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From: Alex Krol <Alex_Krol@scitex.com>
Subject: Re: Coding for Obscurity
Date: 1997/11/23
Message-ID: <34788101.7367@scitex.com>#1/1
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Organization: Scitex_Corporation_LTD.
Reply-To: Alex_Krol@scitex.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
Date: 1997-11-23T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


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