Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

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PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

hobbesmaster posted:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ee404875(v=vs.100).aspx

I believe there's somewhat more to the C++11 standard than just those new to_string functions, right?

# ? Dec 11, 2012 21:36

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# ? May 17, 2024 15:22

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

PrBacterio posted:

I believe there's somewhat more to the C++11 standard than just those new to_string functions, right?

Yes and MS is pretty good about supporting it in VS2010 and 2012.

# ? Dec 11, 2012 21:43

Wheany: Mar 17, 2006; Spinya^{ha^{ha^haha}ha}ha_{ha_{ha_haha}ha}ha!; Doctor Rope

Manslaughter posted:

Holy christ on a cracker

Aww, you found something I could have written just a couple of years ago. :3:

# ? Dec 11, 2012 21:50

TheSkeletonMan: Feb 24, 2011

PrBacterio posted:

The same goes for C++ string handling, where it isn't even possible to convert a number into a string with standard C++ functions except by using a string stream. What ought to be a single line of code
C++ code:
std::string s = std::string( some_float_value );
thus becomes three or more:
C++ code:
std::ostringstream buffer;
buffer << some_float_value;
std::string s = buffer.str();

There's always boost::lexical_cast.

# ? Dec 13, 2012 06:19

etcetera08: Sep 11, 2008

This isn't really a coding horror but it certainly belongs in this thread regardless. My data structures + algorithm design/analysis class this semester uses an awful book by Richard Neopolitan that has a killer gently caress up:

Fortunately none of the actual text has the misspelling/error but having it on every other page in the header might be even worse..

# ? Dec 14, 2012 04:11

Opinion Haver: Apr 9, 2007

What're the odds that it was a bad spellcheck dictionary/a copyeditor that doesn't know the word 'intractability'?

# ? Dec 14, 2012 04:12

etcetera08: Sep 11, 2008

Yeah, I'm sure that's what happened but if you're a copyeditor of an algorithms book and the word is strewn throughout the text you probably shouldn't gently caress that up.

Unless you're saying the odds are low, in which case.. I dunno.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 04:16

Bunny Cuddlin: Dec 12, 2004

lol "traveling salesperson"

# ? Dec 14, 2012 04:52

Opinion Haver: Apr 9, 2007

I'd buy an algorithms book that exclusively used female pronouns/names for algorithm descriptions throughout.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 04:57

FamDav: Mar 29, 2008

It would be p awesome if the text misstated the NP-Complete version of the traveling salesman problem.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 05:04

Optimus Prime Ribs: Jul 25, 2007

For a few hours I've been pulling my hair out over a C++ glitch that I introduced. I was storing a value in a char that was supposed to be an unsigned char and kept wondering why I was getting a 0 value when I shouldn't have been.
I am the coding horror. :suicide:

# ? Dec 14, 2012 06:18

That Turkey Story: Mar 30, 2003

Bunny Cuddlin posted:

lol "traveling salesperson"

These are changing times.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 07:24

Flobbster: Feb 17, 2005; "Cadet Kirk, after the way you cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test I oughta punch you in tha face!"

I received an eval copy of a data structures textbook that I was considering using for my class next spring. At first, it was great. Awesome topic order, good coverage of the material, well-written... until I flipped to a random page on lists and saw:

"Unlike the standard Java List interface, our list will start at index 1."

:gonk:

The whole book was tainted after that. Every algorithm that used that list interface had little +1s and -1s scattered all over it to correct for this stupid design decision.

How does an author not realize how stupid he's being when he has to write correction code like that?

How do other reviewers before publication time not say "What the gently caress are you doing?"

# ? Dec 14, 2012 12:38

Hammerite: Mar 9, 2007; And you don't remember what I said here, either, but it was pompous and stupid.; Jade Ear Joe

Bunny Cuddlin posted:

lol "traveling salesperson"

I wonder how you'd make something like Hall's Marriage Theorem less gender-specific.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 14:00

zokie: Feb 13, 2006; Out of many, Sweden

Datetime strings and what Internet Explorer thinks of them

code:

"2012-12-14 14:48" //Invalid
"2012/12-14 14:48" //Valid
"12-14-2012 14:48" //Valid

This is by design, I can't fathom why.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 14:49

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

I'd put money on it being some kind of ancient Excel or office compatibility issue.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 17:34

Bunny Cuddlin: Dec 12, 2004

That Turkey Story posted:

These are changing times.

"SENIOR software developer is ageist. From now on your job title is Extensively Experienced Software Developer."

