Never mind automated linters, how many times have you seen this exchange?

“You should always use strict and warnings.”

“I used to have those but they caused a lot of errors and my code wouldn't run so I took them out.”

But I can top that. I’ve actually seen this, and not just once, either:

Manager: “We can’t have any more coredumps from our C programs. It makes us look bad and interferes with production.”

Programmer: signal(SIGSEGV, SIG_IGN);

I see stuff like this every day, stuff that doesn’t so much move you to righteous ranting as it does to being stricken dumb with sheer disbelief. I bet I now have keyboard-shaped wedges permanently imprinted on my forehead.

It’s code that leads first to apoplexy and thence to syncope. The thing is, after they bring around the code-smelling salts and still dazed you awaken from your nightmare, it’s all still there: holy terrors of truly Biblical proportion.

And by Biblical, I’m specifically thinking of the venerable Books of Job and of Lamentations and of Ecclesiastes: no Good News to be found. :)

We’re well into sackcloth-and-ashes territory here.

“Weeping may endure for an entire dark release, but joy cometh in the fresh light of refactoring.”

― Psalms 30:5, the Programmers’ edition