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JokeRe: NASA says the International Space Station is leaking faster now Pin
Daniel Pfeffer29-Sep-20 22:17
professionalDaniel Pfeffer29-Sep-20 22:17 
GeneralRe: NASA says the International Space Station is leaking faster now Pin
GuyThiebaut30-Sep-20 3:14
professionalGuyThiebaut30-Sep-20 3:14 
JokeRe: NASA says the International Space Station is leaking faster now Pin
Daniel Pfeffer30-Sep-20 7:57
professionalDaniel Pfeffer30-Sep-20 7:57 
GeneralRe: NASA says the International Space Station is leaking faster now Pin
Dan Neely30-Sep-20 2:39
Dan Neely30-Sep-20 2:39 
GeneralRe: NASA says the International Space Station is leaking faster now Pin
markrlondon30-Sep-20 6:07
markrlondon30-Sep-20 6:07 
NewsReading code is a skill Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 10:16
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 10:16 
GeneralRe: Reading code is a skill Pin
David O'Neil29-Sep-20 13:18
professionalDavid O'Neil29-Sep-20 13:18 
GeneralRe: Reading code is a skill Pin
Gary R. Wheeler30-Sep-20 2:39
Gary R. Wheeler30-Sep-20 2:39 
David O'Neil wrote:
No one writes unreadable code on purpose...
This is blatantly untrue, and my intuition tells me it's a lot more common than anyone would like to admit.

<WarStory>

A long, long time ago, on a product I've been saddled with maintaining, a developer named BK (no relation to the serial killer) wrote some software for us. After 20 years of maintaining one product, BK was reassigned to another product which needed more manpower. Rather than tolerate the move, BK retired at the age of 52.

Eventually I was tasked with maintaining his stuff, all of which was written in C. Among other things, I found the following:

1. No naming conventions.
2. Coding style was early 70's C, so no function prototypes, argument declarations after the function name, etc.
3. Global types and variables with 1, 2, or 3 character names. The longest name in the code was around 10-12 characters.
4. Ineffective use of #include files. Many times the symbol being defined was also defined directly in the source referencing it.
5. Rampant pointer arithmetic.
6. Magic numbers everywhere, even when a #defined symbol was available for the value.
7. The code has run on a wide variety of hardware and under several different environments. The hardware and OS-specific code is sprinkled throughout and handled through conditional compilation. The #defines for it are often placed manually at the start of the source file.
8. No source control, and no consistent backup scheme for released builds.

After a few weeks of analyzing the code while I was debugging an issue, I came to the inescapable conclusion that BK had deliberately written the code to make it so that he was the only feasible maintainer.

</WarStory>

The ironic thing here is that BK Elephant | [mastadon] ing died a few years after he retired. We can't even hire the Elephant | [mastadon] er back as a contractor to maintain his sh<nobr>it.
Software Zen: delete this;

NewsWindows Performance Analyzer “WPA” Intro Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 10:16
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 10:16 
NewsWindows 10 is pushing old drivers updates that you should avoid Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 8:31
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 8:31 
GeneralRe: Windows 10 is pushing old drivers updates that you should avoid Pin
Nelek29-Sep-20 9:58
protectorNelek29-Sep-20 9:58 
NewsIn his spare time, an engineer found flaws in the classic book "A Million Random Digits" Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 7:46
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 7:46 
GeneralRe: In his spare time, an engineer found flaws in the classic book "A Million Random Digits" Pin
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz29-Sep-20 9:24
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz29-Sep-20 9:24 
GeneralRe: In his spare time, an engineer found flaws in the classic book "A Million Random Digits" Pin
Nelek29-Sep-20 9:59
protectorNelek29-Sep-20 9:59 
NewsProgramming languages: Java founder James Gosling reveals more on Java and Android Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 7:01
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 7:01 
NewsMicrosoft: Some ransomware attacks take less than 45 minutes Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 7:01
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 7:01 
GeneralRe: Microsoft: Some ransomware attacks take less than 45 minutes Pin
Nelek29-Sep-20 10:00
protectorNelek29-Sep-20 10:00 
NewsGoogle launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 6:46
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 6:46 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Ravi Bhavnani29-Sep-20 7:45
professionalRavi Bhavnani29-Sep-20 7:45 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 8:15
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 8:15 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Greg Utas29-Sep-20 8:32
professionalGreg Utas29-Sep-20 8:32 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 8:42
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 8:42 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Nelek29-Sep-20 10:02
protectorNelek29-Sep-20 10:02 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Ravi Bhavnani29-Sep-20 11:52
professionalRavi Bhavnani29-Sep-20 11:52 
GeneralRe: Google launches Plus Codes to give every location in the world a digital address Pin
Kent Sharkey29-Sep-20 12:07
staffKent Sharkey29-Sep-20 12:07 

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