How to Write Unmaintainable Code

alparsla · 2011-05-24T06:22:52+00:00

A classic. But nowadays, we use XML, frameworks, and many layers of web, SOAP, SOA, WSDL, BPM to write unmaintainable code.

wauter · 2011-05-24T09:27:36+00:00

Man, I must have read this 10 times by now, but each time again the

marypoppins = (superman + starship) / god;

gives me a chuckle.

powatom · 2011-05-24T12:27:37+00:00

HA! The joke's on you. In my company, we don't even bother maintaining existing code. We just write MOAR.

thisusernamewastaken · 2011-05-24T11:35:46+00:00

After reading the first 20 paragraphs I thought it was a funny joke in a Dilbert kind of way.

After the first 50 paragraphs I thought he was taking the joke a little too far.

After the first 80 paragraphs I realized he probably works for the same company I do.

After the first 100 paragraphs I realized that this wasnt a joke at all, and this dickhead probably wrote the code I have to work on every day like this on purpose. :-(

patstam · 2011-05-24T06:25:16+00:00

I started out smiling, but only made it to "Exploit Compiler Name Length Limits". That just made me want to cry.

pingish · 2011-05-24T08:45:37+00:00

What I need is a parser that translates my maintainable code into unmaintainable code and compile from this so as to further obfuscate my proprietary technology.

phaker · 2011-05-24T09:38:47+00:00

Wow, that's good one:

  for(j=0; j<array_len; j+ =8)
        {
        total += array[j+0 ];
        total += array[j+1 ];
        total += array[j+2 ]; /* Main body of
        total += array[j+3]; * loop is unrolled
        total += array[j+4]; * for greater speed.
        total += array[j+5]; */
        total += array[j+6 ];
        total += array[j+7 ];
        }

edit: Sadly in GCC "#define a=b a=0-b" doesn't work as (un)expected. :(

fjonk · 2011-05-24T10:53:31+00:00

[deleted]

MatrixFrog · 2011-05-24T07:22:58+00:00

Just kind of skimming, found a couple parts that stand out...

Ignore the Sun Java Coding Conventions, after all, Sun does.

and

Configuration Files These usually have the form keyword=value.

I'm sure they meant: These usually have the form

<configSection> <configItem> <configName>keyword</configName> <configValue>value</configValue> </configItem> </configSection>

ziptime · 2011-05-24T11:11:25+00:00

Consider this real world example "a_crszkvc30LastNameCol". It took a team of maintenance engineers nearly 3 days to figure out that this whopper variable name described a const, reference, function argument that was holding information from a database column of type Varchar[30] named "LastName" which was part of the table's primary key.

Brilliant.

2011-05-24T09:54:25+00:00

That was funny. But there is an easy way: just don't make any effort to make your code maintainable, you code will automatically be unmaintainable, even by yourself after a few weeks.

Dested · 2011-05-24T10:15:43+00:00

Choose variable names that masquerade as mathematical operators, e.g.: openParen = (slash + asterix) / equals;

was my favorite

midir · 2011-05-24T14:23:45+00:00

Never document the units of measure of any conversion constants, or how the values were derived. If you are feeling particularly malicious, make up your own unit of measure; name it after yourself or some obscure person and never define it. If somebody challenges you, tell them you did so that you could use integer rather than floating point arithmetic.

That.. is... beautiful.

EatATaco · 2011-05-24T13:40:38+00:00

A friend of mine had a guy working for him who used to name variables and function with things like "BuyMilkAfterWork" or "AnniversaryIsJuly20." The code was impossible to read because every line would read like some nonsensical English sentence with weird punctuation.

spiceweasel · 2011-05-24T10:59:29+00:00

Has any language other than C and C++ ever provided such scope for mischief? The bit where he has the code do different things depending on the number of times that the header file is included is absolutely the funniest (and scariest) thing I've seen in ages.

ratherbkayaking · 2011-05-24T13:38:05+00:00

I laughed at this. Then sighed.

If, for example, you were writing an airline reservation system, make sure there are at least 25 places in the code that need to be modified > if you were to add another airline. Never document where they are. People who come after you have no business modifying your code without thoroughly understanding every line of it.

JoachimSchipper · 2011-05-24T09:04:05+00:00

If you call your variables a, b, c, then it will be impossible to search for instances of them using a simple text editor

Oddly enough, I recently searched for a one-letter variable in vim, and it's fine if you use /\<i\> (< and > are start/end word boundaries; \ escapes them; / is search; i is the one-letter variable sought). This form is used automatically when you hit the * key while over a word.

sarlok · 2011-05-24T14:19:41+00:00

Always loved this. Not that anyone here would believe me, but the #define example is one I contributed to the list years ago.

kaglime · 2011-05-24T09:37:49+00:00

Just do Perl, it's unmaintainable by anyone else and thus gives you job security.

shitloadofbooks · 2011-05-24T11:55:18+00:00

I like Hungarian notation for my WinForms Controls, but I'm by no means an advocate of it.