# ? Dec 14, 2012 17:59

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

Received this snippet from a customer who is still working in VB6:

code:

result = foo_get_status(0, 0)
MsgBox result
5
If foo_isready(0, 0) <> 1 Then
DoEvents
GoTo 5
Else
Position0 = foo_get_result(0, 0)
End If

I was unaware that VB6 even supported line numbers.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 19:54

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

if you number the lines, you can get line numbers in error messaged by using the semidocumented 'Erl' variable. :eng99:

# ? Dec 14, 2012 20:54

Zombywuf: Mar 29, 2008

It occurs to me that I never tried putting the line numbers out of order...

# ? Dec 14, 2012 21:04

Polio Vax Scene: Apr 5, 2009

Use a negative number, jump out of the stack like a train off its rails

# ? Dec 14, 2012 21:28

movax: Aug 30, 2008

Not really a horror, but buried deep in a legacy BIOS AGESA module...

code:

call StartupDCT_D   ;yeaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I think this pre-dates that Caruso meme, but I've found other weird poo poo in here as well.

# ? Dec 14, 2012 23:29

uncleTomOfFinland: May 25, 2008

That Turkey Story posted:

These are changing times.

In my database theory class the lecturer had to point out one of the textbook examples that involved modeling family relations wasn't really compatible with our same-sex civil partnership laws..

# ? Dec 15, 2012 15:30

Jonnty: Aug 2, 2007; The enemy has become a flaming star!

uncleTomOfFinland posted:

In my database theory class the lecturer had to point out one of the textbook examples that involved modeling family relations wasn't really compatible with our same-sex civil partnership laws..

Seems like a good time to wheel this out again...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6163683/cycles-in-family-tree-software

# ? Dec 15, 2012 15:45

Jen heir rick: Aug 4, 2004; when a woman says something's not funny, you better not laugh your ass off

Ok, so this guy is a prick. I told him to take his java code and turn it into c# code, because we're a c# shop. And he said "<bosses name> has been riding me, and he said i could write it in java code", or something like that. Kinda pissed me off, but ok, can't over-rule the boss(at least not without talking to him first)
Next time I saw <bosses name> was at a meeting about the project.. This was also the first time i got to actually see idiot's code. He had put everything in a single 3000 line file. Not only that, but he had written everything in functions (or methods if you wanna get technically correct). Each method dealt with one line. And yeah, each method had code in it that parsed the given line. But it just printed out to the console. It didn't do anything with the result of that parsing, or decoding. really. This is what he had:

code:

void ParseLineType1(string Line){
    String field1 = line.substring(0,8)
    Console.WriteLine(field1)
    String field2 = line.substring(8,10)
    Console.WriteLine(field2)
    ...
    ...repeat for every field in line
    ...
}

...Repeat for every line type (about 3 thousand lines of code)

He had the actual field names instead of field1, field2 etc...and the actual line types for method names. That's not the point, it's that his code didn't do anything. It just printed out stuff to the screen.

This stuff has to go in a database, not to the screen. And besides, some lines are gonna have info that other lines need if you want to put them in a database, and link them together. For instance link the merchantId with the various authorization records. I knew this, and I hadn't even read the spec really. I kind of scanned over it. It's just common sense. There was no way his solution was gonna work, and he'd basically wasted his time.

I was more diplomatic than that though. I said look, you need to break this out into objects, and you're gonna want to use a base class, an abstract base class really. You might as well write it in c#. But it was as if he had no idea why he would need to do that. He really pushed back.

Oh, and the fact that he has a 3000 line code file that was not auto generated. If you find yourself in the middle of typing up a 3000 line file, you should probably rethink your career choice.

Wow, sorry this is so long. But this guy really got under my skin. I've had a real breakthrough recently, and realized I need to stop coddling these guys. If I can tell they're not gonna work out after a week, I need to fire them (I don't really have the power to fire anyone, but the owner loves me, and trusts my opinion implicitly). It really wastes everyone's time to let them linger on

This was not the end of this guy, but I can assure you it has ended now. We have a new rule in my office. If you have a project with a 3000 line code file in it that was not auto-generated, you are fired. I have more about this guy if anyone cares.

.

# ? Dec 15, 2012 20:45

bucketmouse: Aug 16, 2004; we con-trol the ho-ri-zon-tal
we con-trol the verrr-ti-cal

e: ^ holy crap

uncleTomOfFinland posted:

In my database theory class the lecturer had to point out one of the textbook examples that involved modeling family relations wasn't really compatible with our same-sex civil partnership laws..

