Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse
Code Project
  1. Home
  2. The Lounge
  3. From the Museum of Ugly Code

From the Museum of Ugly Code

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
question
39 Posts 17 Posters 0 Views 1 Watching
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • S Stryder_1

    In personal code, I begin my object variable names with obj. This allows all the objects I instantiate to be easily located with autocomplete. Plus when I am scanning through my code, its easily recognized as a variable I created. I usually do not do this in shared code as this is one of those things will annoy some developers.

    T Offline
    T Offline
    TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
    wrote on last edited by
    #13

    Why not prefix all your variable, function and class names with _stryder__? That way everyone would know! ;P :laugh:

    #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • C charlieg

      I second the smart ass approach assessment. Someone is showing off his understanding of default loop behavior, coding bugs at a high rate of speed. I love this: "if (bVariable = someothervar) { do something }" despise assignments in conditionals and that was a simple example.

      Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759

      T Offline
      T Offline
      TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
      wrote on last edited by
      #14

      charlieg wrote:

      "if (bVariable = someothervar)

      I know it's kool and all and allows for compact code, but really this has been the source of so many EFFING bugs, this construct should be disallowed in any language. Curse the inventor of "C" for adding it the language.

      #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • C charlieg

        I second the smart ass approach assessment. Someone is showing off his understanding of default loop behavior, coding bugs at a high rate of speed. I love this: "if (bVariable = someothervar) { do something }" despise assignments in conditionals and that was a simple example.

        Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759

        D Offline
        D Offline
        den2k88
        wrote on last edited by
        #15

        charlieg wrote:

        despise assignments in conditionals and that was a simple example.

        Yes yes yes. Also scoped variables are cool but... they still end up on the stack. There is really no need to use them, apart from making the code more difficult to read and to maintain. And: kids, always initialize your variables. If you are absolutely, positively sure that the variable in question will never be read before being written on and that the data written on it are always meaningful then at least state it in a comment.

        GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

        T 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • D den2k88

          charlieg wrote:

          despise assignments in conditionals and that was a simple example.

          Yes yes yes. Also scoped variables are cool but... they still end up on the stack. There is really no need to use them, apart from making the code more difficult to read and to maintain. And: kids, always initialize your variables. If you are absolutely, positively sure that the variable in question will never be read before being written on and that the data written on it are always meaningful then at least state it in a comment.

          GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

          T Offline
          T Offline
          TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
          wrote on last edited by
          #16

          den2k88 wrote:

          scoped variables ... apart from making the code more difficult to read and to maintain.

          I actually find using scoped variables makes code easier to read and maintain. :-D YMMV. And it has fixed and avoided many a bug for me.

          den2k88 wrote:

          always initialize your variables

          Indeed. Yes!

          den2k88 wrote:

          absolutely, positively sure

          That works until it doesn't. See first rule: initialize!

          #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

          D 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • T TheGreatAndPowerfulOz

            Yeah, I hate Hungarian notation, mostly because everyone, and I do mean everyone, missed the point. Hungarian notation was supposed to indicated the kind of thing it was, not it's type. That is it should say Customers, not objCustList nor objCustDict. Really, you don't need to tell me it's an int or number: nCount or iCount and you don't need to tell me it's an object or a list. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Named properly I can tell what a variable is. As for the looping, personally don't see the problem with either approach. Whatever floats your boat. It's equivalent code. I like the _for_ approach because I can immediately see what the loop dynamics are. The problem there is when, for some logical reason, you don't want to "_moveNext()_," in that case a _while_ statement may serve better.

            #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

            C Offline
            C Offline
            charlieg
            wrote on last edited by
            #17

            The only hungarian notation I really like is sticking a little "p" in front of a variable to indicate it's a pointer. Just makes it easier to understand what I am doing. Microsoft loves to go wonkers with it (UINT32, and yes I know that's a type), and I have seen some code (due to coding standards) look like pStrConst_Variablename.

            Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759

            R 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • C charlieg

              The only hungarian notation I really like is sticking a little "p" in front of a variable to indicate it's a pointer. Just makes it easier to understand what I am doing. Microsoft loves to go wonkers with it (UINT32, and yes I know that's a type), and I have seen some code (due to coding standards) look like pStrConst_Variablename.

              Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759

              R Offline
              R Offline
              raddevus
              wrote on last edited by
              #18

              Personally my favorite is :

              LPSTR lpszName // lp = long pointer s = string z = zero (null).
              // It's a long pointer to a null terminated string, of course.

              :rolleyes: Thos were the good old days* when there were no Internet to look that stuff up. All you had was The Petzold and windows.h. :) *Not really all that great for learning to program. :)

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • T TheGreatAndPowerfulOz

                den2k88 wrote:

                scoped variables ... apart from making the code more difficult to read and to maintain.

                I actually find using scoped variables makes code easier to read and maintain. :-D YMMV. And it has fixed and avoided many a bug for me.

                den2k88 wrote:

                always initialize your variables

                Indeed. Yes!

                den2k88 wrote:

                absolutely, positively sure

                That works until it doesn't. See first rule: initialize!

                #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

                D Offline
                D Offline
                den2k88
                wrote on last edited by
                #19

                TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:

                I actually find using scoped variables makes code easier to read and maintain. :-D YMMV. And it has fixed and avoided many a bug for me.

                If the code is well written, I concur. When they are used in 300-500 lines jack-of-all-trades functions with dozens of scopes inside and badly named variables on the other hand...

                TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:

                That works until it doesn't. See first rule: initialize!

                My experience exactly :D

                GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

                B 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • R raddevus

                  When you see this, it only takes a few extra seconds to think about what the dev intends. But... X|

                  for (;!objSourceSubFolders.atEnd(); objSourceSubFolders.moveNext()) {
                  // do something with the files in the folder.
                  }

                  First of all, not sure why you need to use Hungarian notation to signal that this is an obj. But, more importantly, does the dev not know of the existence of the while loop? Or did he think this was an innovative approach? :sigh: Look how much simpler this is to read.

                  while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd()){
                  // do something with files in the folder
                  sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                  }

                  EDIT This one is for all you people. You know who you are! :rolleyes:

                  do {
                  // do something with files in the folder
                  sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                  }
                  while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd());

                  M Offline
                  M Offline
                  Member 9167057
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #20

                  First time I saw something like thins in a C++ code base, I thought "That's clever!" It was only the second thought that I remembered how much I bloody hate maintaining such "clever" solutions. We coders tend to be attracted to logical puzzles. It takes willpower to steer away from something clever in favor of something simple. Either that or enough experience to know how much of a PITA clever code can be.

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • R raddevus

                    charlieg wrote:

                    if (bVariable = someothervar)

                    That's a very ugly one. I had to try it in JS. It works, always runs. C# at least gives you an error "cannot implicitly convert 'int' to 'bool'

                    B Offline
                    B Offline
                    boarderstu
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #21

                    That's nothing. I had this once in JS ` if(functionName) //that's a reference, not a call! { //Do something } else { //Some other equally poor code }` It came up at pull request that as it's a function reference, it will always be true, and thus got rejected. Anyway, the bloke went mental, telling me I couldn't reject it as I hadn't run the code to see if it worked.... He started randomly rejecting my pull requests after that.

                    D R 2 Replies Last reply
                    0
                    • D den2k88

                      TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:

                      I actually find using scoped variables makes code easier to read and maintain. :-D YMMV. And it has fixed and avoided many a bug for me.

                      If the code is well written, I concur. When they are used in 300-500 lines jack-of-all-trades functions with dozens of scopes inside and badly named variables on the other hand...

                      TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:

                      That works until it doesn't. See first rule: initialize!

                      My experience exactly :D

                      GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

                      B Offline
                      B Offline
                      boarderstu
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #22

                      Scoped vars make so much sense! They stop shitty devs just using those variables and other functions polluting them

                      D 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • B boarderstu

                        That's nothing. I had this once in JS ` if(functionName) //that's a reference, not a call! { //Do something } else { //Some other equally poor code }` It came up at pull request that as it's a function reference, it will always be true, and thus got rejected. Anyway, the bloke went mental, telling me I couldn't reject it as I hadn't run the code to see if it worked.... He started randomly rejecting my pull requests after that.

