How to Write Unmaintainable Code (Humorous Article)

Category:

Miscellaneous

Type:

Snippets

Difficulty:

Intermediate

Author: Roedy Green

Version Compatibility: Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic 5

More information:

This humorous article only slightly exaggerates common coding practices, and therefore, besides providing entertainment, also serves as a lesson in "what not to do."

Instructions: Copy the declarations and code below and paste directly into your VB project.

Declarations:
' (None)

Code:

<h3>How To Write Unmaintainable Code</h3>

<p>

<I>Originally published at <A HREF = 'http://mindprod.com/unmain.html'>http://mindprod.com/unmain.html</A>.  Reprinted by special permission from the author.  Further reprints, without the express permission of the author are prohibited.</I>

Last updated Thursday, 05-Apr-2001 03:41:36 PDT by <A HREF = "http://mindprod.com/index.html#MENU">Roedy
   Green</a> 1997-2001 Canadian Mind Products.

<h4>Introduction</h4>

<p>

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.
   </blockquote>

<p>

<b>Napoleon</b>

<p>

In the interests of creating employment opportunities in the Java programming
   field, I am passing on these tips from the masters on how to write code that is
   so difficult to maintain, that the people who come after you will take years to
   make even the simplest changes. Further, if you follow all these rules
   religiously, you will even guarantee <b>yourself</b> a lifetime of employment,
   since no one but you has a hope in hell of maintaining the code. Then again, if
   you followed <b>all</b> these rules religiously, even you wouldn't be able to
   maintain the code!

<p>You don't want to overdo this.  Your code should not <b>look</b> hopelessly
   unmaintainable, just <b>be</b> that way.  Otherwise it stands the risk of being
   rewritten or refactored.

<h4>General Principles</h4>

<p>

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

<br>

Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
   </blockquote>
   To foil the maintenance programmer, you have to understand how he thinks.  He
   has your giant program.  He has no time to read it all, much less understand it.
   He wants to rapidly find the place to make his change, make it and get out and
   have no unexpected side effects from the change.

<p>

He views your code through a tube taken from the centre of a roll of toilet
   paper.  He can only see a tiny piece of your program at a time.  You want to
   make sure he can never get at the big picture from doing that. You want to make
   it as hard as possible for him to find the code he is looking for.  But even
   more important, you want to make it as awkward as possible for him to safely <b>ignore</b>
   anything.

<p>

Programmers are lulled into complacency by conventions.  By every once in a
   while subtly violating convention you force him to read every line of your code
   with a magnifying glass.

<p>

You might get the idea that every language feature makes code unmaintainable --
   not so, only if properly misused.

<h4>Naming</h4>

<p>

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it
      means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
   </blockquote>

<p>

<b>Lewis Carroll -- Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6</b>

<p>

Much of the skill in writing unmaintainable code is the art of naming variables
   and methods. They don't matter at all to the computer.  That gives you huge
   latitude to use them to befuddle the maintenance programmer.

<ol>

<li>
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