Clever Coder or Annoying SmartAss?

Caslen

Trying to debug some old code written 3-4years ago by a previous employee and came across this - I can't decide if he's a hero or an idiot, what do you think? (and before anyone says it, yes I know its legal - and it works (mostly) but try debugging it when it doesn't!)

for (; (Var1 < Var2) && (Var3 == FALSE) && ( ( Var4 < 0 ) || (Var5 <= Var6) ); Var7++)
{
.
.
//700 lines of code
.
.
}

Dalek Dave

He deserves a medal for being able to construct it!

------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]

GibbleCH

Well "700 lines of code in a block" = Idiot.

AspDotNetDev

True. Everybody knows the limit is 558 lines. :rolleyes:

Martin Fowler wrote:

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

RobCroll

Maybe someone told them the while statement was going to be deprecated. And they believed it! I also like the title case for variable names.

"You get that on the big jobs."

StM0n

it's an coding constant... like the speed of light :laugh:

(yes|no|maybe)*

StM0n

Never seen something like that... but it's kind of... attractive... in a way... strange way... forbidden way... :-O

(yes|no|maybe)*

Caslen

To be fair I changed the variables names myself (to protect the guilty). Capitalising variable names is something I've always done, 20 years or more, it's a hard habit to break - old dog and new tricks if you know what I mean :)

Caslen

You must resist - its a sure path to the dark side...

StM0n

... I can't... have to write... strange code... oops, no it's been

while

;P

(yes|no|maybe)*

Caslen

for(;1==1;i++){if(!i)goto End;}
End:

Still tempted? :)

StM0n

done it, until it feels false :-D

(yes|no|maybe)*

BobJanova

Hard to tell given the level of anonymisation you've done. If it's a hard problem then such a complex test might be appropriate. I'd probably write it as a while loop, since the 'incrementer' is a different variable. I do agree though that the 'Real WTF' is the 700 lines inside a loop construct.

richard_k

Ok.. so far I can buy smart.. although I'm not fond of HOW the code is formatted.. I try to format more complex if statements so that its obvious what is going on.. ergo:

for ( ;
(Var1 < Var2)
&& (Var3 == FALSE)
&& ( ( Var4 < 0 )
|| (Var5 <= Var6) );
Var7++)
{
.
.
//700 lines of code
.
.
}

I used to do PLC programming and loved how ladder logic read.. so this is a hold over from those days for me.. I'm ALL about readability.. On 700 lines.. idiot for sure. Now.. my question to determine if this guys is a TRUE idiot.. does he re-use any of those test variables for other purposes in his massive 700 line pile of spaghetti? If so.. then he gets promoted to 'Principle Idiot'. The reason I ask this is.. I've seen that.. a 3000 line function that re-used control and locally declared variables for complete different purposes.. trying to debug that mess was like messing with a wierd 3-dimensional puzzle. The guy that wrote it, god bless his soul, at least wasn't a CS guy.. he was a business analyst. Give a child a pistol....

Caslen

Var1 - 17 references Var2 - 5 references Var3 - 14 references... ...and so on - believe me its spaghetti!

thoiness

That's downright amazing. I don't think I would have ever thought of that. It really makes you wonder, who does think like that? Was the author an expert in regex per chance?