The dumbest programming thing you ever did before you knew better?

[wtd]

So, thinking back, before you knew you shouldn't, what's the dumbest thing you ever did while programming?

I'm going to say trying to maintain parallel arrays rather than simply having an array of aggregate data structures. So much time wasted.

[scholarlytutor]

As a child, my brother taught me a tiny amount of Turing and I was fascinated by it. I started making a program and wanted to cover the whole screen with 40x40 pixel boxes using the 16 colours available in the v16 screen mode in DOS (which is 640x480). So I drew 192 boxes to the screen using 192 lines of code. Not my brightest moment. But I was definitely determined!

[wtd]

Who needs loops when you can copy and paste?!

[scholarlytutor]

Exactly! And aggregate data structures are definitely overrated.

[wtd]

And always put all functionality directly into main (or its equivalent). Definitely do not break things down with functions/modules/etc.

[scholarlytutor]

100 Ways to Write Rubbish Code ?

[wtd]

We all do stupid things before we know better. Remembering that is good to keep things in perspective. Then you realize what you're doing right now is probably stupid and you'll only realize it later
.

[scholarlytutor]

Truth.

[SNIPERDUDE]

This is going all the way back mind you, like very first class stuff -- but due to my getting ahead of the teacher a bit I wrote some long code using one big loop and no functions (before the functions lesson was taught, which they oddly took their time getting to)

Come a long way

[scholarlytutor]

Nice. I can relate to that. I wrote a long program with over 1000 lines before I started taking computer science in grade 10. It didn't have a single function or procedure.

Looking back at the program today, I could probably write it all in 200-300 lines. Maybe one day when I have the time I'll try to do it.

[wtd]

I think it's rare that functions are taught early enough.

[SNIPERDUDE]

wtd @ March 28th 2022, 6:17 pm wrote:

I think it's rare that functions are taught early enough.

Seems so.

I wonder why, I consider them on the same footing as loops in terms of importance.

[wtd]

I consider them more fundamental and important than loops. It's so so important to know how to break code up into smaller problems, and functions achieve that.

[SNIPERDUDE]

wtd @ April 11th 2022, 4:23 pm wrote:

I consider them more fundamental and important than loops. It's so so important to know how to break code up into smaller problems, and functions achieve that.

Couldn't agree more actually.

Seems they jump over to loops before even considering functions.

Not only is functions a simpler concept but a more valuable one than loops.

Wonder who normalized the backward approach (unintentionally surely)