Subj : Re: Syntax, style, the infinite monkey theorum and coding
To   : comp.programming
From : Rob Thorpe
Date : Mon Aug 22 2005 10:52 am

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> In article <1124699428.796351.185650@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> gswork@mailcity.com says...
> > Ed Prochak wrote:
> > > gsw...@mailcity.com wrote:
>
> > > how about a C program with a seven page while() loop where the
> > > condition on the while() loop was seven full lines long (where full
> > > means about 70characters per line, not counting whitespace)? Sorry I
> > > don't have the code available. That was at a job nearly twenty years
> > > ago. It was written by a contractor that the company respected and was
> > > considered a great programmer. Needless to say I did not share that
> > > opinion when I was assigned to maintain and debug this beast.
> >
> > I like the idea that a condition can be seven lines long!  Now that's a
> > condition!
>
> I can imagine that being a viable style in some cases, i.e. where there
> are several independent conditions that break the loop and each needs a
> comment:
>
> while( 	condition1		// comment
> 		&& condition2	// comment
> 		&& condition3	// comment
> 		)
> {
> 	// do stuff
> }

Yeah, I've seen code like this that is perfectly understandable.  The
conditions to break-out of doing something complex can be quite
complex.

It can be done in a nicer way, but this way isn't properly nasty.

> It's the multi-page block that seems more problematic.

Absolutely.

.