                        D Offline
                        D Offline
                        DerekT P
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #23

                        no, it won't always be true. Consider:

                        var functionName=null;
                        //
                        // ...
                        //
                        if (functionName) {
                        alert('true')
                        } else {
                        alert('false')
                        }

                        functionName = function() {
                        // Some useful stuff
                        }

                        if (functionName) {
                        alert('true')
                        } else {
                        alert('false')
                        }

                        There are plenty of use cases where testing a function for existence is perfectly valid. I guess not in that particular case though.

                        B 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • 1 11917640 Member

                          while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd()){
                          // do something with files in the folder and don't use "continue"
                          sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                          }

                          D Offline
                          D Offline
                          DerekT P
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #24

                          Indeed. At least the original structure stopped the developer (and other, later developers) from omitting the first instance; or putting extraneous code after possibly hitting the end. Defensive programming... ;-)

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • D DerekT P

                            no, it won't always be true. Consider:

                            var functionName=null;
                            //
                            // ...
                            //
                            if (functionName) {
                            alert('true')
                            } else {
                            alert('false')
                            }

                            functionName = function() {
                            // Some useful stuff
                            }

                            if (functionName) {
                            alert('true')
                            } else {
                            alert('false')
                            }

                            There are plenty of use cases where testing a function for existence is perfectly valid. I guess not in that particular case though.

                            B Offline
                            B Offline
                            boarderstu
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #25

                            Fair point! In this case, it was just poor

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • B boarderstu

                              Scoped vars make so much sense! They stop shitty devs just using those variables and other functions polluting them

                              D Offline
                              D Offline
                              den2k88
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #26

                              Just how a scoped variable can be polluted by another function? I'm not talking about local variables vs global ones - that would be silly - but of variables declared in nested blocks, as

                              //code
                              if (condition){
                              int xyz;
                              int abc;
                              // code
                              }
                              // other code

                              abc and xyz will exist only inside the if block and then disappear again. Is that bad? No, if the code is well written (short clear functions) and those variables are positively needed only in that condition statement. If the code is long and complex jous just end up in a screen of code where there are two "things" named abc and xyz that weren't used anywhere else... it's confusing, to say the least. Also there is no real benefit since all those variables are stack based so no allocation ever takes place - no need to "save those bytes on the stack" or "save the allocation time".

                              GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

                              B 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • D den2k88

                                Just how a scoped variable can be polluted by another function? I'm not talking about local variables vs global ones - that would be silly - but of variables declared in nested blocks, as

                                //code
                                if (condition){
                                int xyz;
                                int abc;
                                // code
                                }
                                // other code

                                abc and xyz will exist only inside the if block and then disappear again. Is that bad? No, if the code is well written (short clear functions) and those variables are positively needed only in that condition statement. If the code is long and complex jous just end up in a screen of code where there are two "things" named abc and xyz that weren't used anywhere else... it's confusing, to say the least. Also there is no real benefit since all those variables are stack based so no allocation ever takes place - no need to "save those bytes on the stack" or "save the allocation time".

                                GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

                                B Offline
                                B Offline
                                boarderstu
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #27

                                Oh god, yeh that's ugly.

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • B boarderstu

                                  That's nothing. I had this once in JS ` if(functionName) //that's a reference, not a call! { //Do something } else { //Some other equally poor code }` It came up at pull request that as it's a function reference, it will always be true, and thus got rejected. Anyway, the bloke went mental, telling me I couldn't reject it as I hadn't run the code to see if it worked.... He started randomly rejecting my pull requests after that.

                                  R Offline
                                  R Offline
                                  raddevus
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #28

                                  boarderstu wrote:

                                  if(functionName) //that's a reference, not a call!

