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Kernighans Law

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  • J Jim SS

    "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." No wonder no-one can adequately debug their own code.

    SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill

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    PIEBALDconsult
    wrote on last edited by
    #3

    That explains why the standard C libraries are only half as clever as they should be.

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    • E Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

      I have never found debugging to by hard. More of a simple algorithmic process of deducing errors using common tools and techniques. It is, however, time-consuming.

      Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States.
      If you don't ask questions the answers won't stand in your way.
      Doing a job is like selecting a mule, you can't choose just the front half xor the back half so when you ask me to do a job don't expect me to do it half-assed.

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      Jim SS
      wrote on last edited by
      #4

      You're right. The debugging is fine, it's finding bugs that's the problem. TDD seems to be catching on. It works if the tests reflect the requirements well enough. Debugging gets bad when you are integrating with something that isn't well documented (Blackberry).

      SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill

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      • P PIEBALDconsult

        That explains why the standard C libraries are only half as clever as they should be.

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        Jim Crafton
        wrote on last edited by
        #5

        PIEBALDconsult wrote:

        are only half as clever

        Half is being pretty generous! :)

        ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh

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        • J Jim SS

          "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." No wonder no-one can adequately debug their own code.

          SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill

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          Rama Krishna Vavilala
          wrote on last edited by
          #6

          Yes! In fact one of my plans was to write articles on some tough debugging situations I have been through in my career. In majority of cases fixing the code in question turned out to be very simple. Finding the problem was always hard.

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          • J Jim Crafton

            PIEBALDconsult wrote:

            are only half as clever

            Half is being pretty generous! :)

            ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh

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            PIEBALDconsult
            wrote on last edited by
            #7

            Well he didn't have access to the plethora of books on C we have and he couldn't post, "Urgent! Need codez for C library!", messages on CP.

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            • J Jim SS

              "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." No wonder no-one can adequately debug their own code.

              SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill

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              John M Drescher
              wrote on last edited by
              #8

              If you write multithreaded code with reader writer locks and deadlock avoidance I can fully agree with that statement. In my line of work I have been doing this since the late 1990s since most of my projects have needed 2 or more cores back then and even though CPUs are much faster today a typical dataset is also 4 to 8 times as large so this has not gone away..

              John

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              • R Rama Krishna Vavilala

                Yes! In fact one of my plans was to write articles on some tough debugging situations I have been through in my career. In majority of cases fixing the code in question turned out to be very simple. Finding the problem was always hard.

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                Dan Neely
                wrote on last edited by
                #9

                Please do. I'd be interested in reading them.

                Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall

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                • J Jim SS

                  "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." No wonder no-one can adequately debug their own code.

                  SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill

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                  Shog9 0
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #10

                  Jim (SS) wrote:

                  No wonder no-one can adequately debug their own code.

                  I can, because i'm lazy and therefore never write particularly clever code. ...unfortunately, in practice i'm also too lazy to ever properly debug my lazy code... :-\

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                  • J Jim SS

                    "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." No wonder no-one can adequately debug their own code.

                    SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill

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                    led mike
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #11

                    Well I am currently debugging some of the most unclever code I have ever seen. I doubt it could be any more uncleverer. It is all but impossible to understand, like trying to solve a 100x100 rubix polygon. X|

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                    • J John M Drescher

                      If you write multithreaded code with reader writer locks and deadlock avoidance I can fully agree with that statement. In my line of work I have been doing this since the late 1990s since most of my projects have needed 2 or more cores back then and even though CPUs are much faster today a typical dataset is also 4 to 8 times as large so this has not gone away..

                      John

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                      bulg
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #12

                      Why are people so scared of multi-threaded code? Seems rather intuitive to me..

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                      • B bulg

                        Why are people so scared of multi-threaded code? Seems rather intuitive to me..

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                        John M Drescher
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #13

                        Much harder to debug timing issues / race conditions than single threaded code.

                        John

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