49 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
49 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
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The Ten Commandments for C Programmers
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Henry Spencer
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1. Thou shalt run lint frequently and study its pronouncements
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with care, for verily its perception and judgement oft exceed thine.
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2. Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness
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await thee at its end.
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3. Thou shalt cast all function arguments to the expected type if
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they are not of that type already, even when thou art convinced that
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this is unnecessary, lest they take cruel vengeance upon thee when thou
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least expect it.
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4. If thy header files fail to declare the return types of thy
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library functions, thou shalt declare them thyself with the most
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meticulous care, lest grievous harm befall thy program.
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5. Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all
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arrays), for surely where thou typest 'foo' someone someday shall
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type 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'.
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6. If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event
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of difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the
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checks triple the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing
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fingers, for if thou thinkest 'it cannot happen to me', the gods
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shall surely punish thee for thy arrogance.
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7. Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to re-invent them
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without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days
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pleasant and productive.
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8. Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure clear to thy
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fellow man by using the One True Brace Style, even if thou likest it
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not, for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in
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creating beautiful new impediments to understanding.
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9. Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six
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characters, though this harsh discipline be irksome and the years of
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its necessity stretch before thee seemingly without end, lest thou tear
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thy hair out and go mad on that fateful day when thou desirest to make
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thy program run on an old system.
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10. Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which
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claimeth that 'All the world's a VAX', and have no commerce with the
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benighted heathens who cling to this barbarous belief, that the days of
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thy program may be long even though the days of thy current machine be
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short.
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