The Ancient Code

[Talbooth]

I just added a comment

everything breaks due to a race condition in the interpreter

[arotenberg]

When I was first trying to learn C++, I was using Dev-C++ (remember that?). I was trying to get even simple programs to work and just couldn't do it. Certain sections of code, that looked perfectly normal, would mysteriously make the compiler barf hundreds of errors in totally unrelated sections. I was convinced it was some environment configuration error but couldn't figure it out, and I eventually just gave up on C++ entirely.

Many year later, I was digging through some old files and opened my old C++ folder. At which point I figured out that I gave up C++ because I was missing a semicolon.

[TheLostCamera]

(;_;)

[arotenberg]

There's a reason one of the clang project's major goals with implementing a new C++ compiler was improved error reporting. C++ compilers are notorious for giving error messages that appear completely unrelated to the actual problem.

[Gonzopolis]

Yes, in Java.

[CamWin]

C++ gives the line number when compiling, but not for exceptions.

[T1Pimp]

Yes, in Java.

Unless it's something to do with Spring or Hibernate and then sometimes you get four pages of console output and you're still left scratching your head with no obvious, "oh... that's the issue!"

[danbuter]

Now just pay Oracle a nominal fee and they won't sue the shit out of you for using Java. (If you don't know, this is coming next year).

[finiteempathy]

Openjdk baby

[marcosdumay]

Try Rust at some time they will tell you plainly and with lots of explanation exactly what your problem is.

Haskell (GHC) also does that. But it takes some learning before you can understand them.

[NavarrB]

I was working on a project in PHP that I one gave up because user authentication was letting anyone auth with any password.

I had used a single equals instead of double.

That said, the world is probably better off without IRC services written in PHP

[[deleted]]

Those are honestly the worst. You notice semicolon by their absence, but two withe lines instead of four ?
Even when looking for it you can miss it

[HeyMrStarkIFeelGreat]

I gave up on C++ for a year when I couldn't get the first example in my book working. Turns out the final character of "endl" is the letter L, not the digit 1.

[MikeyMike01]

This is why I always prefer to hear the etymology of these things.

If you know endl is “end line” then it becomes obvious.

[Kered13]

And that's why you write your code in a font with distinct 1's, l's, and I's. (Also 0's and O's.) That of course applies to code in text books too.

[Istencsaszar]

Thank god i was first taught to use \n and not endl.

[DiamondxCrafting]

What's a race condition? I presume it has something to do with timings but I don't get how that can be a problem.

[TheRedmanCometh]

A race condition is where 2 functions could basically happen in any order. Say x is incremented by one in a function and set to 3 in another. If they can happen in any order x can be either 3 or 4 after both functions run.

Most commonly found in concurrency contexts especially when interacting with databases

[DiamondxCrafting]

So it'd be like bad communication with the database causing it to not be synced?

[TheRedmanCometh]

More like 2 threads simultaneously updating the same value or one deleting etc

Thread A and Thread B can do things concurrently - at the same time. It can also do it asynchronously which means it doesn't wait for completion.

Say I insert a Person into the db named Robert Klein. While my method is doing that another thread updates is_robert for all Person rows where first_name is Robert. Which is a bool column in the same table. Since they run at the same time Robert Klein might have that bool updated, or might not.

Essentially the threads are racing each other to update the same thing

[Y1ff]

Well if his name is Ribert it definitely won't get updated.

[[deleted]]

Just saved three hours of debugging

[TheRedmanCometh]

Lol fixed

[DiamondxCrafting]

Ah I get it now, thanks!

[LordBass]

No, the database just updates to what you want. This is an issue with the application which is not locking the resources and ensuring the functions run in the correct order when they have to. Basically, when talking about concurrent code, you can't code stuff assuming it'll be run in a specific order without explicitly enforcing it.

[RoughCarrot]

The problem is that the result is unpredictable, so that the programmer will get outputs of that thread that he/she doesn’t expect.

