Art of writing unmaintainable code.
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#2The most amazing thing of this essay is that somehow, I know people who never read it, yet seem to know it by memory.
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#3You literally could build a career out of this. I'm not saying that's a good thing. But you can't argue with the amazing job stability it provides.
Also makes me think how long it takes big teams to filter out people like this.
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#4While true, the article feeds an odious appetite for righteous superiority all too common among technical people.
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#5What a fantastic piece. Check the bottom for the sign-off: "People paid no attention when I harped about how to write __maintainable code. I found people were more receptive hearing all the goofy things people often do to muck it up."
You can tell that he's not talking about this from a theoretical point of view and that the majority of those samples were encountered in real life code.
I've seen a couple of them myself over the years (and I've been guilty of at least a few, especially in the beginning). To be able to compile such a vast set of examples must point to a very colorful career.
The best part of the whole thing is that you can read it two ways, invert every line in meaning and you get a pretty good naming conventions and coding standards guide.
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#6I finally found the manual that scientists used to write their code!
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#7Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. - Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
Common problem found in coding, attempting to do things in a hifi way, when simple things server the purpose.
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#8While true, the article feeds an odious appetite for righteous superiority all too common among technical people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TzHbcXYwI4
Agreed - and while most of this is obvious, and some insightful, some of it is just baseless opinion:
"Never underestimate how much havoc you can create by indenting with tabs instead of spaces..."
Conversely, never underestimate how much havoc you can create by using spaces for indentation. With tabs, the level of indentation is clear and atomic. With spaces, it is arbitrary, and, wait for it...
hard to maintain
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#9You know you read too much of that article if you notice that the 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' advice is given twice.
Meta-obfuscation in the obfuscation guide?
Re: Art of writing unmaintainable code.
#10While true, the article feeds an odious appetite for righteous superiority all too common among technical people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TzHbcXYwI4
Agreed - and while most of this is obvious, and some insightful, some of it is just baseless opinion: "Never underestimate how much havoc you can create by indenting with tabs instead of spaces..." Conversely, never underestimate how much havoc you can create by using spaces for indentation. With tabs, the level of indentation is clear and atomic. With spaces, it is arbitrary, and, wait for it... hard to maintain
I second your agreement. That line would have been much better if it had been referring to mixing indentation styles or combining tabs and spaces.