Subj : Re: Syntax, style, the infinite monkey theorum and coding
To   : comp.programming
From : Ed Prochak
Date : Mon Aug 22 2005 12:59 pm


Rob Thorpe wrote:
> 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.

There are complex problems that require complex solutions, but trust me
this was a case of monkey code. It was nasty and brittle (fixing one
bug introduced another seemingly unrelated one).
>
> > It's the multi-page block that seems more problematic.
>
> Absolutely.

AMEN! The whole application was full of extremes. Beside the 7page loop
were several single-line functions, in this style:
int importantFunctionName(){ return(globalvar++); }

in the context of this thread, I'm honestly not sure which part is more
"monkey code" than the other.

  Ed

.