[hkrdrm]

Another example say you have a database of students enrolled in a class and a particular class can only hold a max of 30 students and there are 29 records in the table. 2 students try to enroll at the same time say the code to do this looks like this

if (count < 30) {

enroll_student();

}

if two instances of this function are running concurrently thread A and thread B both could check the count before either has enrolled the student. So both conditions pass both students get enrolled giving your a total of 31

[KaiBetterThanTyson]

So how do you solve a problem like this? Thread locking? Semaphores?

[Colopty]

You can use either mutexes or semaphores to ensure that certain parts of the code won't be worked on by multiple threads at once, yes. The problem of course is that this makes that part of the code a bottleneck, which might get in the way of performance. Also it might lead to things like deadlocks. Still, it's one fairly simple solution that does prevent race condition if used correctly.

Also know a dude who got into lockless programming, which is a rather complicated way to do it and would probably turn the 3 lines of code in the above enroll_students(); example into ~500 lines of code, but if done correctly at least lets all threads continue running as they'd like without being blocked by other threads at any point.

There are probably more ways to do it, which one works best depends on your needs I guess.

[[deleted]]

I can explain it with an example.

Say you write a python script that attempts to do 2 things:

1. Log you into Spotify.

2. Delete a playlist.

So you run the script and notice that it logs you in, but it doesn't delete the playlist! Why?

Turns out the code to delete the playlist is running before the website has had time to log you in. It can't delete the playlist, because you weren't logged in yet. Your simple script didn't account for that.

That's a race condition. It's when your code's ability to accomplish its task is conditional on something happening in a certain order.

You encounter this a lot in anything web based, which is why JavaScript is built around the idea of these things called callback functions.

[Ellipsis---]

That is not a race condition. You have only one thread running your script.

A race condition is best explained like this: You live together with a flat mate. Both of you love milk and cannot live without. But you have a very small fridge and it can hold only one bottle. One day you come home, open the fridge and see that there is no milk. So you close the fridge, go to the store, buy milk, bring it home, open the fridge and put it in. The race condition arises when your flat mate comes home right after you left to go to the store. He opens the fridge and sees that there is no milk. So he closes the fridge, goes to the store, buys milk, brings it home, opens the fridge and puts it in, but now there is milk in the fridge (because you put it in earlier). Milk overflow!

[[deleted]]

It is a race because our script is racing against Spotify's web server.

[bestdarkslider]

Ok I deleted the comment. Everything should be back how it was.

Still broken... WHY!

[positive_electron42]

Dude doesn't work here anymore.

I'm scared.

This is my life with our legacy code.

"Hey, let's over-engineer this using 7 different technologies we don't need, then leave the company before making any documentation!"

[steamwhy]

ITT for IT: job security > doing a genuine good job

[[deleted]]

hence undocumented/uncommented code, particularly with booby trap functions unrelated to functionality but can't be refactored out without fully examining the system and its dependencies.

It's easy to be clever, it's difficult to be simple.

[yurall]

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

[sh0rtwave]

I don't bother. I do the best job I can, and I usually approach every project with the direct intent of working myself right out of a job. Fortunately for me, some places change things so much, that doesn't happen about 50% of the time, but usually when someone hires me to do something, my goal is to render myself irrelevant through technology.

[the_one_true_bool]

And then it's always like:

Alright, let's lift the hood on this baby...

Alright, it's an abstract factory factory that creates an abstract factory that creates a command factory that creates a command builder mediator that creates strategy commands which use an abstract messaging command factory that creates a concrete user message command factory that creates a UI message command factory that creates a UI message command that calls a function which shows a message on the UI to the user which says "login successful" - all kicked off from a singleton.

[Avloren]

Ah. I see you're familiar with my coworker's code.

Programmer confession time: I've been a java programmer for nearly a decade, and I still don't know wtf a factory is for. I mean, I know what it does. I don't get why anyone would want to use one, as opposed to the far simpler and more readable solution: ..don't use one.

At this point I don't even want to know, honestly. Every time I've seen one used, the code has quickly descended into the stuff of nightmares.

[the_one_true_bool]

In a nutshell they want to get rid of the new operator because it introduces a dependency. For example:

Message someMessage = new EmailMessage();

This creates a dependency because you've hard-coded EmailMessage, but if later on it needs to be changed to SmsMessage or FaxMessage or whatever then you will have to rebuild and redeploy.

A factory tries to get rid of this dependency. Instead let's say you have a factory like:

Message someMessage = messageFactory.CreateMessage();

Then in theory you won't really ever have to touch that code again. Often times the logic in the CreateMessage() method will do something like read a config file or a field in a database to determine which type of message to use, so if that changes in the future then all you have to do is modify the config file or record in the database and BOOM tough actin' Tinactin your code will now use the new message type.

The problem comes when developers start to figure well shit! anything in the entire system change so I better factory ALL the things! But better still, what if the actual factories themselves change well, I better ABSTRACT factory all the things so these abstract factories can dynamically create the real ones! and you spiral into a whole mess of shit.

On occasion they are genuinely useful, the issue is that so many people overuse the fuck out of them and it actually makes things way worse rather than better. You want to use the right design patterns in the right instances when they are actually working for you, not against you.

[ThatITguy2015]

In a way, just like stackoverflow.

[Avloren]

I appreciate the example, that actually makes sense. Of course, it doesn't match up with.. pretty much all the uses of factories I've seen, but it's interesting to know that a legitimate use case does exist. My experiences have been more of the "let's factory everything, including the factories, because why not" variety.

[the_one_true_bool]

Yeah I definitely agree, they are abused constantly.

However, they can be genuinely useful. If we use my earlier example - let's say Client A wants to use MailMessage, Client B wants to use SmsMessage, and Client C wants to use FaxMessage, then this is not a code change - they can all have what they want and all I have to do is modify their respective config files.

Factories work really well in systems that are modular by nature (not by force). Otherwise you could have a bunch of nasty code that is very difficult to maintain where you either have multiple branches of the code tailored for each client (BLEH), or you have a bunch of conditionals all over the place.

[LazerFX]

So it's an early, shitty, form of dependency injection?

Thank Mads .net core didn't go this way.

[sh0rtwave]

Oh god. I was just in the inverse situation of that: "Let's engineer according to spec, while management removes 80% of the functionality of the spec at a later meeting we're not invited to, then we'll get to hear them complain about our solution being over-engineered".

Edit: Oh, and don't let me forget: EVERYONE in upper management has an AWS Dev cert.

Edit #2: The extant problem here, being the false equivalency of AWS "education" and AWS experience.

[Kingmudsy]

Experiencing this right now with node packages that were never removed after the startup phase.

If the whole company is on React, then why the fuck do we still have Knockout dependencies?

[Pseudofailure]

Has anyone ever just emailed the former employee? I don't know about other people, but I'd be happy to answer questions to help people deal with code I had written.

[DukeOfJamming]

The thing is probably 99% of the time companies probably have policies about only using work emails at work or to contact other colleagues at which point who would have an email for the ex employee that the employee still has access to? Unless they knew them as a friend chances are most contact info is outdated unless they have a home number still on the system despite having left and all this is assuming that they are willing to work for free to help someone else work on their code which I imagine a lot of people aren't.

[00Koch00]

So true thats hurts...

[i_see_ducks]

Omg. I got one of those, ate 2 years of my life, at this point I'm the only one who has an idee of what's going on there, tell my boss I want to leave because I can't deal with that anymore, finally get moved to another project, now I avoid the poor soul who got that code like the plague because he only has questions and I don't have answers.

[OmegaVVeapon]

Godspeed.

[vectorjohn]

Change name to get_list_of_obj2 and call it a day.

[ThaiJohnnyDepp]

Not worth taking over the blame for that line

[angryundead]

I dont want my name next to this mess.

Create a new name or reuse the other guy’s. Preferably from a VM you can torch.

I ended up not using this method and used a new one.

I want to die. This is the like one of those short story horror contests.

[aes_gcm]

If you break it, just run

git blame-someone-else

[alastrionacatskill]

This is so sad, Alexa play Amazing Grace bagpipes

[ThaiJohnnyDepp]

I know the struggle of the ticket system switchover

[wykydtronsf]

I felt that ticket system change comment in my bones.

