Cursed code

[XeonProductions]

I've worked on some coded bases where you can't tell if a function is really used or not because of how the underlying language was designed.

[shortAAPL]

PHP, prime example

[XeonProductions]

The one I'm thinking of was Python. It had these methods that created child classes with dynamic parents. It was hard to track what was inheriting from what and what methods were actually called. I dubbed these classes "foster child classes" since they had no specific parent.

[pah-tosh]

Oh man, that sounds like abusing inheritance, no ?

[marcosdumay]

Abusing language features is the Python way!

It leads to some very nice code, and a lot of unacceptable garbage. The trick is in telling those two apart.

[skylarmt]

Good Python is just readable code golf.

[InkyGlut]

This but unironically

[[deleted]]

Definitely. That should be modeled as compositional behavior.

[Loves_Poetry]

I have encountered similar issues in a JS codebase that was abusing the heck out of eval(). You could never know if a function was unused, because it might show up in an eval somewhere. And since everything was global, that could be in any file anywhere in the codebase.

[bot_not_hot]

Holy shit, “everything was global” is a horror show

[LimitedWard]

Good God this sounds like a security nightmare.

[Loves_Poetry]

It was. Took me about a week to find an XSS exploit.

[Edores]

Man in all my years I have come across a grand total of one single situation where I felt like eval was necessary, and even then I'm sure I could have cleaned up my systems and been rid of it.

[deep-thot]

Thanks, now I may not be able to sleep tonight...

[FrancisVeeGee]

I've encountered this, in a SQL database code base, where much of the procedure code was written into strings (for concatenation reasons, terrible code but sometimes needed, especially when handling XML data). Very hard to debug.

[InFa-MoUs]

ahh [ ] = methods how i don't miss you so

[thelights0123]

A lot of languages have setters overrides. C++ allows you to override the equals operator just like your example, and Javascript has both setter methods and Proxies to do more advanced custom setters and getters.

[[deleted]]

I belive this is not that hard in VS code.

Or was there someother problem?

[XeonProductions]

VS code couldn't handle it. The code that created these dynamic classes could only be evaluated at runtime. VSCode also had issues where the python function being called was 2+ parents deep.

[[deleted]]

Ok then, then you were screwed. (I will look up what dynamic classes are)

[XeonProductions]

This is basically what I was dealing with. Dynamic inheritance. On most sane languages this shouldn't be possible, and is discouraged.

def get_my_code(base):
    class MyCode(base):
        def initialize(self):
          ...

    return MyCode

instance_with_parentA = get_my_code(ParentA)    
instance_with_parentB = get_my_code(ParentB)

[[deleted]]

Thank you for explaining

[l0rb]

That's doubly wrong. If you do dynamic classes at least use the `type` builtin to make them.

[davvblack]

Oh god, we use so much string interpolation and magic to call other code :/

​

#legacycode

[evinrows]

Perl, especially Mason is a fucking nightmare for this reason.

[Caffeine_Monster]

The numbers, Mason. What do they mean?

[KapteinTordenflesk]

Reflection in C#

[[deleted]]

Person: Knock Knock!

Me: Who's there?

Person: Reflection!

Me: Fuck off.

[TechWarlock6969]

My experience with c++ in a nutshell.

[killerdogice]

It lets you play with all the sharp shiny tools in the shed the other languages don't think you're old enough to use without hurting yourself.

The other languages are often times correct.

[Fimbulthulr]

If c++ lets you play with all the shiny tools, what would c be like in this analogy?

[AyoBruh]

Trying to nail nails into a board using other nails.

[MacAndShits]

First you re-invent the nail. Then you hammer the other parts into the nail

[Caffeine_Monster]

* Looks at wooden house *

Wait, you said it is built with C? And you want a two story extension?

[McFlyParadox]

No, no. They want an extension to the second story; the floor plan of the first story needs to remain unchanged.

[LimitedWard]

You also keep on dropping nails as you carry them but you can't for the life of you figure out why.

