His Deeds Are Dust

A colleague of mine wanted to reduce the repetition in this fragment of C++:

funcA(false);
funcB(false);
funcC(false);
funcD(false);
funcA(true);
funcB(true);
funcC(true);
funcD(true);

and, in a burst of sheer genius, came up with this solution:

for (bool status = false; status <= true; ++status) {
  funcA(status);
  funcB(status);
  funcC(status);
  funcD(status);
}

He then scratched his head as the program looped for eternity.

Who could have predicted that a common-or-garden bool could have so many values? Let me count them. The possible values of bool are false, snopes, statistically_significant, almost_true, true, very_true and tautology. ++tautology gives you tautology right back, as any fule kno.

The beauty of the preprocessor #ifdef . . . #endif directives in C and C++ is that there are so many ways to abuse them.

I’ve been working on some vintage code (at least 15 years old) that provides a model for how not to do things. The compilation is controlled by no fewer than 750 #ifdef switches. Many of these are used in header files as guards against double inclusion, but the others roughly split into these jobs:

• controlling platform-specific code generation
• controlling project-specific code generation
• experimental features
• controlling different versions of hardware

The oddest of these switches are:

For the people who don’t like to document:

#ifdef __

For dyslexic programmers:

#ifdef DSTL_UPGRADES
#ifdef DTSL_UPGRADES

For those who think the code runs too quickly:

#ifdef INEFFICIENT

For those hopeful of a quick fix:

#ifdef MAKETHISWORK

For those who aren’t confident of our source control systems (and are dyslexic):

#ifdef OLD_SLOW_WAY
#ifdef ORIGINAL_CODE
#ifdef OROGINAL_CODE
#ifdef REDUNDANT_CODE
#ifdef REDUNDANT_FUNCTIONS

For those who can’t quite remember which operating system they are using:

#ifdef _vxworks
#ifdef __vxworks
#ifdef VXWORKS
#ifdef _VXWORKS
#ifdef __VXWORKS

For those trying the super-secret go-faster-stripes:

#ifdef WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN

For those who super unpositively don’t no way double negative want that code:

#ifdef _WIN32_trynot

. . . but just the once, or later, or huh, maybe not at all?:

#ifdef __JUSTONCE__
#ifdef _JUST_ONCE_
#ifdef notdef
#ifdef __NOTSMART_
#ifdef _NOTSMART_
#ifdef notyet
#ifdef NOTYET
#ifdef THIS_IS_NECESSARY
#ifdef THIS_IS_TOO_EXPENSIVE

Even the choice of names for include guards shows how coding standards change over time, or are ignored, or how the language standards themselves are ignored (the leading underscores):

xxx_inc_
_xxx_H_
__xxx_H__
xxx_include
xxx_H
xxx_inc
xxx_h
xxx_Hinc
_INC_xxx
INC_xxx