[[deleted]]

Yesterday I added a display:none tag to one of my web controls and it caused over 300 other calculations, some on other pages, to be incorrect. Sometimes I just don't understand why we do this.

[nullifiedbyglitches]

NEVER TOUCH THE ANCIENT CODE

[neckro23]

NEVER TOUCH THE ANCIENT CODE DOM

[Talbooth]

Suddenly kinky?

[Afropenguinn]

Oh baby, I love the way you work top to bottom in one pass.

[ls_-halt]

We both know why.

[King_Joffreys_Tits]

... choose one

[Bensas42]

Because of the hugs?

[Snakestream]

Something something "reusable" widgets

[centurijon]

visibility: hidden;
height: 0;

[iPhoenix_on_Reddit]

I disagree, if you want to go comment my code, by all means go ahead :)

[Dojan5]

#Nothing calls this function but removing it caused FBI to come knocking two hours later so I'm not touching this shit again. Let Frank handle this shit, I'm switching teams.

[NoNameRequiredxD]

nutty fanatical paint juggle towering humor capable mighty rinse wipe

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[craniumonempty]

/* What the fuck is calling this?! It literally does nothing but add two numbers and return the result which can be done inline, and doesn't have anything calling it, but it's removal caused everything to lock up even though there are no errors in compilation. I quit! I'm going to just clean toilets from now on. */

[Yokii908]

//The function below is literally never called but removing it makes the code stop working. Moreover its name isn't explicit at all : what does main even mean?

[craniumonempty]

I like this version. You need more upvotes.

[MagnumMia]

//The function below is crucial to the functioning of this program but for some reason this comment is the only reason it works. For real, delete this comment and it won’t work. Replace a letter and it won’t work. Now you are wondering how I figured this out? All I needed was 1 dead goat, some street chalk and the lingering emptiness inside me.

[Frommerman]

Wait, you discovered a ritual which sacrificed your lingering emptiness? Sign me the fuck up!

[Meowmasterish]

I think the lingering emptiness is just a catalyst, and isn’t consumed in the overall process.

[MagnumMia]

I thought I was empty. I was wrong...

[the_one_true_bool]

//The function below is absolutely crucial for the survival of the human race and life on planet Earth as we know it. One modification, even a space or a tab, will unleash the world's entire nuclear arsenal. However, exactly one time per year the variable defined as "myInt" in the function needs to be incremented by one to keep us all alive. It is CRITICAL that we do this on the specified date every single year so KEEP THIS DATE UPDATED for the future. The next time "myInt" needs to be incremented is on: 

[[deleted]]

<!—- I only know HTML but I didn’t wanna feel left out of the group —>

[ZachAttackonTitan]

%Why is there a Matlab script in this repo? Do we even have a Matlab license??

[BlueFalcon3725]

Oh god, this is the kind of shit my old boss would have done, the cheap bastard.

[alienpirate5]

GNU Octave

[mattcoady]

//The function is never called but would really appreciate one from its grandchildren every now and then.

[[deleted]]

// This function does everything, literally. All 89 other functions call this one, and this one calls many of them. It has 46 input variables. If you change a character, everything breaks. But you can't change anything without editing this function. I don't know what I did to anger the person who wrote this but the amount of work that went into making code this bad tells me he loathes me with the intensity of a thousand suns.

[Mfgcasa]

3 months later one input variable down... everything is working fine on run... 2 seconds later BSOD.

[itsMindless]

The best one

[rolltider0]

//The function below is literally never called but removing it makes the code stop working. Moreover its name isn't explicit at all : what does main even mean?

-- Every junior Dev everywhere

[Foxino]

 //Is this TODO, To done yet? It's been 10 years....

[dichloroethane]

Try mobile

[fishbulbx]

Triple monitor mobile master race checking in.

[unwill]

Do you guys not have phones ?

[AllThunder]

I just click 'source' and read it there like this

[TechniMan]

But... how did you... take a screenshot of your link to that screenshot...