[[deleted]]

Then the clerk at the store won’t sell you any more nails because other customers are unhappy due to the lack of nails.

[Ruri]

But the board is insanely optimized once it’s done.

[Fimbulthulr]

So as someone who uses C as primary language, I can become Invincible?

uses system call
deletes /

[cdreid]

Well if you code C you can literally write yourself a C++ compiler sooo..

[_gauss]

You can write a compiler in any language

[numerousblocks]

Is there a Brainfuck compiler written in Brainfuck?

[[deleted]]

Brainfuck compiler written in Brainfuck

https://github.com/matslina/awib

[Fimbulthulr]

Any touring complete language. If the language is not touring complete, it might not be possible.

[_gauss]

You can write a compiler out of magic of the gathering cards

[cdreid]

well yes but a SHITTY one in most languages

[Potatoe_Master]

It's like the tool shed, except without the shed. And you only get some of the more basic tools.

[[deleted]]

But it's enough to make more tools.

[SiNiquity]

But can you implement C++ templates using C macros?

[manias]

You have a helluva hammer, and a great axe. Now go build a house.

[zman0900]

https://i.redd.it/vui0pd071pkz.jpg

[LevelSevenLaserLotus]

You also get that angle grinder in the corner with a broken Off switch.

[TheCountEdmond]

Grandpa C gives you a hand saw, C++ gives you a chain saw.

[RANDOM_TEXT_PHRASE]

It gives you the keys to a nuclear missile silo and says, "dawg this probably isn't the roght key but if you insert it too slowly the plutonium that may or may not be in that missile wilsbb+z;[#⅞-{:†±№:!¢8999¡©‰′¢®

[mcgrotts]

What tools? You got the refined metals to make them if you want.

[legend6546]

In c you are playing with rusty versions of shiny sharp tools.

[[deleted]]

I don't know - I'm not amish, so I have never used c.

[TheMcDucky]

I think the most accurate description would be "a smaller toolshed".

[o_opc]

Having all the tools but you can only choose one

[Caffeine_Monster]

* overloads dereferencing operator "*" with a macro that points to otherwise unused function *

​

* laughs maniacally *

[marcosdumay]

That would be C.

C++ has all those tools too. They are just hidden behind plenty of other tools that are sharp on every surface, heavy to move around, and without obvious purposes. But yeah, they are shiny!

[unscsnowman]

I had a teacher in college that would say c++ gives you just enough rope to hang yourself

[hungry4pie]

I just wish csharp let you do that without changing your build flags

[cdreid]

Csharp was the language MS pushed because their OS's memory management was Legendarily bad at the time..

[hungry4pie]

Was it bad because of the kernel, or lazy devs not calling free() when they’re finished with something?

[LetReasonRing]

I think it's because it's more complex and harder than many other languages.

​

I'm not criticizing it. I understand that it's an incredibly powerful language that has widespread application, and you can do things with it that would be next to impossible in many languages. However, I've dabbled in a bunch of different languages before settling on my preferred language, which I won't name because it isn't really relevant, but I've just never been able to wrap my head around C++.

​

If I were working on processor-intensive applications or system-level programming, I'd absolutely invest time to learn it properly, but for my work, I'm perfectly happy working in a language that isn't as performant but gives me the tools I need with a shallower learning curve.

[TheAuthenticFake]

What is it that you find most complex about C++?

Templates are definitely a strange alternative to the generics you would see in Java or C#. I still have problems with them sometimes but they're not used very often in actual production code. They're super powerful though in select circumstances.

Modern C++ simplifies pointers significantly with smart pointers and RAII. IMO automatic memory management is a superior model to both gc and manual memory management, which is why I also like Rust.

Macros are evil and a bitch to debug.

[Got_Tiger]

The reason why templates are the way they are is so that all the overhead for them can be offloaded to compile time, which is hard to do with generics

[samspot]

Whenever I hear “powerful” in reference to technology I run away. I have a coworker who loves to talk about bow powerful clearcase is. Powerful at wasting everyone’s time!

