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Ask HN: what is the most stupid line of code you saw?

8 points by _yields ↗ HN
Believe it or not, i just saw this:

`if (true === true)`

^^ Old PHP site.

19 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 61.1 ms ] thread
whalesalad
I do that sometimes during debugging. It stands out and I know to change it later. If 1 == 0, etc...
pyfap
Saw the title. Immediately thought of something I saw today at work. Not too different from yours. 'if ('True' == 'True')'. I should note that this is javascript generated by a template file.
kschua
Java code

if (obj instanceof java.lang.Object)

eduardordm
First, your answer is why I almost never criticize people's code:

This is (was in Sun's time) an actual possible certification question and you are wrong, this CAN return false:

        Object obj = new Object() {{ System.out.println(false); System.exit(0); }};
        
        System.out.println(obj instanceof Object);
tdubbed
I've actually used 1==2 and 1==1 to basically comment sections out or create an infinite while loop. Only really useful in C-style languages

Dumb mistakes I've seen include commented out error checking because of a reversed greater than sign and a SQL query that deletes the whole table before rebuilding the entire thing every day

krapp 

   <?php /* Start the Loop */ ?>
Followed by more php.
dangrossman
That's not bad code, it's just WordPress lingo you're unfamiliar with. http://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop
vsync
> That's not bad code, it's just WordPress

Contradiction.

krapp
I wish I were unfamiliar with it....

I think it is bad practice at least then, if not explicitly bad code, because it's needlessly overcomplicated. Why use the end tag when you're not switching contexts between php and html? After this line there's just another open tag and more code... it's a pointless way of writing php that makes it aggravating to read and edit.

orangethirty
Mine. From a long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away.

    #python SQL injection paradise.
    sql = 'SELECT * FROM %s' % table
fzfzqfz
Old php site from year 2000.

Each line of HTML is generated like that :

$html.='<html>';

$html.='<body>';

$html.='The content';

$html.='</body>';

$html.='</html>';

The dev used this in every file, each file contain thousands of lines like that. Worst project i have ever seen, and i must work alone on it. FML.

krapp
I've seen this done with SQL queries all the time but... ouch.
eb0la
I remember in college, someone left his/hers C assignment source code in the lab (laptops were a luxury in that time).

The code was really awful, and that part hurt my eyes:

/* commented out code. <--- Yep. That was the actual comment.

  and here was the code
  seriously
 */
At least (s)he knew what a block comment was.
DanielN
My personal favorite:

  $array = array('z'=>12, 'o'=>43, 't'=>32, 'th'=>85, 'f'=>91, 'fi'=>42);
Take a minute look at that and tell me what the keys stand for. When you figure it out you'll realize why this is the worst piece of code you've ever seen.
codeonfire
saw this a while back:

if (failed) { return SUCCESS; }

chrisdevereux
This might make some sense if it wasn't for the comment at the end...

  enum BankID {
   ONE = 1,
   TWO = 2,
   THREE = 3,
   FOUR = 4
   // add more if needed
  };
AbhishekBiswal
My Teacher used this code to explain conditions in class :

if( 1 == 1 ) cout << "it's true" << endl; else cout << "false" << endl;

Haha, 1==1