Ask Slashdot: What Makes Some Code Particularly Good?

itwbennett writes: When developers talk about what makes some source code particularly 'good,' a handful of qualities tend to get mentioned frequently (functional, readable, testable). What would you add to this list?

Comments

Re:must fail

[DickBreath]

> Code needs to fail in an easy to understand and predictable way.

Being written in C++ is a sure way to guarantee both!

Did it fail in an easy to understand way? Yes. It is easy to understand that it failed because it was written in C++.

Was it predictable that it would fail? Again, yes.

:-)



Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to be promoted to a decision making role.

Compactness and Readability

[UnknownSoldier]

Let's let at the clusterfuck of Boost's CRC code
1109 lines of over-engineered C++ crap for a simple CRC32 function!?!?

Now compare that to these simple 27 lines of C/C++ code.

#include <stdint.h>
 
const uint32_t CRC32_REVERSE = 0xEDB88320; // reverse = shift right
const uint32_t CRC32_VERIFY = 0xCBF43926; // "123456789" -> 0xCBF43926
/* */ uint32_t CRC32_Table[256] = { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }; // i.e. 0x00000000, 0x77073096,
 
void crc32_init()
{
  for( short byte = 0; byte < 256; byte++ )
  {
      uint32_t crc = (uint32_t) byte;
      for( char bit = 0; bit < 8; bit++ )
          if( crc & 1 ) crc = (crc >> 1) ^ CRC32_REVERSE; // reverse/reflected Form
          else /* = 0*/ crc = (crc >> 1);
      CRC32_Table[ byte ] = crc;
  }
  if( CRC32_Table[8] != (CRC32_REVERSE >> 4))
      printf("ERROR: CRC32 Table not initialized properly!\n");
}
 
uint32_t crc32_buffer( const char *pData, uint32_t nLength )
{
  uint32_t crc = (uint32_t) -1 ; // Optimization: crc = CRC32_INIT;
  while( nLength-- > 0 )
      crc = CRC32_Table[ (crc ^ *pData++) & 0xFF ] ^ (crc >> 8);
  return ~crc; // Optimization: crc ^= CRC32_DONE
}

Typical bloated code solves some theoretical "general purpose" solution. Good code does one thing well:

It communicates clearly what it is trying to do.

_When_ was the last time you actually needed a different CRC function from the standard 32-bit one?