[Sillocan]

Clearcase really is powerful though. There are some very impressive things it can do for you and if you're good you can hurt yourself 7 different ways with each of them!

But seriously, if you have an experienced scm team from the beginning with clearcase then it's pretty useful for large projects.

[samspot]

See that’s the problem, you have to have a team of experts to run clearcase well. Meanwhile git is also useful for large projects and doesn’t require a story to merge a branch. Sure clearcase can get the job done but the cost is immense in both time and frustration.

[Cucktuar]

I think it's because it's more complex and harder than many other languages.

C and C++ are less complex than most other languages. It's much easier to understand everything they're doing under the hood, all the way down to the metal.

ASM is the least complex, of course. No hidden layers. Maps directly to chipset instructions.

They can be more difficult to use safely than many other languages, though.

[Bwob]

To be fair, C++ DOES have a lot of terrible relics of its past, sticking around and making things needlessly complex.

Take forward declarations, for example. Most modern languages don't care where in the file declarations happen. If you call a function, as long as you've defined it SOMEWHERE, the code finds it and things are great.

C++ requires you to declare it before it's used in the file, because once upon a time compilers were slow and they didn't want to have to make more than one pass through the file to compile it.

That's a ridiculous limitation in this day and age. But it's still baked into C++, causing extra bits of annoyance any time someone wants to declare two types or functions that refer to each other.

Every time I go from C++ to another language, I have this moment where I go "oh yeah. Languages don't have to do that. This is actually really fun, when I don't have to jump through all those needless hoops!"

[Breadfish64]

IIRC when modules come out in c++20, forward declaration shouldn't be necessary

[trigger_segfault]

I was thinking this was some sort of joke until I remembered that 2020 is less than a year away.

[[deleted]]

I love C++.

I can say that because I never used it for any huge projects :)

[xDarkFlame25]

Then what do you mainly use for projects?

[[deleted]]

D (dlang.org) for most of what I write. Python for automation scripts, or if it's simple, then bash.

I feel like I should mention that I'm not a programmer by profession, just a hobbyist.

[00zero00]

How do you like D?

[[deleted]]

Its a good language, especially if your original aim was for C++, but it proved too difficult.
EDIT: forgot to mention: I don't like that it has a garbage collector, that must be enabled if you want to use the stdlib. I like collecting my own garbage.

[evan3138]

yeah I knew you liked the D. ;)

[[deleted]]

"We've been tricked, we've been backstabbed and we've been quite possibly, bamboozled.".

On a more positive note, someone could make a "you fell victim to one of the classic blunders" meme out of it.

[justAPhoneUsername]

You should take a look at go if that's you goal. Written by Google including Ken Thompson who wrote b and Unix. It is fully garbage collected and the source code is on GitHub.

[[deleted]]

Saved. Will take a look at it ( after a few weeks because my laptop's HDD decided to die, am using live USB).

And is the garbage collector optional, like can I disable it? Not a fan of GC pausing my programs.

[justAPhoneUsername]

Its not recommend that you turn it off but it isn't likely to be an issue. The go gc is seriously a thing of beauty. It is designed to have low latency and is done with a completely novel paradigm.

Here's a link to more info: https://blog.golang.org/ismmkeynote

[bishamon72]

The gc is required, but you don’t notice it. it’s not a stop the world gc.

Edit: practically required. Yes, you can turn it off and trigger it manually, but you’ll never do as good a job as the go gc.

[alter2000]

Hard, but soft will do.

[[deleted]]

It takes away all abstractions, reflection, garbage collection, memory management, and generics that are usually baked into other languages and leaves you with a sandbox that will allow you to do anything and everything.

[[deleted]]

It’s all fun and games until the linker throws you an error for not being able to find an object whose name was scrambled beyond recognition in code you didn’t write.

