Coding Horror

L.Jenkins · 12-04-2014 1:44pm

Coding horror, I know people who've done the following and the picture says it all :P

IRLConor · 12-04-2014 3:06pm

Uploading code to production without testing? Why not just edit it straight on the live machines?

When I started at boards.ie the development process was "ssh into the production machines and use vim". Terrifying doesn't even begin to describe it.

Tar.Aldarion · 12-04-2014 3:24pm

I know, vim :eek:

IRLConor · 12-04-2014 3:28pm

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I know, vim :eek:

Shush. I will have nothing bad said about the one true editor.

Sparks · 12-04-2014 4:19pm

IRLConor wrote: »

Uploading code to production without testing? Why not just edit it straight on the live machines?

Seen that, but with telnet instead of ssh... :eek:

Sparks · 12-04-2014 4:20pm

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I know, vim :eek:

Banned for a month

matrim · 13-04-2014 2:09pm

Sparks wrote: »

Banned for a month

Maybe he meant it like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vMO3XmNXe4

COYW · 14-04-2014 7:53pm

Starting working on a new project recently and met with the technical lead of the company I will be working with. He was going through the design of the application during which we looked at some of the code. It was a case of another MVC application, which was not MVC at all. I questioned this but got a blank stare in response.

Anyway, I noticed that there were no comments on the code at all, and I mean absolutely none, so I asked him about code commenting and the company standards that were in place relating to same. He replied that they don't comment code as it is "a waste of resources/time", followed by "code is code and if a developer cannot read and understand code, they shouldn't be in the business".

Sparks · 14-04-2014 10:29pm

oscarBravo · 14-04-2014 11:05pm

COYW wrote: »

He replied that they don't comment code as it is "a waste of resources/time", followed by "code is code and if a developer cannot read and understand code, they shouldn't be in the business".

You should do everything in really terse Perl and hand it off to him sans comments. Code is code, innit.

Sparks · 14-04-2014 11:11pm

oscarBravo wrote: »

You should do everything in really terse Perl and hand it off to him sans comments. Code is code, innit.

Why do it that way? Just write it in C, compile it to assembler, and hand in the assembler

COYW · 14-04-2014 11:17pm

oscarBravo wrote: »

You should do everything in really terse Perl and hand it off to him sans comments. Code is code, innit.

I was thinking exactly along those lines. I haven't written Perl in two years or so. Time to brush up on it.

Tar.Aldarion · 14-04-2014 11:28pm

What's with all these non binary casuals clouting up the forum?

Calina · 15-04-2014 7:52am

COYW wrote: »

Anyway, I noticed that there were no comments on the code at all, and I mean absolutely none, so I asked him about code commenting and the company standards that were in place relating to same. He replied that they don't comment code as it is "a waste of resources/time", followed by "code is code and if a developer cannot read and understand code, they shouldn't be in the business".

Run. Don't walk.

That can only be a precursor to problems.

Fenster · 15-04-2014 10:48am

COYW wrote: »

Starting working on a new project recently and met with the technical lead of the company I will be working with. He was going through the design of the application during which we looked at some of the code. It was a case of another MVC application, which was not MVC at all. I questioned this but got a blank stare in response.

Anyway, I noticed that there were no comments on the code at all, and I mean absolutely none, so I asked him about code commenting and the company standards that were in place relating to same. He replied that they don't comment code as it is "a waste of resources/time", followed by "code is code and if a developer cannot read and understand code, they shouldn't be in the business".

I would have probably had a panic attack then and there.

BrokenArrows · 17-04-2014 12:56pm

COYW wrote: »

Starting working on a new project recently and met with the technical lead of the company I will be working with. He was going through the design of the application during which we looked at some of the code. It was a case of another MVC application, which was not MVC at all. I questioned this but got a blank stare in response.

Anyway, I noticed that there were no comments on the code at all, and I mean absolutely none, so I asked him about code commenting and the company standards that were in place relating to same. He replied that they don't comment code as it is "a waste of resources/time", followed by "code is code and if a developer cannot read and understand code, they shouldn't be in the business".

ChRoMe · 18-04-2014 5:41pm

My head of operations and project manager asked me what a use case was yesterday.

Colonel Panic · 18-04-2014 5:58pm

if(pSomething != NULL)
{
	if(pSomeThingElse != NULL)
	{
		//  200 lines of Stuff
	}
}

// Let's change a few globals, I mean singletons here for the craic.
// And now we'll block the UI thread

return TRUE; // Always true and caller doesn't even check the return value

Calina · 18-04-2014 6:33pm

200 lines?

Odaise Gaelach · 26-05-2014 11:41am

I'm all for commenting code, including doing that little XML documentation at the top of things that you get in Visual Studio.

But when I am head of a team I will ban the use of GhostDoc and any of those documentation-generating tools. In fact, anyone who produces XML documentation like this:

/// <summary>
/// Automatics the convert.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="type">The type.</param>
/// <param name="value">The value.</param>
/// <returns></returns>
private object AutoConvert(Type type, string value)


/// <summary>
/// Processes the and save.
/// </summary>
private void ProcessAndSave()

will first be sent on a six-week course in English, and then afterwards sacked. No warnings. No mercy.

(This was more of a rant than a coding horror, but it makes my blood boil to see people using these tools to generate nonsense XML documentation and then not even bother their arse to correct it to something that is actually useful.)

Tar.Aldarion · 26-05-2014 11:00pm

Not horror but how have I not seen this, pmsl.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454

Evil Phil · 27-05-2014 10:21am

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Not horror but how have I not seen this, pmsl.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454

Outstanding.

cython · 28-05-2014 11:38am

Came across this beaut being committed today (variables renamed to remove business-related naming) - this line in a test:

Assert.assertTrue("Record id's are the same!!", (recordId.longValue() != linkedRecordId.longValue() ));

got changed to be this line:

Assert.assertTrue("Record id's are the same!!", (recordId.longValue() == linkedRecordId.longValue() ));

So if the test starts failing at this assert, the assertion message is actually lying - cue confusion for developers working on the test down the line!

Beef · 28-05-2014 12:00pm

******************  Version 2  *****************
* User:         [COLOR="Red"]Date: 5/01/01[/COLOR]    Time: 11:10a
**********/
MESSAGE "Option available soon" SKIP 
    VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX INFORMATION BUTTONS OK.
RETURN NO-APPLY.

This code is in our production system. I only found it today. It's coming soon!

BrokenArrows · 28-05-2014 8:05pm

Beef wrote: »

******************  Version 2  *****************
* User:         [COLOR="Red"]Date: 5/01/01[/COLOR]    Time: 11:10a
**********/
MESSAGE "Option available soon" SKIP 
    VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX INFORMATION BUTTONS OK.
RETURN NO-APPLY.

This code is in our production system. I only found it today. It's coming soon!

Only 13 years behind schedule.

thewheel2.0 · 29-05-2014 7:19pm

Beef wrote: »

******************  Version 2  *****************
* User:         [COLOR="Red"]Date: 5/01/01[/COLOR]    Time: 11:10a
**********/
MESSAGE "Option available soon" SKIP 
    VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX INFORMATION BUTTONS OK.
RETURN NO-APPLY.

This code is in our production system. I only found it today. It's coming soon!

Christ there's other people out there developing Progress 4GL/OpenEdge???