While Roy is certainly right in the definition of CodeSmell, I'd also like to point out that those corner cases are corner-cases in the spec, not the code. Reality has corner cases, code doesn't. If you run into one (leapyears, overtime, data retention), that needs to be documented in the spec and the tests first, then in the code. Except, once it hits the code, it's not a corner case - it's a requirement.

That may sound like semantics, but I think it's an important distinction.

My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re^7: Corner cases are not always "code smell" by dragonchild
in thread Neither system testing nor user acceptance testing is the repeat of unit testing (OT) by pg

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