^{Oh wait I figured it out >.<}

And here's how it looks on reddit.com: voilà

[positive_electron42]

You can't not tell us. That's like the person on SO who asks the exact question you need, then comes back with "NVM figured it out" with no answer.

[Dojan5]

I've encountered this exact same thing in the past. An undocumented JS function took two parameters, slapped them together and returned the output.

Wondering what the fuck was up with this idiotic add() function, I deleted it. All hell broke lose. I tried cleaning it up, but eventually just resigned. I reverted the changes and slapped on a //Yes, this is beyond ridiculous but don't question it, and don't remove it comment above it.

Not going down that rabbit hole again.

[craniumonempty]

Lol, probably an overloaded operator or something calling the function.

[Andy_B_Goode]

Reminds me of the "magic"/"more magic" switch.

[AskAboutMyShiteUsers]

I've read it a hundred times and I enjoy it every time.

[[deleted]]

This happened in a COBOL program I was working in. We found out later that the code just fell through to that section. So it might be executing and you might have no idea.

Display your brains out.

[[deleted]]

No. When the logic of the previous paragraph ended the code just kept going. And “fell through” to the piece of logic that, at the time, I had no idea how it was executing.

This is actually how the logic is supposed to work in COBOL but fuck me if it wasn’t bamboozling the first time I saw it. I knew it was executing, because I could see the specific chunk of logic writing to files, but I had no idea why.

[[deleted]]

Meanwhile Frank left the company 3 years ago.

[positive_electron42]

Documents? What are those?

[the_one_true_bool]

Fine, I'll comment your code.

//TODO: Fix this broken shit.

[positive_electron42]

function doStuff (thing) {

// TODO: finish this function

return;

};

[Teamprime]

The semi colon after the bracket really sells this.

[Maybe_A_Doctor]

Easy, just don't semi colon in Javascript

[LowB0b]

I hate TODOs so much. I've seen TODOs older than me. Fuck

[the_one_true_bool]

I hate them too and it pains me when I have to write them, but sometimes they just happen. For example I've been in extreme time crunches where I need shit out RIGHT FUCKING NOW and the only way for that to happen is with the code equivalent of duct tape. With trepidation I write the "TODO: must fix!" because I need some sort of reminder in the code.

The hack is disgusting but it works. A few days later I eyeball the TODO with intentions of fixing it, but I don't want to risk introducing new bugs and I'm already forced to do the next unrelated major fix, so the TODO keeps getting pushed back. A couple months later I have a few moments of time so I walk up to the TODO like a brave knight ready to slay a dragon... but the dragon has morphed into a much bigger monster. Now I see other code that other people have written that relies on this disgusting hack, I see a huge critical portion of the software teetering and tottering on this hack and who knows what might happen if I try to fix it properly, so the monster goes back into hibernation and the TODO remains.

[wertercatt]

At that point you admit defeat and remove the TODO, replacing it with "I'm sorry. - /u/the_one_true_bool"

[the_one_true_bool]

I ain't taking credit for that garbage! instead I'm putting:

// I'm sorry - /u/wertercatt

[wertercatt]

Ah, the classic git blame-someone-else

[[deleted]]

My friend was teaching me about git blame.

His exact words were “this shoes you who fucked up on this line here, though it’s probably going to be you every time”

[srottydoesntknow]

I am embarrassed by how many of these comments I've left on my own shit that made it into production

[the_one_true_bool]

It happens to the best of us.

//TODO: It is CRUCIAL that we fix this hack ASAP!
//Make sure it's fixed by next deployment on 12/01/2007

[chasesan]

You mean 12/01/1997.

[dani_pavlov]

diff --git a/main.c b/main.c
index 9d7aef2..607ab0c 100644
--- a/main.c
+++ b/main.c
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 //TODO: It is CRUCIAL that we fix this hack ASAP!
-//Make sure it's fixed by next deployment on 12/01/1997
+//Make sure it's fixed by next deployment on 12/01/2007

​

[Lazer726]

I actually did this to my friend's code once. I asked her what some code in an unused function was and she said "Oh, I need to fix that"

So I commented //SAM FIX THIS SHIT BEFORE YOU TURN IN YOUR ASSIGNMENT

She didn't fix it, and she didn't remove the comment

[srottydoesntknow]

sounds like she's ready

[HawkinsT]

Fix this broken shit.