Ours did too and we had to model an address book that was compatible.

http://qntm.org/gay has a funny take on the whole situation and how much of a hassle it is to implement correctly.

bucketmouse fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Dec 16, 2012

# ? Dec 15, 2012 21:01

Posting Principle: Dec 10, 2011; by Ralp

Jen heir rick posted:

I have more about this guy if anyone cares.

Please share more :pray:

# ? Dec 15, 2012 21:02

corgski: Feb 6, 2007; Silly goose, you're here forever.

Jonnty posted:

Seems like a good time to wheel this out again...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6163683/cycles-in-family-tree-software

The horror there is that the LDS church has created the specification for the most commonly used genealogy format, and purposefully crippled it to fit their moral standards.

# ? Dec 15, 2012 21:03

awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

Jen heir rick posted:

This was not the end of this guy, but I can assure you it has ended now. We have a new rule in my office. If you have a project with a 3000 line code file in it that was not auto-generated, you are fired. I have more about this guy if anyone cares.

What's wrong with 3k line files? If you're looking at two different pieces of code at once,you're going to have to open another view(/window/split/tab) for the second piece. Why does it matter whether the code is 3k lines away or 10k lines away, or whether it's in a different file? (Unless you never learned to use your editor, I guess)

Yes longer files can be annoying and can be a code smell, but seriously, firing people for 3000 line files? That's a management horror right there.

# ? Dec 15, 2012 22:22

zeekner: Jul 14, 2007

awesmoe posted:

What's wrong with 3k line files? If you're looking at two different pieces of code at once,you're going to have to open another view(/window/split/tab) for the second piece. Why does it matter whether the code is 3k lines away or 10k lines away, or whether it's in a different file? (Unless you never learned to use your editor, I guess)

Yes longer files can be annoying and can be a code smell, but seriously, firing people for 3000 line files? That's a management horror right there.

There are always exceptions and cases where 3k isn't that bad, and I would give a little leeway depending on the language. I recently refactored an 1800 line monstrosity into 3 manageable classes, and that significantly improved readability.

If anyone doesn't feel the need to rework something that ugly, then I start questioning their capabilities. If I worked on a team where that was the norm, I'd look for another job.

# ? Dec 15, 2012 22:30

awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

Geekner posted:

There are always exceptions and cases where 3k isn't that bad, and I would give a little leeway depending on the language. I recently refactored an 1800 line monstrosity into 3 manageable classes, and that significantly improved readability.

If anyone doesn't feel the need to rework something that ugly, then I start questioning their capabilities. If I worked on a team where that was the norm, I'd look for another job.

I'm not convinced that if you took the files you wrote your 3 new manageable classes in, and concatenated them together into one big long file, you would have affected readability in any major way (except making it harder to navigate your project outside your IDE).

It's not like I write gigantic files recreationally, and I'm not claiming long files are strictly superior to short ones or anything. My main point is that messiness (not file length) is what matters when it comes to refactoring. I dislike the dogmatic attitude that guy had - and if I had a manager who made decrees like the above, I'd sigh heavily and start daydreaming about writing my code with line 2999 being #include "filename2.cpp"

# ? Dec 15, 2012 23:07

Jen heir rick: Aug 4, 2004; when a woman says something's not funny, you better not laugh your ass off

awesmoe posted:

What's wrong with 3k line files? If you're looking at two different pieces of code at once,you're going to have to open another view(/window/split/tab) for the second piece. Why does it matter whether the code is 3k lines away or 10k lines away, or whether it's in a different file? (Unless you never learned to use your editor, I guess)

Yes longer files can be annoying and can be a code smell, but seriously, firing people for 3000 line files? That's a management horror right there.

I knew someone would fuckin' say this, so I'd just like to note that
1. I will make an exception for people who come to me first and I approve of their approach
2. They can always split there code into partial classes to get around the rule
3. I was kidding, there is no such rule

# ? Dec 15, 2012 23:28

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

Jen heir rick posted:

This person is an intern, right? Like, they've never really programmed before. Give me that at least.

# ? Dec 15, 2012 23:34

Jen heir rick: Aug 4, 2004; when a woman says something's not funny, you better not laugh your ass off

awesmoe posted:

...My main point is that messiness (not file length) is what matters when it comes to refactoring. I dislike the dogmatic attitude that guy had - and if I had a manager who made decrees like the above, I'd sigh heavily and start daydreaming about writing my code with line 2999 being #include "filename2.cpp"

Actually his code was not messy at all. Sure he had hundreds of methods that all did basically the same thing, but it was very neatly typed, indented and even commented in places. My point was that his code was not very extensible. I asked him how he planned to proceed with the project and he had no idea. I knew how he could proceed, but he wouldn't listen to me. And it took me and a coworker and my/his boss telling him to, before he agreed to.

