[Info-vax] Significance of 2020 / 2021 date

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-01-09 13:09:54 +0000, Chris said:

> On 01/09/21 12:55, Andy Burns wrote:
>> Chris wrote:
>> 
>>> Ideally, you get the user input, parse it to verify correct format and 
>>> only then, pass the year field to the conversion routine. Only a few 
>>> lines of added code needed to do it right.
>> 
>> Yes, but we're told this is 30 year old code, simpler times.
> 
> Simpler times perhaps, but such ambiguous looking code is a nightmare 
> for maintainers, having spent years trying to just that. Get the onpage 
> format and code structure right and it should flow like the lines of a 
> story...

Phrases such as "It's in VAX C" or "It's K&R" is usually sufficient to 
indicate derelict C code.

And that code is not ambiguous. It's dependent on the order of 
evaluation; on the C operator precedence rules.

https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/operator_precedence

Would I write new code that way? No. But long ago, I also once wrote 
***foo->bar and ilk. And I'm sorry that I wrote that C code.

Would I refactor that atoi() C code? Maybe. I'd certainly want to, but 
that the code is still K&R C implies little or no management support 
for that. And I'd want to know more context around the app and its 
data, as home-grown parsers tend to be bug farms.

And have I blamed my tools? Absolutely. Having had my (bogus) 
blame-the-tools claims rejected a few times in years past, now I use 
the universal debugger printf, or the OpenVMS debugger, or occasionally 
other tooling, and gather some evidence for the claims.

Aside: got a bug report about a permissions-related error in my code. 
Dug into the app code, and found that a lower-level call in a 
dependency was mis-coded, and the context where the lower-level code 
went awry. Looked up the maintainer of the failing lower-level code, 
and it was the bug submitter. Submitter was surprised to discover the 
bug report reflected back and assigned to them—with troubleshooting and 
a reproducer.  Put differently, when the tools go sideways and I want 
to blame those lower-level tools, gather or build a reproducer. That'll 
then point to a flaw in my code or in the dependency, and it'll mean a 
faster fix.


-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC