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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR C PROGRAMMERS (Annotated Edition) by Henry Spencer


1. THOU SHALT RUN LINT FREQUENTLY AND STUDY ITS PRONOUNCEMENTS WITH CARE, FOR
VERILY ITS PERCEPTION AND JUDGEMENT OFT EXCEED THINE.

This is still wise counsel, although many modern compilers search out many of
the same sins, and there are often problems with lint being aged and infirm, or
unavailable in strange lands. There are other tools, such as Saber C, useful to
similar ends.

``Frequently'' means thou shouldst draw thy daily guidance from it, rather than
hoping thy code will achieve lint's blessing by a sudden act of repentance at
the last minute. De-linting a program which has never been linted before is
often a cleaning of the stables such as thou wouldst not wish on thy worst
enemies. Some observe, also, that careful heed to the words of lint can be quite
helpful in debugging.

``Study'' doth not mean mindless zeal to eradicate every byte of lint output-if
for no other reason, because thou just canst not shut it up about some things-
but that thou should know the cause of its unhappiness and understand what
worrisome sign it tries to speak of.


2. THOU SHALT NOT FOLLOW THE NULL POINTER, FOR CHAOS AND MADNESS AWAIT THEE AT
ITS END.

Clearly the holy scriptures were mis-transcribed here, as the words should have
been ``null pointer'', to minimize confusion between the concept of null
pointers and the macro NULL (of which more anon). Otherwise, the meaning is
plain. A null pointer points to regions filled with dragons, demons, core dumps,
and numberless other foul creatures, all of which delight in frolicing in thy
program if thou disturb their sleep. A null pointer doth not point to a 0 of any
type, despite some blasphemous old code which impiously assumes this.


3. THOU SHALT CAST ALL FUNCTION ARGUMENTS TO THE EXPECTED TYPE IF THEY ARE NOT
OF THAT TYPE ALREADY, EVEN WHEN THOU ART CONVINCED THAT THIS IS UNNECESSARY,
LEST THEY TAKE CRUEL VENGEANCE UPON THEE WHEN THOU LEAST EXPECT IT.

A programmer should understand the type structure of his language, lest great
misfortune befall him. Contrary to the heresies espoused by some of the dwellers
on the Western Shore, `int' and `long' are not the same type. The moment of
their equivalence in size and representation is short, and the agony that awaits
believers in their interchangeability shall last forever and ever once 64-bit
machines become common.

Also, contrary to the beliefs common among the more backward inhabitants of the
Polluted Eastern Marshes, `NULL' does not have a pointer type, and must be cast
to the correct type whenever it is used as a function argument.

(The words of the prophet Ansi, which permit NULL to be defined as having the
type `void *', are oft taken out of context and misunderstood. The prophet was
granting a special dispensation for use in cases of great hardship in wild
lands. Verily, a righteous program must make its own way through the Thicket Of
Types without lazily relying on this rarely-available dispensation to solve all
its problems. In any event, the great deity Dmr who created C hath wisely
endowed it with many types of pointers, not just one, and thus it would still be
necessary to convert the prophet's NULL to the desired type.)

It may be thought that the radical new blessing of ``prototypes'' might
eliminate the need for caution about argument types. Not so, brethren. Firstly,
when confronted with the twisted strangeness of variable numbers of arguments,
the problem returns... and he who has not kept his faith strong by repeated
practice shall surely fall to this subtle trap. Secondly, the wise men have
observed that reliance on prototypes doth open many doors to strange errors, and
some indeed had hoped that prototypes would be decreed for purposes of error
checking but would not cause implicit conversions. Lastly, reliance on
prototypes causeth great difficulty in the Real World today, when many cling to
the old ways and the old compilers out of desire or necessity, and no man
knoweth what machine his code may be asked to run on tomorrow.


4. IF THY HEADER FILES FAIL TO DECLARE THE RETURN TYPES OF THY LIBRARY
FUNCTIONS, THOU SHALT DECLARE THEM THYSELF WITH THE MOST METICULOUS CARE, LEST
GRIEVOUS HARM BEFALL THY PROGRAM.

The prophet Ansi, in her wisdom, hath added that thou shouldst also scourge thy
Suppliers, and demand on pain of excommunication that they produce header files
that declare their library functions. For truly, only they know the precise form
of the incantation appropriate to invoking their magic in the optimal way.

The prophet hath also commented that it is unwise, and leads one into the pits
of damnation and subtle bugs, to attempt to declare such functions thyself when
thy header files do the job right.


5. THOU SHALT CHECK THE ARRAY BOUNDS OF ALL STRINGS (INDEED, ALL ARRAYS), FOR
SURELY WHERE THOU TYPEST ``FOO'' SOMEONE SOMEDAY SHALL TYPE
``SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS''.

As demonstrated by the deeds of the Great Worm, a consequence of this
commandment is that robust production software should never make use of gets(),
for it is truly a tool of the Devil. Thy interfaces should always inform thy
servants of the bounds of thy arrays, and servants who spurn such advice or
quietly fail to follow it should be dispatched forthwith to the Land Of Rm,
where they can do no further harm to thee.