And if it's so easy to navigate around one giant file in modern IDEs, why not put all of your classes in one file. Why this arbitrary practice of placing different classes in different files? Just shove em all in one big file. Saves a lot of time not having to right click->new class. Right?

Oh and in case you missed it the first time. I was kidding. It was a joke.

*edit* I think I'm gonna start coding this way, it really would be convenient!!

Jen heir rick fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Dec 15, 2012

# ? Dec 15, 2012 23:50

pigdog: Apr 23, 2004; by Smythe

awesmoe posted:

I'm not convinced that if you took the files you wrote your 3 new manageable classes in, and concatenated them together into one big long file, you would have affected readability in any major way (except making it harder to navigate your project outside your IDE).

It's not just about readability. A 3000 line class most likely does all sorts of things from knitting to dishes, and is far from complying with the single responsibility principle. Which makes the class hard to mock and test, among other things such as comprehension and confidence in its behavior. It probably also has a ton of repeating, copy-pasted code with its obvious drawbacks.

# ? Dec 15, 2012 23:52

awesmoe: Nov 30, 2005; Pillbug

Jen heir rick posted:

I knew someone would fuckin' say this, so I'd just like to note that
1. I will make an exception for people who come to me first and I approve of their approach
2. They can always split there code into partial classes to get around the rule
3. I was kidding, there is no such rule

1. You haven't explained why it's an approach that needs special-case approval
2. So it's literally dogma, rather than an objection based on a short-files-enforce-reduced-class-length-to-maximize-responsibility-splitting argument (for example). Cool.
3. Well I guess if you're not actually doing what you said you were doing, it matters a lot less!

Jen heir rick posted:

Actually his code was not messy at all. Sure he had hundreds of methods that all did basically the same thing, but it was very neatly typed, indented and even commented in places. My point was that his code was not very extensible. I asked him how he planned to proceed with the project and he had no idea. I knew how he could proceed, but he wouldn't listen to me. And it took me and a coworker and my/his boss telling him to, before he agreed to.

I was replying to the guy who said "I refactored a long file into 3 short classes".
In your example, you weren't refactoring his code, you were binning his lovely code. Guess what? If he'd split it into six 500 line files you would still have binned it because it would still have been lovely! (I'm not arguing the shittyness at all, it all sounds very stupid.)

pigdog posted:

It's not just about readability. A 3000 line class most likely ...

Maybe - probably! - but we're talking about files not classes.

awesmoe fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Dec 16, 2012

# ? Dec 16, 2012 00:14

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

awesmoe posted:

Maybe - probably! - but we're talking about files not classes.

This was Java. You know, where one file is typically one class.

# ? Dec 16, 2012 00:20

Wozbo: Jul 5, 2010

awesmoe posted:

Maybe - probably! - but we're talking about files not classes.

I'm quoting this because that's a bullshit response and you know it. The whole point of this discussion is that someone didn't go "Wait, do I really need to manually do all of this?"

As for 3k line files (I swear I've got to be falling for some sort of trolling here), honestly, there's a point at which a code "thing" is too big and it becomes a hassle to maintain. I mean, hell, that's why we have the term "spaghetti code." Even still, its so much easier to maintain a normalized code base instead of having some gigantic monster doing all the work from one god file. Its also easier to do code reviews and to keep management of said code under wraps. I would not like to have everyone working on one monster file in my svn repo.

# ? Dec 16, 2012 00:23

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

awesmoe posted:

Yes longer files can be annoying and can be a code smell, but seriously, firing people for 3000 line files? That's a management horror right there.

It may not be a valid metric (in the sense that it's a measurable line to cross), but it sure as hell is a good heuristic for determining lovely programmers.

# ? Dec 16, 2012 00:24

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# ? May 17, 2024 15:22

zeekner: Jul 14, 2007

awesmoe posted:

It isn't about some bullshit dogma, but the fact that you think gigantic source files are A-OK and unrelated classes should share a source file for convenience. Get a proper IDE that can jump between source files by reference, and use some loving subfolders.

Not everyone who manages code is some dogma-sperg, 3k is just a point where 99% of cases you have someone doing something stupid. I'm willing to bet you aren't in the 1%.

# ? Dec 16, 2012 00:29

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