Linus' idea of "good taste" code

qznc via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Thu Oct 27 01:24:54 PDT 2016


On Wednesday, 26 October 2016 at 09:54:31 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> On 10/26/2016 12:53 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> It's a small bit, but the idea here is to eliminate if 
>> conditionals where possible:
>> 
>> https://medium.com/@bartobri/applying-the-linus-tarvolds-good-taste-coding-requirement-99749f37684a#.nhth1eo4e
>
> I find it both funny and saddening how many reddit commentators 
> complained about Linus version of that code is over-complicated.
>
> "Prefer clear code over smart code" principle is good in 
> general but sometimes it is over-applied to the point where 
> incompetence gets glorified. And this sucks.

I'm unsure about Linus' version. For this example, I agree that 
it is elegant. It is fine in this specific case, because 
everything is local within a single function. In general, the 
trick to use a pointer to the element probably not a good idea.

The article/Linus does not explain the tradeoffs properly, which 
makes it dangerous advice.


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