How To Develop Unmaintainable Software 211
jones_supa writes "Greg Jorgensen specializes in debugging, fixing, maintaining, and extending legacy software systems. His typical client has a web site or internal application that works, more or less, but the original developer isn't available. Greg lists some things you can do in your own software projects to keep him in business. In summary, the list goes as follows: Customize your development environment a lot, don't make it easy for the next programmer to start working on the code. Create an elaborate build and deployment environment and remember to leave out the documentation. Don't bother with a testing/staging server but instead have secret logins and backdoor URLs to test new features, and mix test data with real data in your database. Don't bother with a well-understood framework, write everything from scratch instead. Add dependencies to specific versions of libraries and resources, but don't protect or document those dependencies. For the icing of the cake, use the coolest mix of cutting-edge programming languages."
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1) Comments - 98% of programmers can't write a decent comment.
2) Object Oriented - This term usually means the code is structured like a child got let loose on the code and it can't be managed. Not always but usually if you hear object oriented design the code will be crap.
3. Formatting - Don't use spaces, use tabs! I should be able to open your code on Linux, Mac or Windows in any editor without issue.
4. Ansi / Posix - Don't lock your code to any one platform, it should be portable so just forget crap like
5. In code documentation - if I have to decode your logic it sucks.
6. Bad structures - Don't use massive loops and flow when a simple goto might be a better solution, being a smart-ass makes you look like an idiot.
I could keep going but I think it's a good inital list, make sure I can work on your bloody code easily.