliant feature.
Personally I write stuff like
if
(
a > b
)
{
doSomething();
}
else
{
zomg();
}
Then I charge the client 5 * the number of lines in a all source and header files.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware