The Saddest Words: What If

Date:

Share:

Conditional statements, we would hope, are one of the most basic and well understood constructs in any programming language. Hope, of course, is for fools and suckers, so let’s take a look at a few short snippets.

Our first installment comes from Jonas.

if (!checkAndDelete(Definitions.DirectoryName, currentTime)); 

I appreciate the comment, which informs us that this empty statement is intentional. Why it’s intentional remains mysterious.

Jonas found this while going through linter warnings. After fixing this, there are only 25,000 more warnings to go.

Brodey has a similar construct, but from a very different language.

If (Session.Item(Session.SessionID & "Origional") IsNot Nothing) Then
End If

I have to give bonus points for the origional spelling of “original”. But spelling aside, there’s a hint of something sinister here- we’re concatenating strings with the SessionId– I don’t know what is going wrong here, but it’s definitely something.

Our last little snippet comes from Midiane. While not a conditional, it shows a misunderstanding of either booleans or comments.

$mail->SMTPAuth = false; // turn on SMTP authentication

The comment clearly is out of date with the code (which is the main reason we shouldn’t repeat what is in the code as a comment). At least, we hope the comment is just out of date. A worse scenario is that setting the flag equal to false enables it.

Source link

Subscribe to our magazine

━ more like this

‘Alicante cuisine epitomises the Mediterranean’: a gastronomic journey in south-east Spain | Spanish food and drink

I’m on a quest in buzzy, beachy Alicante on the Costa Blanca to investigate the rice dishes the Valencian province is famed for, as...

More context, more confidence: The new CX Score explained

Customer expectations have never been higher. People expect fast, accurate, and effortless support, every time. And across industries, from ecommerce to financial services to...

The NBA’s dress code was seen as policing Black culture. Instead it inspired a fashion revolution | NBA

Lonzo Ball froze in confusion. The question – “What do you think about the NBA dress code?” – hung in the air for a...

Shopping For A New Winter Perfume? These 7 Trends Will Be Everywhere

Some things remain constant every winter: no matter how prepared you are, your skin will feel the brunt of the cold, you’ll almost always...