What are the worst programming habits?
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I gotta call foul on removing the private access specifier. In C# the default is private while in VB it's Public. I absolutely hate that and really dont want to have to remember what the defaults ars supposed to be when scanning over code for problems.
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Dave KreskowiakDave Kreskowiak wrote:
In C# the default is private while in VB it's Public. I absolutely hate that and really dont want to have to remember what the defaults ars supposed to be when scanning over code for problems.
I hate that it's public in VB.NET too, but it does not change the way I look at C#. Having tried it, for several months, in both languages, to me, the benefit outweighs the possible disadvantage of confusion.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
Hungarian notation should die in a fire
That's too good for it. However, have you read this: Making Wrong Code Look Wrong by Joel Spolsky[^]
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
Hmm. I agree with Joel but I stand by my dislike of the common Hungarian notation, despite Simonyi's original intent.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
My main bug bears are 1. Excessive whitespace between code lines 2. In code comment,for that complex method that are so short they are as useful as the var keyword.
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence EAT BACON
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
1. incorrect bracket placement 2. if (2 == var) 3. not enough whitespace 4. globals
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If you need comments to explain what the code does, then the code is too complex. Formatting is a matter of taste, and there's a keyboard shortcut to automatically reformat in the VS-IDE. My worst programming habits;
- Removing the access modifier "private" from code, as it is redundant. Not a bad habit in my book, but apparently in everyone else's.
- Hitting F5 too regularly. Kills productivity if it takes 15 minutes to build.
- Reading CodeProject while building a solution. I cannot stare at the build-screen, especially since it does not provide adequate feedback on what it is doing. If it appears to be waiting for a long time then chances are that it gets killed using the task-manager.
- Coffee. With two suger, and two cups an hour, that adds to 32 lumps of suger.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
there's a keyboard shortcut to automatically reformat in the VS-IDE.
which is a total broken disaster in VS2013 (for C++ at least)
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
Currently dealing with a codebase that uses magic numbers and tucks them into the window's hMenu member (and uses them from there)! Ghhgh! The other nightmare offense in the code is using "m_" for: a) Some, but not all, member variables. b) Some, but not all, in function variables, including loop indexes. c) Some, but not all, passed function parameters. That was fun to get sorted - NOT. There were even a couple places where the same name was used in two or more different ways, so a project-wide replace would blow up. X| X| X| X| X|
My website :: My book revealing the forgotten astronomy of our ancestors.
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I disagree, in a situation like:
CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException exception = new CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException();
I find this more readable:
var exception = new CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException();
Typing CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException twice in such a short space I think is a bit redundant
It's a pity that we can't use a condensed "new" format like:
CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException exception = new ();
which means the same as:
CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException exception = new CryptographicUnexpectedOperationException();
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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varis handy in two places: 1) When using Linq and returning "An IEnumerable of something, gawddammit, but I have no idea what the compiler is going to call it" 2) To identify people whose code you can't trust because they have no idea or no interest in what type a variable should be. It may save five keystrokes to usevarinstead ofIEnumerable<Customer>but it doesn't help understanding when you have to read the code later.Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
I use
varwhen I have some method to call that returns a humungously long-named type. I then immediately change it with the "Make Explicit" option. That way I don't have to type it out in full or select from a potentially huge list of intellisense suggestions.- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I use
varwhen I have some method to call that returns a humungously long-named type. I then immediately change it with the "Make Explicit" option. That way I don't have to type it out in full or select from a potentially huge list of intellisense suggestions.- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Fine by me - it doesn't leave the
varin the final code, or treat C# as if it was VB and "don't know, don't care"DimThose who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
0. Systems hungarian.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello[^]
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
-2. Swallowing an exception -1. Throwing an exception with no message and just the generic "Exception" class. 0. Using try-catch for normal program flow.. (And these are just the rules to the exception :-) )
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Adding oil to the fire, a practical example;
using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Timers;namespace ConsoleApplication5
{
class Program
{
Timer t = new System.Threading.Timer(null); // will not compile, as it is unclear which Timer
Timer t2 = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer(); // is declared (as opposed to the type instantiated)
Timer pfld_SysTimrTimrt3 = new System.Timers.Timer(); // using hungarian systems with namespace prefixstatic void Main(global::System.String\[\]\[\] strSrgs) { global::System.Console.ReadLine(); } }}
And yes, the "console application template" has an entry point which is implicitly private.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
Soooo... the class is private? :confused: How does that work? Even I avoid
global::-- by using an alias if necessary:using MySqlClient=global::MySql.Data.MySqlClient ;
What the heck is a
pfld_? A pointer to a fixed long double?You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
Things that bug me... 1. Comments. Too often have I seen comments that made no sense, were outdated, wrong or overly obvious. In fact I've learned to ignore comments as they've never helped me in any way. I guess programmers can't write English... 2. Code that is copy-pasted. Often the cause of bugs. 3. Swallowing exceptions. 4. Non-Object Oriented code in Object Oriented languages. 5. Formatting, you've said it. Bonus: 6. Not using brackets in if statements. Very dangerous... I'm working for a company that has worked with VB since the start. The first employees have worked with VB even longer and used Clipper before that. I've seen 1 through 5 all to often :sigh: I've come to hate 6 when we started doing C# and outsourced a project to another company. HORRIBLE!!! I read the code and didn't know if they meant it that way or if they had introduced subtle bugs... A lot of samples I get from the internet have it too. I probably forgot some stuff, but these are a few of my least-favourite things.
