

How to read code - omergertel
http://omergertel.com/2010/07/04/how-to-read-code/

======
eru
> Loops are the source of all evil[.]

That's why I prefer languages without loops.

~~~
tkahn6
That's interesting. I can't tell if you're joking or not (I'm pretty sure the
ability to loop is a requirement for Turing-completeness).

Do you mean like Lisp which favors recursive function (or lambda calculus
which uses the Y-combinator :)?

~~~
SkyMarshal
That's what I assumed when I upvoted him. Recursion & lambda ftw.

~~~
eru
Indeed, I was aiming at recursion. (Though I mostly use combinators like foldr
instead of naked recursion.)

On the other hand: You can see loops as a special case of recursion. Though I
like languages that don't treat this special case as a special case.

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telemachos
He mentions the small sample size (5 people) as a negative, but I wonder if
this situation fits Jakob Nielsen's arguments about testing smaller groups.

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html>

~~~
mifrai
Jakob Nielson argues that, specifically in usability testing, 5 people gives
you a majority of your flaws but not the entire picture - where ~15 people
would give you that. That is to say, more is better but there is diminishing
returns. Given this, he argues that rather then expending resources to gather
the entire picture for a single iteration, it's even better to test 3 sets of
5 people with design improvements between each set.

I think this argument is slightly different than just saying 5 people is
enough for any sort of study. I still would have liked to seen more people. Or
at least additional studies with modifications to inspect or confirm specific
aspects of their findings.

------
gtani
<http://tech.puredanger.com/2007/09/18/spelunking/>

[http://debasishg.blogspot.com/2009/06/code-reading-for-
fun-a...](http://debasishg.blogspot.com/2009/06/code-reading-for-fun-and-
profit.html)

<http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/05/post.html> (section about "making
Mongrels stable and secure"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=483824>

[http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/gregory/005-code-
rea...](http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/gregory/005-code-reading-
stdlib.html)

------
kenjackson
As well as the bug in the loop... there also appears to be a bug in the printf
statement.

~~~
CountHackulus
Can't believe I missed that, but you're entirely correct, that second %d
doesn't map to anything.

Guess loops aren't the source of ALL evil.

------
kqueue
lost interest reading it when I saw void main(void).

Reading code needs patience and getting used to the coder's style.