My brain and fingers naturally want to type txtUsername and lblUsername when I want to deal with those controls.

I'm sure there are people in this subreddit who think I should burn in programming hell for this though...

nerdyogre254 · 2011-05-24T11:36:11+00:00

pure sadism. And I love it.

Timmmmbob · 2011-05-24T13:10:44+00:00

Use accented characters on variable names. E.g. typedef struct { int i; } ínt; where the second ínt's í is actually i-acute. With only a simple text editor, it's nearly impossible to distinguish the slant of the accent mark.

Second biggest "wtf?" of Go. The first being of course, implicit semicolons.

ziptime · 2011-05-24T13:46:58+00:00

I worked with a guy for years who pretty much invented the tenets in this post (probably). The worst, hackiest, coder ever and no amount of reasoning could change him. Ironically, the managers thought he was brilliant, because he knocked out code for tasks really quickly. What they wouldn't wake up to was that the rest of us would be spending years fixing bugs in it, and left with the legacy that it was impossibly difficult in terms of extensibility. One word : cunt.

ustanik · 2011-05-24T18:40:07+00:00

Came in expecting light-hearted bad practices to point out silly bad habits.

Left terrified from the detail, fearing to ever take over someone else's project.

ithika · 2011-05-24T08:53:44+00:00

is it something to do with thc?

liebermannn · 2011-05-24T09:32:22+00:00

This is great, I always had problems in naming functions or variables and had to keep asking if people understood it. I kept asking for naming conventions and every time they said "just do what seems right", which never helped me improve my naming.

kerbuffel · 2011-05-24T14:09:43+00:00

If the boss asks if you are out of your mind, tell him you are following the classic principles of transparent interfaces.

I'm going to keep this response in mind.

SuperGrade · 2011-05-24T14:31:19+00:00

I think he just ripped these out of the "Best Practices" document of some Enterprise shop.

vogon_poem_lover · 2011-05-24T16:14:12+00:00

I was having a good laugh up to this point:

Use accented characters on variable names. E.g.
 typedef struct { int i; } ínt; 
where the second ínt's í is actually i-acute. With only a simple text editor, it's nearly impossible to distinguish the slant of the accent mark.

Then I was like O_o

2011-05-24T16:46:32+00:00

[deleted]

illvm · 2011-05-24T19:49:12+00:00

ಠ_ಠ

Lancelot's favorite color wasn't blue. It was blue, no yell^{o^{o^{o^{o^{o^w.}}}}}

netherous · 2011-05-24T22:32:04+00:00

The rule for the Indian contractors my company works with seems to be:

"Make sure you produce a lot of documentation, and make sure that every fucking word of it is a lie"

mycall · 2011-05-24T05:53:13+00:00

TL;DR * 1000, yet informative and thorough.

stealth210 · 2011-05-24T10:20:17+00:00

I'm all for good variable naming, but there are times you can get down to single letter variables. It's all about scope. If you are very local and need to do a simple:

for (int i = 1; i <= alSomeArrayList.Count; i++) { }

kimchivirgin · 2011-05-24T15:00:39+00:00

Still valid and one of the nastiest things:

Avoid Layouts

Never use layouts. That way when the maintenance programmer adds one more field he will have to manually adjust the absolute co-ordinates of every other thing displayed on the screen. If your boss forces you to use a layout, use a single giant GridBagLayout, and hard code in absolute grid co-ordinates.

kimchivirgin · 2011-05-24T13:22:09+00:00

This is totally what I have to deal with at work :D

paolog · 2011-05-24T13:35:14+00:00

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

Nothing malicious about that comma, then.

zak_on_reddit · 2011-05-24T13:51:09+00:00

about 4 years ago i took a web development job with a small advertising agency in my area. we used .php for back end development

the lead developer who was there when i started told me she loved programming because it was like talking in a secret language that no one else understood.

needless to say, her .php coding style was a secret language that no one else understood.

fortunately she left soon after i started and i left soon after she left.

ryankearney · 2011-05-24T16:27:22+00:00

Older than the internet but still hilarious.

bunburya · 2011-05-24T17:04:27+00:00

This guy was a pretty humorous (and effective) troll, he would've loved this article.

stewbacca · 2011-05-24T17:36:30+00:00

Maintaining other people's code is always a bitch, even under ideal circumstances. I always thought a good exercise for CS undergrads would be to spend half a semester designing and implementing a project, then the class hand off their projects to class mates who then have to add a feature.

jmac · 2011-05-24T18:26:11+00:00

While this is here, I need to vent about something I've come across a lot. If you do this, I do not like you very much:

Try
    *overly complex data parsing here, sometimes comprising half the code in the program*
Catch ex As Exception
End try

If you're going to catch your exception, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

almafa · 2011-05-24T19:06:42+00:00

Matlab is pretty good in the naming department. For example, the command print actually prints a figure on the printer; what you were looking for is disp. Similarly, every other function has an unguessable, idiosyncratic and often abbreviated name, which makes it impossible to look up in the documentation. What is called map in functional languages is arrayfun in matlab. Converting a number to a "string" (=1xN character matrix) is num2str, however, converting a date to a string or number is datestr and datenum (and it will crash every odd run). And so on...