It's an OO world.
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
} -
I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
I like to mark other's code with the unsafe keyword. That's what it is for, after all. Edit: Really bad things: - Stringly typing - Similar to magic numbers: Literal values and strings all over the place instead of enums, resources or similar. - Spaghetti code, or totally insanely structured code - Global variables, including abuse of the session or caches - managing data in dozens of separate variables instead of using even the most primitive kind of entity - not understanding the framework, being unwilling to learn and contaminating the code with flawed homebrew solutions
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
I hold an A-7 computer expert classification, Commodore. I'm well acquainted with Dr. Daystrom's theories and discoveries. The basic design of all our ship's computers are JavaScript. -
I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
Ooh, good thread. Not ones I'm guilty of, but ones I call out in code reviews, that I haven't seen covered elsewhere in this thread: 0. Implementing code that's already part of the framework 1. Explicit path creation (rather than using Path.Combine) 2. Lines that are too long 3. Overly complex lines; these are normally ones that combine numerous statements together using ternary and coalescing null operators (it's a sure sign that someone has Resharper installed). 4. Talking about R#, converting clear code into a muddied part ordinary syntax, part LINQ abomination that you cannot remember what it does so you have to spend 20 minutes figuring out the damn thing. 5. Oh, and while we're at it with LINQ,
myList.Where(p=> p.Id == aUniqueId).FirstOrDefault();This one's a twofer - first of all, if it's a unique number, useSingleOrDefaultnotFirstOrDefault- you're only getting one value back. Secondly, learn how to use the power of LINQ, thatWherestatement is redundant so the statement can becomemyList.SingleOrDefault(p => p.Id == aUniqueId);6. Not checking inputs into methods for validity. 7. When testing code, not asserting that something has happened. 8. Unnecessary try/catch blocks. 9. Blindly consuming exceptions - I'll have noOn Error Resume Nextbehaviour please. 10. Not checking for null. I once saw a production system go boom because while the main code was properly checking nulls, the code that was reporting out that it couldn't do something because of null values didn't check the value out that it was attempting to log; thus blowing up the system. That's not all, but that should be enough to be getting on with. -
I like to mark other's code with the unsafe keyword. That's what it is for, after all. Edit: Really bad things: - Stringly typing - Similar to magic numbers: Literal values and strings all over the place instead of enums, resources or similar. - Spaghetti code, or totally insanely structured code - Global variables, including abuse of the session or caches - managing data in dozens of separate variables instead of using even the most primitive kind of entity - not understanding the framework, being unwilling to learn and contaminating the code with flawed homebrew solutions
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
I hold an A-7 computer expert classification, Commodore. I'm well acquainted with Dr. Daystrom's theories and discoveries. The basic design of all our ship's computers are JavaScript.CDP1802 wrote:
mark other's code with the unsafe
You might not be surprised to learn that I compile all my code with
/unsafe. :cool:You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
In C# the default is private while in VB it's Public. I absolutely hate that and really dont want to have to remember what the defaults ars supposed to be when scanning over code for problems.
I hate that it's public in VB.NET too, but it does not change the way I look at C#. Having tried it, for several months, in both languages, to me, the benefit outweighs the possible disadvantage of confusion.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
What benefit? Saving 4 keystrokes?
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject
How to debug small programs
Dave Kreskowiak -
mark merrens wrote:
People that tell you their code is 'self-commenting'.
Sometimes, it is though.
// check if user is valid
if(IsUserValid(user))
{
// update the user
UpdateUser(user);
}
else
{
// show a messagebox with an error
MessageBox(error);
}In that snippet, the comments are sorta annoying.
Regards, Nish
Latest article: Using the Microsoft Azure Storage Client Library for C++ Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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I was thinking about the things that bug me and came up with a short list
- No comments. I know - let's have a religious war etc, but I find no comments dangerous.
- using o as a variable name. In fact using anything that's not sensible.
ctx,dr_rfp_ptr,i2 - Bad formatting. It's like walking into a house and being unable to sit down because of empty pizza boxes on the couch
- Mystery side-effects in code.
- Magic numbers
I'm guilty of 2 of these on occasion. What's your list?
cheers Chris Maunder