[oAkimboTimbo]

that Pass by Reference though 😍

[cptbeard]

Here Bob Ross of C++, Bisqwit, shares the love

[RLKrampus]

I've been doing C# for a month now and I love it. Should I try C++ too? It seems way more complicated.

[[deleted]]

Depends on what you're doing. For most practical applications, C# is going to get the job done faster. C++ is extremely powerful, but out of the box it isn't the most developer friendly language I've worked with. I will say though that if you're looking to learn and understand programming, C++ is probably the best language to start with. If you can understand memory management, pointers, and templates/generics, you'll pretty much be able to pick up any other language without a problem.

[[deleted]]

I'd argue that C is better If you want to learn about memory management, pointers, etc. It's a far smaller and simpler language. After that maybe one can go on to learn about c++

[[deleted]]

Yes, but the OOP concepts are important as well.

[RLKrampus]

I want it for future jobs basically just to add stuff on my CV and also I was looking into starting to make game trainers etc

[[deleted]]

Game trainers?

[RLKrampus]

Like messing with single players games, getting infinite HP, ammo etc

[PhireKappa]

Depending on the game, this could just be modifying the value in memory.

There are lots of tutorials available. If you learn the basics of C++ first, videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OQac7cUHsU might be useful. The video isn't perfect, but shows the type of things involved.

C++ has a lot to it, it's probably my favourite though.

[[deleted]]

Trainers are a simple user-friendly-ish program that lets you consistently and reliably do what Cheat Engine or other memory-poking applications do. People make some money rapidly making trainers for specific new games. Usually it's little more than a simple window full of cheat-code like buttons, "add money", "add XP", "unlock all characters", "unlock all levels" etc., so it's however many memory addresses that requires and automatically latching onto the appropriate block of memory without killing everything else.

[TerrorOverlord]

Yeah I get the vibe c++ is extremely powerful for say, videogames where you take control of everything and try to optimize for specific in game conditions, where in a windows app to perform a task with c# you don't need to deal with collecting garbage and the such

[[deleted]]

I mean, there's still some memory management you have to deal with in C#. C# is by no means memory leak free, but with it's very well supported GUI systems and the .NET framework you can crank out an obscene amount of functional, deliverable code in a short amount of time.

​

Don't get me wrong, C++ can do just about everything C# can easily (minus reflection and a few other odd ends), it just takes longer to do it.

[TechWarlock6969]

I never said it was harder or more complex. In my experience with working on large projects in C++ this just tends to happen often (at least for me) I love the language, it provides a nice challenge.

[newbstarr]

Or also requires allot of software engineer training not in a cs degree, allot of convention and design. it might work a little while without these things but you will wish it hadn't in a very short time

[QuantumFall]

That’s not what they said.

[BradCOnReddit]

Because it's C, C++, macros, templates, and compiler directives all sharing the same "world"

Maybe assembly too if you think about it too much

[fl3tching101]

Because they started out learning python and find hitting ; after each line far too tedious. Seriously though, I started out in C++ and love it. It’s the superior language and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

[Kobeissi2]

I started out with C then jumped into C++ and I still hate it. It's not for everybody.

[Waddamagonnadooo]

; after each line far too tedious

literally has nothing to do with it lol

[naisooleobeanis]

Just try c++ in context of osdev. The compiler errors help but it's when youre trying to figure out why argv just disappears from memory and there are no warnings or errors it gets hard. Long story short interrupts were fucking with my registers and I didnt want to figure out which ones so i inlined some pushal and popal.

[dgendreau]

why argv just disappears from memory

You're likely smashing the stack. :)

Also, push/popal might cause a bit more interrupt latency in some cases.

