devRant - A fun community for developers to connect over code, tech & life as a programmer

So... I just remembered a story that's perfect for devrant.

My brother got into engineering in university, and during the second semester they had their introductory class to programming. They had weekly homeworks that the lecturer would check and give grades accordingly.

The factors that could influence the grading were: execution (meaning that the code would excecute as intended), efficiency and readabilty. The weeks passed and everyone was doing well, getting fairly good grades. Everyone was happy.

Until one day a random guy we'll call bob got the worst grade possible. Bob wasn't a bad student. He had over-the-average grades in all the weekly homeworks and even impressed the professor in some. Naturally, he was baffled when he saw his grade on the google spreadsheet. He was pretty sure his code ran well. He always tested it on different machines and OSs. So, at the end of the class, he went straight to the helper of the class, in a pretty imperative manner, to demand to know how the fuck he got that grade. It's impossible he got excecution, efficiency and readabilty, wrong. All three wrong? Impossible. Even the stupidiest kid in the class had some points on readabilty.

"Oh, so you are Bob. Huh?" said the helper in a laid-back attitude. "Come with me. Prof. X is waiting for you in his office."

This got Bob even more confused. As they approached the office, the courage he had in a first moment banished and gave way for nervousness and fear.

The helper nocks the door. "Prof., Bobs here"

As soon as Bob sits in the chair in front of Prof. X's, he knew something bad was coming.
"In all these years of teaching..." said Prof. X hesitantly. "In all these years of teaching I have not come even close to see something similar to what you've done. You should be ashamed of yourself." Needless to say, Bob was panicked.

"In all these years I have not seen such blatant mockery!" added the professor. "HOW THE FUCK DID YOU EVEN DARE TO SEND A HOMEWORK WITH SUCH VARIABLE NAMING" That's when Bob realised the huge mistake he made. "NEVER IN ALL THESE YEARS I HAVE SEEN SOMEONE NAME HIS VARIABLES *opens the file on his desktop *: PENIS, SHIT, FUCKSHIT, GAYFUCKING<insert Prof. X's name>MAN, GOATSE, VAGINAVAR, CUMFUNCTION, [...]" The list of obcenities went on and on. In each word, the professor hit the table harder than the last time.

Turns out Bob felt so in comfort with the ease of the course he decided to spice things up by using "funny naming conventions" while coding, and then tidying everything up before uploading the homework. This week he forgot, and fucked it big time.

So remember folks, always check your code before committing/giving it in/production. And always adhere to naming conventions.