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From: "Jim Johnson" <jimj@NOSPAM.seattle.jumpmusic.com>
Subject: Re: Coding for Obscurity
Date: 1997/11/24
Message-ID: <01bcf8fc$e918e0a0$0644a3cd@jimj.jumpmusic.com>#1/1
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References: <343fbb5a.0@news.iprolink.ch> <34466EB4.3381@dynamite.com.au>
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Organization: Jump! Music
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
Date: 1997-11-24T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


>  I agree that readability of code is not targeted
> at the author himself, but must it be targeted at a newbie unfamiliar
> with C idiomas?

Yes, it must; because in most situations, that is who the maintenance
programmers are.

"unfamiliar with C idioms" could be any of us. There are so many ways to
write C code, there is no way to predict which ones your audience will have
used. (Personally, I never use ?: conditionals; I always have to think it
through when I see them.)

Jim Johnson


Alex Krol <Alex_Krol@scitex.com> wrote in article
<34788101.7367@scitex.com>...
> Stephan Wilms wrote:
> > 
> > Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
> > >
> > > firewind wrote:
> > >
> > > > I find myself using a construct like this a lot recently (snipped
directly
> > > > from code I'm working on right now):
> > > >
> > > > if(!to && !(to = malloc(sizeof *to)))) return(NULL);
> > > >
> > > > The
> > > > if(foo() || bar())
> > > >
> > > > construct may seem obfuscated and weird to you, it is the way the
logic of
> > > > some people's minds work.
> > >
> > > No further evidence, I rest my case.
> > >
> > > Would anyone in comp.lang.c like to comment?
> > 
> > Yes, I'll volunteer a little comment: code like that has a lot of
> > disadvantages: it is obfuscated (it's only the author wh thinks that
> > the code is readable) and it's hard to debug and maintain. It sure
> > wouldn't pass through my code inspection.
> > 
> > To explain: readability of code is not targeted at the author of the
> > code or maybe his office pal, it is targeted at someone having to
> > read and understand a whole big package of source code, to make
> > some important modification or to find a bug a year after the software
> > has been written and archived. The author might not even be available
> > at this moment. Even the smallest effort helps a lot.
> > 
> > In detail: I would reqrite the first example like this:
> > 
> >     /* Sensible comment about what get's allocated. */
> >   if ( to == NULL )
> >   {
> >     to = malloc( sizeof *to);
> >     if ( to == NULL ) return NULL;
> >   }
> 
>    Of course, style matters are extremely personal, but, IMHO,
> there is nothing unreadable in the first example (except unmatched
> parenthesis :-)). I agree that readability of code is not targeted
> at the author himself, but must it be targeted at a newbie unfamiliar
> with C idiomas? Comments, though are advisable in any case.
> 
> 	Regards,
> 		Alex Krol
>