                                  If (!undefined) { // do some !undefined stuff.} Very ugly. It's almost like a preprocessing directive. #ifndef DEBUG

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • R raddevus

                                    When you see this, it only takes a few extra seconds to think about what the dev intends. But... X|

                                    for (;!objSourceSubFolders.atEnd(); objSourceSubFolders.moveNext()) {
                                    // do something with the files in the folder.
                                    }

                                    First of all, not sure why you need to use Hungarian notation to signal that this is an obj. But, more importantly, does the dev not know of the existence of the while loop? Or did he think this was an innovative approach? :sigh: Look how much simpler this is to read.

                                    while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd()){
                                    // do something with files in the folder
                                    sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                                    }

                                    EDIT This one is for all you people. You know who you are! :rolleyes:

                                    do {
                                    // do something with files in the folder
                                    sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                                    }
                                    while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd());

                                    T Offline
                                    T Offline
                                    Tomz_KV
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #29

                                    Regarding Hungarian Notation, here is an interesting article: [Making Wrong Code Look Wrong – Joel on Software](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-look-wrong/)

                                    TOMZ_KV

                                    R 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • T Tomz_KV

                                      Regarding Hungarian Notation, here is an interesting article: [Making Wrong Code Look Wrong – Joel on Software](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-look-wrong/)

                                      TOMZ_KV

                                      R Offline
                                      R Offline
                                      raddevus
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #30

                                      That's a very good article. I always like analogies because they help so much. And this :

                                      char* dest, src;

                                      is a great example of code that once you know, you know, but after not seeing it for years kind of makes you pause and think, "wait, is src a char* too or just a char? That's exactly like the weird for loop I was displaying. It just makes you think extra for no reason. And I liked Hungarian for years. I still do, but I'm kind of one the fence about it. You can tell what the types are, even if there is not intellisense. The point of the obj thing was that it wasn't helpful because I can tell you're calling a method on the thing so I can tell it's an object anyways. I prefixes like n and i did help so I didn't have to always back up the code and look to see what the thing was. Then on the other hand, go ahead and name vars so I can tell that it will contain numeric values versus strings, etc.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • R raddevus

                                        When you see this, it only takes a few extra seconds to think about what the dev intends. But... X|

                                        for (;!objSourceSubFolders.atEnd(); objSourceSubFolders.moveNext()) {
                                        // do something with the files in the folder.
                                        }

                                        First of all, not sure why you need to use Hungarian notation to signal that this is an obj. But, more importantly, does the dev not know of the existence of the while loop? Or did he think this was an innovative approach? :sigh: Look how much simpler this is to read.

                                        while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd()){
                                        // do something with files in the folder
                                        sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                                        }

                                        EDIT This one is for all you people. You know who you are! :rolleyes:

                                        do {
                                        // do something with files in the folder
                                        sourceSubFolders.moveNext();
                                        }
                                        while (!sourceSubFolders.atEnd());

                                        C Offline
                                        C Offline
                                        Chris Maunder
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #31

                                        You're right - he totally should have used a while loop

                                        while (objSourceSubFolders.moveNext())
                                        {
                                        // do something with the files in the folder.

                                        if (objSourceSubFolders.atEnd())
                                            goto Ended;
                                        

                                        }
                                        Ended:

                                        cheers Chris Maunder

                                        R 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • C Chris Maunder

                                          You're right - he totally should have used a while loop

                                          while (objSourceSubFolders.moveNext())
                                          {
                                          // do something with the files in the folder.

                                          if (objSourceSubFolders.atEnd())
                                              goto Ended;
                                          

                                          }
                                          Ended:

                                          cheers Chris Maunder

                                          R Offline
                                          R Offline
                                          raddevus
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #32

                                          Chris Maunder wrote:

                                          goto Ended; } Ended:

                                          Much more straight forward. You know exactly where he's going with that. :rolleyes:

                                          1 Reply Last reply
                                          0
                                          Reply
                                          • Reply as topic
                                          Log in to reply
                                          • Oldest to Newest
                                          • Newest to Oldest
                                          • Most Votes


                                          • Login

                                          • Don't have an account? Register

                                          • Login or register to search.
                                          • First post
                                            Last post
                                          0
                                          • Categories
                                          • Recent
                                          • Tags
                                          • Popular
                                          • World
                                          • Users
                                          • Groups