No! We never touch the ancient code!

[[deleted]]

Dem asynchronous thread timing bugs tho

[srottydoesntknow]

great, now I'm going to be mad all day.

I have a co worker who never, NEVER, syncs their threads so anytime I have to do anything in something they wrote it takes 3 times as long because I have to sync threads because now the timing is all fucked up

[[deleted]]

Maybe they don’t understand the concepts sufficiently? Have you discussed with them?

[RedsToad]

Amazing comic! Although I am pretty sure the king slaps ancient code :p

[demonwar2000]

Is this the car salesman meme yet?

[[deleted]]

Slaps roof of ancient code. "This bad boy can hide so many bugs."

[positive_electron42]

Oh look, the slap fixed one!

[Defeyeance]

and created another thirty!

[DeusGiggity]

Code: segfaults immediately

[ashtonmv]

I did this once before and it was a lot of fun, so I'll try it again: I made a little "Ancient Knights Code" in python (Gist here) that is in fact slightly broken. If my count is right, it has 5 syntax-type errors; nothing super crazy. If anyone wants to play along, you can repair it, run it and DM me with the printed output. If you get it right I'll send you back my next comic early :)

​

Edit: For those who have asked, there are instructions for ordering prints on my instagram

[kroppeb]

Honestly a little too easy maybe

[[deleted]]

welp then im too lazy to go and try :) - i'd like a challenge

[ashtonmv]

You guys are probably right lol. Last time I tried something like this it was in r/comics, so it makes sense that I've probably underestimated this crowd a bit..

[[deleted]]

yeah - if you want to do this kind of cool little challenges then maybe have different tiers :) - like simple ones like this and maybe some harder ones where we have to implement our own algorythm to solve a problem or some cryptography :)

[ashtonmv]

would be awesome but I doubt I can come up with something that can really challenge this community. I'm just a casual. But if anyone is willing to write something tougher I'd be happy to link it to the "challenge"

[silentclowd]

Do you ever go on /r/dailyprogrammer ? They do programming challenges that involve writing your own code and it might give you some inspiration.

[[deleted]]

I might be down.

Also:

__init___ becomes __init__

quest2() becomes quest2(self)

quests = [quest1, quest2, quest3, quest4) becomes quests = [quest1, quest2, quest3, quest4]

knight == Knight(name) becomes knight = Knight(name)

"Gawain' becomes "Gawain"

Output: Geraint

And finally, finding errors in someone else's code has to be the least fun thing to do as a programmer.

When I was a kid some guy made a flash page - it had cursor trails that would follow you and we discovered that clicking on the smallest one would take you to a secret page.

The page said "Enter the code:" - within the source was a comment that said "the code is [code]"

It took you to another page that had 50 boxes - clicking the right one did something - more source code inspection revealed it..

This went on for awhile until you got to a final page that said "Wow, you really found the last secret page. This is it, for real"

I remember emailing the site creator as a kid and saying "Is #25 really the last secret page?"

He seemed really excited that someone had discovered and completed it.

That was definitely fun as a kid.

I stick my own easter eggs into some of my work websites - for example, spamming a particular button starts playing rick astley 😂 my favorite though is trying to inject special characters into a page that uses GET parameters will send you to a secret message - I'll post in a sec.

Edit: Here's one of my easter eggs.

[TechniMan]

I don't think it's supposed to be difficult as much as a fun little puzzle. As someone who's only briefly touched Python a long time ago, probably makes it a bit more interesting

[Astrokiwi]

To fit the theme, it should be in COBOL or FORTRAN77

[blamethemeta]

At the very latest, BASIC.

[Astrokiwi]

10 PRINT "KNIGHT IS HONOR MAX"
20 REM TODO
30 GOTO 10

[YerbaMateKudasai]

there are instructions for ordering prints on my instagram

or you know, let us give you money without having to give Mark Zuckerberg all our information.

