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From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Superstition in Programmers
Message-ID: <598@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Jan-84 17:47:24 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.598
Posted: Wed Jan  4 17:47:24 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Jan-84 19:23:53 EST
References: <322@decvax.UUCP>
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 28

Martin Minow (decvax!minow) writes:

	My favorite superstition (in my own programming) is to never
	use an equality test where a magnitude test could be used.
	For example:

		something(count)
		int	count;
		{
			while (count > 0) {
			    stuff(count);
			    count--;
			}
		}
	...

Actually, this is not entirely a superstition.  It's good insurance against
a runaway program, if the count may be decremented in several places
within the loop; then you don't have to make sure it will always hit 0
at the bottom of the loop.

However, if the count is only decremented once at the bottom of the loop,
then this code may be an example of two other superstitions:  using while
where for would be clearer, and counting downwards to 0 instead of upwards
to how_many_times.

In the spirit of "Software Tools",
Mark Brader