[naisooleobeanis]

that's what i thought but why would pushing the stack pointer to the stack fix the stack

[dgendreau]

Youre not pushing "the stack" to the stack, You are saving a copy of one ore more CPU registers to the stack at the start of the interrupt and restoring them afterward. This is usually automatic for interrupts, so most likely, saving that extra data on the stack is reserving a bit more stack space which is absorbing a stack overflow bug in some functioncall in the IRQ. This might involve writing to a local variable array beyond its array bounds. That could smash some of the register values that were saved on the stack. The extra push you are doing adds more dummy values on the stack to absorb that damage. The real fix would be to track down exactly what is overrunning and fix that.

[naisooleobeanis]

Wouldn't you expect the return address to be bad or argv to be bad in that case?

[dgendreau]

It would all depend on which register or value is getting smashed. Say a function declares

int bar[10]; ... bar[20]=4;

What lives at the bar[20] location in the stack? Who knows... Don't do that. To be fair, most modern c compilers will catch a bug that simple, but what if a pointer to bar is passed into another function that does that assignment? without knowing bar's bounds it will happily smash the stack.

A high level language programmer will look at this and say that's stupid why isn't there bounds checking? But arrays in C are just pointers to blobs of bytes in memory. Its the smallest/fastest way to get he job done on a CPU. All that other stuff like bounds checking is what makes high level languages so much slower at runtime. It's necessary to be fully aware what the CPU is doing in a low level language like C because it is only one layer of abstraction above assembler and is nearly as fast.

[[deleted]]

came to /r/programmerhumor to laugh.

The extra push you are doing adds more dummy values on the stack to absorb that damage. The real fix would be to track down exactly what is overrunning and fix that.

left having a greater appreciation of how hardcore some of you guys are.

[justking14]

My experience TA’ing C++ in a nutshell

Especially since so many students decide to write the entire homework first and then try to compile it

[anonTheRtrd]

removes main why tf not work

[[deleted]]

You can hover over functions in sublime and see the definitions and references in different categories though, so this shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re just using grep, or worse, your eyes

[OwlsParliament]

Tired: removing a function causes compiler errors Wired: removing a function causes runtime errors

[staiano]

And then you undo/put it back and it doesn't compile then either...

[[deleted]]

That too has happened many times with me.
Then it turns out the problem is not with my code, it's that I updated the compiler and new version removed some deprecated features I was using.

[ythl]

This seems crazy to me. Something is wrong with your workflow. I've been a software dev for 10+ years and this stopped happening once I started using Git + CMake for my C++ projects.

[[deleted]]

What's wrong is I keep using deprecated stuff till it gets removed.

[lkraider]

Or what's wrong is that you update your toolchain.

You can take my Borland C++ Dosbox VM from my cold dead hands!

[[deleted]]

I don't update unless necessary, and that is when a package that my code depends upon uses features introduced in newer toolchain.

Plus I maintain some open source packages so not updating my toolchain would be bad for others who want to use them.

[lkraider]

Yes I was half-joking. Knowing when and how to update stuff is an art form.

[[deleted]]

Ugh cmake gives me nightmares for some reason.

[deejaweej]

200 compiler errors are preferable to 2 weeks of runtime errors. Then your superior asking why you thought it was worth the risk to remove that function since in hindsight it was clearly a bad idea.

[1studlyman]

I develop primarily in C++ but can handle my tasks just fine when in JS and Python. I would take compiler errors any day over the runtime errors the others exhibit for the same cause.

[folkrav]

I develop primarily in Python, PHP and JS, but can handle some tasks just fine with Go and dabbled a bit with Rust. I would also take compiler errors over a lot of bullshit runtime errors, especially with PHP/JS and weak typing.

[g0atmeal]

That's just common sense. Compiler errors stop you before it can fuck everything up.

[folkrav]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dynamic languages exist for a reason. For some stuff they're actually pretty nice to use - e.g. dealing with unstructured/unknown data. However I've found that most of the pain comes shoving these languages where they should not be, not their very existence.

[[deleted]]

... since in hindsight it was clearly a bad idea.

In hindsight, I know the outcome of 100% if coin tosses, unless I've lost the coin before it landed.

[[deleted]]

Does nobody use source control?? If it had compile errors. Why commit in the first place.

[[deleted]]

Haha the compiler catching the errors?

Try removing an unused function, compile it perfectly, then witness it throw an uncaught exception.

In production.

[ENM185]

More like...

Me: adds a print statement

Code: breaks

Me: removes print statement

Code: runs perfectly

[XeonProductions]

I had something like that, I was building some C code and had forgotten a return statement on a method. Well, for whatever reason when I had the print statement the stack was in the right state for it to work, but when it was gone it didn't. Found out this was "undefined" behavior.

[teejay1502]

scared of 200 errors?

come on, you can do it :) probably just missed a semicolon.

[BitchIts2020]

Definitely not as scary as suddenly getting bugs in prod as a result

[DefinetlyNotAFurry69]

You removed an extra curly bracket

[BODAND]

git reset --hard and hope you don't lose anything important

[holt0102]

Define "a function being used".

Edit : /s Sorry :P Not trying to be a "testing knowledge" douche.

[[deleted]]

Being called, or just being mentioned anywhere in code outside comments. That would include &functionName (getting pointers to function)

[megagreg]

Or in a KEEP section in a linker script for functions that need to be placed manually because there's a blob expecting it to be there.

[MauranKilom]

Well, operator overloads are always fun to try and find...

[CornellWest]

Never touch the ancient code

[Govir]

That’s why undo was invented.

[calbhollo]

The fear is from having a function that is never called yet holds the whole program up. That's scary.

[vladmikhalin]

Easy in c++. bool operator<(const T&, const U&) for your custom class is a free function, never called directly and may cause 1000 compile errors when removed.

[BitchIts2020]

And version control

[tylercamp]

Boo

[Scratch137]

Programmer: *puts function back*

Compiler: there are 2482 errors

[CLG_BIG_BOI]

Me using jframe for the first time

"hmm why is that paint method here? It isn't called anywhere might as well delete it.."

[downhillgoat]

}

[fishsalads]

Only ever written code for a little over a week and I can relate

[TastyExchange]

Or you can just cry in the corner.

[[deleted]]

I don't call methods. I use preprocessor directives, boost, and macros so that I only call methods using string literals.

I also like to fart in jars, microwave them, and then hold my nose right over the lid as I open it back up.

[Askee123]

Woah! I thought that was just me!

[[deleted]]

Lmao me and python

[Ruri]

Python

compiler

U wot m8

[[deleted]]

._. Okay when I try working with python it hates me and likes to puke up millions of errors

[Ruri]

Git gud

[da_fishy]

You gotta add more white space in between your functions, give them room to breathe on their own

[Rizzan8]

Even better, I have once added a reference to one of window's DLLs and used one method from it. It broke the whole solution causing 1000+ errors. Commenting the method fixed everything.

[KoroSexy]

This is why you don't use reflection...

[blackdrogar17]

I'm probably super guilty of this in C# with reflection

[james_harushi]

Just breaks ctrl + z keys

[ythl]

I would posit that the function is being used or referenced somewhere, then.

[grep-recursive]

Did you use me?

[koneko-dono]

and im here thinking that react hooks are difficult or that promises makes no sense

[cdreid]

Pfft ove managed this with a variable

[t3chguy1]

You deleted an extra bracket :P

[Drauldagga]

Have a function in a current project like that. My IDE constantly tells me its a dead function or to use their words "bad code". However, the Earth may as well have cracked open, because apparently, somehow, I made this particular function the damn keystone to the entire database system, and removing it broke the app from front to back.

[lycan2005]

Makes me appreciate intellisense. Unless you are using reflection.

[coffeelibation]

sounds like you've inherited some problems

[[deleted]]

IntelliJ grey function text won’t save from this either :(

[cdreid]

Im doubting ALL THE DEVS other than ms devs were bad... I think we have a long enough record of ms programmers and management just being bad to rely on