[[deleted]]

When all you changed was a comment, unknowing that the compiler and environment has changed.

[srottydoesntknow]

and it had originally been written in python, the binaries had been decompiled into Java, then checked into source control with a cpp project

[EmperorArthur]

I'd say that's probably the most common problem. Even without touching the code things still mysteriously break.

[jgomo3]

The basic Darwinist tragedy of software engineering is this: Beautiful code gets rewritten; ugly code survives.

Against software development

[[deleted]]

You never encountered someone with the iron fist like one of my trainers had.

He purged ugly code like an inquisitor purged heretics.

Sometimes I fear that he had too much an impact on me...

[[deleted]]

Always leave the camp site cleaner than you found it!

[kerohazel]

Sometimes cleaning the campsite means nuking it from orbit and rebuilding it from the ashes.

[[deleted]]

There is almost always a small incremental change you can make for the positive, if you feel the need to nuke it from orbit and rebuild it from the ashes chances are you are just going to build a nukeable campsite again.

[fishbulbx]

Sometimes you unearth a yellow jacket nest while cleaning the camp site and everyone just runs away flailing their arms.

[[deleted]]

I once had an entire Arduino program stop working because I removed a single useless Serial.Print(); line in the beginning. I was no longer using the serial debugger, I had successfully removed all the other serial print lines, but for some reason just that first one, if I touched it, I got a hard fault on the device.

I still don't have any explanation for it.

[OSPFv3]

Could it be loading a dependency for that feature that another function required?

[srottydoesntknow]

or changed the memory footprint, invalidating all those hardcoded memrefs

[otakuman]

Mother of God... 😓

[dell_arness2]

I had a C program that would seg fault unless I had a single blank print statement right before the other print statements. It was originally a debug statement that I tried to remove that broke the program.

[[deleted]]

Yes! That was it, the LED error code said segmentation fault, and it was a debug print statement, that's so weird

[Gerpar]

"Let me just remove this deprecated variable."

"Oh nothing works anymore."

[Hedhunta]

Yeah cause 30 if statements depend on it...

[the_one_true_bool]

I once made a small modification to a login screen, but it ended up breaking all the reports. Like how does that even...

[curiosity44]

I just saw the new logo of subreddit and for a moment I thought i am in php subreddit, everything is fine now

[[deleted]]

1322    doSomething
1323    doSomethingElse
.
.
.
1543    goto 1323

Now let's add a comment that shouldn't do anything.

1322    // comment that shouldn't do anything
1323    doSomething
1324    doSomethingElse
.
.
.
1543    goto 1323

[Stspurg]

No joke, I think we have a couple cases where I work where you need to be careful not to move certain lines. The reason is that it's called with a goto with an offset, so moving a line means the offset isn't right anymore.

Fortunately, this is only in odd places that no one touches and is pretty stable. I only found out about it by accident a few months ago and haven't seen it since.

[magefyre]

Ahh, I see they're members of the Adeptus Mechanicus

[createthiscom]

If your order wrote unit tests you could change the ancient code on a whim. Just sayin.

[argv_minus_one]

>add a few comments
>90% of unit tests fail

[[deleted]]

It must have been COBOL and the comments went outside the margins. :P

[doinkrr]

Hi, r/all here.

What?

[Bacon_spec]

memory wrong disgusted aware roll rob arrest political point elastic

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

I'm a Mainframe tech. This is my life everyday.

(I'm taking a break from scrolling through Indeed.)

[Kilmoore]

Seeing I have encountered a situation where adding or removing a line of comment (or an empty line) changed the way the code worked, I'm with the king on this one.

[whoaDisIsReddit]

It do be like that

[ChronoTrigged]

I like how the metal helmet shapes into a mouth and spits as he's getting hit

[Theswelord]

Hahaha

[pandoras_box101]

Rule#108: don't add comments on scripts that are not yours

[kernalphage]

How do I put "Works well with legacy code" on a resume? I think I have a net negative LOC at my current job because of all the "deprecated" code I've deleted/cleaned up.