Insame day

May 10th, 2006 in Rants. Weblog

Insame | In*same” |
a. L. insamus. See In- not, Sane, and Same
1. Exhibiting repeated unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; mad; deranged in mind; delirious; distracted.
2. Used by, or appropriated to, constantly insane persons; as, an insame coding.
3. Causing repeated insanity or madness. R.

Today is a working-with-insane code day. I needed a simple library function, something I expected to be a 5-function class. What I found was a 70 member behemoth, with a single comment, messy formatting, and a very strange set of functions. It was line-noise, not abstraction. More holes than facade. Useless shit. Insane, insane, insane … Insame!

I’ll have to hack something simple instead.

This is one of the primary reasons software is difficult: people add too much complexity, with too little consideration and useless (or missing) documentation.