6. IF A FUNCTION BE ADVERTISED TO RETURN AN ERROR CODE IN THE EVENT OF
DIFFICULTIES, THOU SHALT CHECK FOR THAT CODE, YEA, EVEN THOUGH THE CHECKS TRIPLE
THE SIZE OF THY CODE AND PRODUCE ACHES IN THY TYPING FINGERS, FOR IF THOU
THINKEST ``IT CANNOT HAPPEN TO ME'', THE GODS SHALL SURELY PUNISH THEE FOR THY
ARROGANCE.

All true believers doth wish for a better error-handling mechanism, for explicit
checks of return codes are tiresome in the extreme and the temptation to omit
them is great. But until the far-off day of deliverance cometh, one must walk
the long and winding road with patience and care, for thy Vendor, thy Machine,
and thy Software delight in surprises and think nothing of producing subtly
meaningless results on the day before thy Thesis Oral or thy Big Pitch To The
Client.

Occasionally, as with the ferror() feature of stdio, it is possible to defer
error checking until the end when a cumulative result can be tested, and this
often produceth code which is shorter and clearer. Also, even the most zealous
believer should exercise some judgement when dealing with functions whose
failure is totally uninteresting... but beware, for the cast to void is a two-
edged sword that sheddeth thine own blood without remorse.


7. THOU SHALT STUDY THY LIBRARIES AND STRIVE NOT TO REINVENT THEM WITHOUT CAUSE,
THAT THY CODE MAY BE SHORT AND READABLE AND THY DAYS PLEASANT AND PRODUCTIVE.

Numberless are the unwashed heathen who scorn their libraries on various silly
and spurious grounds, such as blind worship of the Little Tin God (also known as
``Efficiency''). While it is true that some features of the C libraries were
ill-advised, by and large it is better and cheaper to use the works of others
than to persist in re-inventing the square wheel. But thou should take the
greatest of care to understand what thy libraries promise, and what they do not,
lest thou rely on facilities that may vanish from under thy feet in future.


8. THOU SHALT MAKE THY PROGRAM'S PURPOSE AND STRUCTURE CLEAR TO THY FELLOW MAN
BY USING THE ONE TRUE BRACE STYLE, EVEN IF THOU LIKEST IT NOT, FOR THY
CREATIVITY IS BETTER USED IN SOLVING PROBLEMS THAN IN CREATING BEAUTIFUL NEW
IMPEDIMENTS TO UNDERSTANDING.

These words, alas, have caused some uncertainty among the novices and the
converts, who knoweth not the ancient wisdoms. The One True Brace Style referred
to is that demonstrated in the writings of the First Prophets, Kernighan and
Ritchie. Often and again it is criticized by the ignorant as hard to use, when
in truth it is merely somewhat difficult to learn, and thereafter is wonderfully
clear and obvious, if perhaps a bit sensitive to mistakes.

While thou might think that thine own ideas of brace style lead to clearer
programs, thy successors will not thank thee for it, but rather shall revile thy
works and curse thy name, and word of this might get to thy next employer. Many
customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote productivity
as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are precisely the optimal
choices is much less important. So it is with brace style.

As a lamentable side issue, there has been some unrest from the fanatics of the
Pronoun Gestapo over the use of the word ``man'' in this Commandment, for they
believe that great efforts and loud shouting devoted to the ritual purification
of the language will somehow redound to the benefit of the downtrodden (whose
real and grievous woes tendeth to get lost amidst all that thunder and fury).
When preaching the gospel to the narrow of mind and short of temper, the word
``creature'' may be substituted as a suitable pseudoBiblical term free of the
taint of Political Incorrectness.


9. THY EXTERNAL IDENTIFIERS SHALL BE UNIQUE IN THE FIRST SIX CHARACTERS, THOUGH
THIS HARSH DISCIPLINE BE IRKSOME AND THE YEARS OF ITS NECESSITY STRETCH BEFORE
THEE SEEMINGLY WITHOUT END, LEST THOU TEAR THY HAIR OUT AND GO MAD ON THAT
FATEFUL DAY WHEN THOU DESIREST TO MAKE THY PROGRAM RUN ON AN OLD SYSTEM.

Though some hasty zealots cry ``not so; the Millenium is come, and this saying
is obsolete and no longer need be supported'', verily there be many, many
ancient systems in the world, and it is the decree of the dreaded god Murphy
that thy next employment just might be on one. While thou sleepest, he plotteth
against thee. Awake and take care.

It is, note carefully, not necessary that thy identifiers be limited to a length
of six characters. The only requirement that the holy words place upon thee is
uniqueness within the first six. This often is not so hard as the belittlers
claimeth.


10. THOU SHALT FORESWEAR, RENOUNCE, AND ABJURE THE VILE HERESY WHICH CLAIMETH
THAT ``ALL THE WORLD'S A VAX'', AND HAVE NO COMMERCE WITH THE BENIGHTED HEATHENS
WHO CLING TO THIS BARBAROUS BELIEF, THAT THE DAYS OF THY PROGRAM MAY BE LONG
EVEN THOUGH THE DAYS OF THY CURRENT MACHINE BE SHORT.

This particular heresy bids fair to be replaced by ``All the world's a Sun'' or
``All the world's a 386'' (this latter being a particularly revolting invention
of Satan), but the words apply to all such without limitation. Beware, in
particular, of the subtle and terrible ``All the world's a 32-bit machine'',
which is almost true today but shall cease to be so before thy resume grows too
much longer.