 Newsreel
Products & Services
Web Watch
Software Update
Resource Directory
Events Diary
Articles
The Magazine
Subscribe
Contact Us
Search DNJ Online |
Disposable Objects 23
Obfuscated C
Hot news for anyone serious about coding was the announcement in January of the winners of the 15th International Obfuscated C Code Contest, held last year. For those not familiar with the contest, the challenge is set out on the IOCCC home page at
www.ioccc.org. It essentially involves writing the most obscure C program possible, within the bounds of the rules.
We won’t attempt to reproduce any of the winning entries here, as they are quite obscure enough without having to be reproduced across a column this narrow. The winning entry in the ‘Best Small Program’ category, for example, consists of two #include statements followed by one line of 179 characters.
Other categories include ‘Best Use of Flags’ (won by an ASCII to semaphore code convertor, where the source code appears in the shape of a flag); ‘Best Abuse of CPP’ (a program that appears to generate prime numbers but actually does something completely different, thanks to the bugs it contains); ‘Best Abuse of User’ (a program which generates insults); and ‘Worst Abuse of Rules’ (thanks to the embedded Perl). At the time of writing, the 16th IOCC was due to open in Spring 2001. Judging by the results of the 15th contest, competition will be strong!
Friendly advice
For some useful tips for the programming professional, you need look no further than Josh Parris’ Exciting Web Site at
http://parris.josh.com.au. Amongst other things, the site offers the following advice:
1. A bug is only a legitimate bug if it holds up under exhaustive argument. Be sure to write a minimum 500 word essay if that's what's required to convince an errant tester that a bug doesn't exist. Remember, testers are only testers because they aren't intelligent enough to write code.
2. Argument for the sake of argument is a great stress reliever for you and your co-workers. Can't think of anything to argue about? Jump on the next thing anyone says, regardless of what it is. After all, a stress-free workplace is a happy workplace.
And, on a more technical note:
3. Dynamic memory allocation on the heap via the ‘new’ keyword is a wonderful thing. Why use the stack with its pathetic automatic variables when you can have complete and total control over where your application leaks memory?
Top of the page
Have you read Angie Baxter?
Articles Main Menu
|
Issue 26
Issue 25
Issue 24
Issue 23
Issue 22
Issue 21
Issue 20
Issue 19
Issue 18
|