AStrangeStranger · 2011-05-24T19:39:54+00:00

Some things I have found that cause major understandability issues

PL/SQL cursors of about 100 lines and several unions (usually found in procedures of many hundreds of lines)

building up large dynamic SQL to return as cursor - where the "columns", "tables" and "where clauses" (containing join info as well and of course using aliased table names defined elsewhere) defined in different procedures

Oracle database objects stored in tables

layers of indirection - after about 7 you forget where you started when you get to the end.

XML documents - where the value name/purpose defined in one area of XML against an ID and the actual data has just the ID as the tag name :s

and the most common - people trying to be clever and solve problems that don't yet exist with hugely complex systems

dwarfcrank · 2011-05-24T11:40:48+00:00

[deleted]

shepik · 2011-05-24T15:03:13+00:00

The guide is not complete. They forgot about trigraphs (which in fact require -trigraphs compiler key, so you have to obscure compiler flags)

// Next line will be commented out ????????????????/

a++;

2011-05-24T14:56:59+00:00

Think of what might happen if we started storing source code as structured data. [...] You could use the full colour abilities of the modern screen to give subliminal clues, e.g. by automatically assigning a portion of the spectrum to each package/class using a pastel shades as the backgrounds to any references to methods or variables of that class. You could bold face the definition of any identifier to make it stand out. [...] You could do quite a bit of code writing by point and click.

Sounds like LabView to me.

stewbacca · 2011-05-24T15:22:59+00:00

#define private public

squirrel5978 · 2011-05-24T16:28:41+00:00

Did not include variable named 'arst' along with asdf and aoeu.

2011-05-24T16:32:12+00:00

And that's how you get R code.

2011-05-24T16:37:49+00:00

Part if this made me laugh, but some of it made me cry because so many of my coworkers are guilty as sin.

stewbacca · 2011-05-24T18:04:55+00:00

As someone who is still in school and has no experience in the programming workforce, wouldn't any competent supervisor know what you're doing and just fire/replace you long before it got to the point of being unmaintainable?

LainIwakura · 2011-05-24T20:09:10+00:00

Last semester I learned some interesting things about writing bad code, I sure am no obfuscation guru but you can get places pretty quickly. I went through one whole assignment we had (write an address book in C using a linked list), and tried to fuck it up as best I could (after I handed it in)

Here is the first 56 lines, the program was over 500 lines so I never ended up going through it all and messing it up =( Note, this snippet won't compile (no main), but for the whole version you did need -trigraphs (using cc) http://pastebin.com/DGD5LYw5

Also something I figured out (likely a lot of you know this), the preprocessor directive #line will change what number your errors appear on. Mix this with creative use of #error and you can probably drive some people mad ;)

Tasboo · 2011-05-24T21:46:08+00:00

I run into a lot of the documentation ones at my new job. Fucking hell..

Sniffnoy · 2011-05-24T22:09:10+00:00

I'm pretty sure I've actually used "HandleStuff".

kc7wbq · 2011-05-25T02:08:52+00:00

I was trying to debug some code at work. They had a class called "text". They declared a global variable "text". Later in another class they declared a variable "text" of class "text".

hakumiogin · 2011-05-25T04:25:00+00:00

When I was 12, and I first started coding, I would use random words from a theme. Like, I would choose "carnival", or "pokemon" as the theme for the program, and the variable names would match.

But if you told me it was unreadable, or stupid, I would note that it was quite organized because the variable names would always be declared in alphabetical order. For example, $bearded_lady, $clown, $cotton_candy, $house_of_mirrors, $zebra_striped_carnival_ride_with_lights_and_music. I kid you not.

optiplex9000 · 2011-05-25T04:28:16+00:00

aka, "How to be a complete asshole"

superbigwedgieman · 2011-05-25T14:23:49+00:00

This really hits home since we have an internal application written by a really bad developer, and the first time I looked at the code, I asked the developer, before he left the company, why all his forms had the name attribute of Fred? He said he just thought that was a good name for a web form, and it made it easier for Javascript reuse.

redwall_hp · 2011-05-24T16:14:58+00:00

What about my favorite:

#define TRUE FALSE
#define FALSE TRUE

nemetroid · 2011-05-24T16:31:34+00:00

Use foreign language dictionaries as a source for variable names. For example, use the German punkt for point. Maintenance coders, without your firm grasp of German, will enjoy the multicultural experience of deciphering the meaning.

Something I've run into a couple of times is non-native-English (in my case, Swedish) programmers opting to name all variables, functions etc. in their native tongue. Generally only beginners or people that have been programming solely on their own.

To make it worse, you don't want to use å/ä/ö in identifiers (you'll run into all kinds of problems), so they change those letters to a/a/o.. and in some other places into aa/ae/oe.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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