0xBADC0DE - My talk at C++NOW 2014

published at 21.03.2014 12:01 by Jens Weller

Of the many C++ related things in my mind, for the last year the thought of how to deal with bad code was every now and then returning. I've seen as a freelancer and also a trainer many code bases, across the industry, often having to deal with handling code that I haven't written, and could not improve or change at all. I just had to deal with it. So, for the last year I was thinking about bad code and tried to analyze how I could help people to improve their own code base, but also get a feeling if there could be a more general solution to the problem. I hope to get a step closer to this solution with my talk.

So, my talk description for C++Now 2014 names pretty much, what I plan to talk about:

My motivation for this talk is my own experience as a freelancer and trainer. I have seen a lot of good and bad code in different places. This talk tries not only to show examples of bad code, but also to analyze why it exists in the first place, and how to deal with it or fix it. I'll visit anti-patterns, but this talk is not about anti-patterns, as that would only spotlight one of the many problems.

So I'm not going to just show 90 Minutes of bad code, but try to focus on an analysis of bad code, and how it happens that it exists in the first place. So far I have an outline for my talk, and started to work on my slides, I will present a first version of this talk at the April Meetup of my own local user group. Currently my talk splits in 6 chapters:

Introduction

Poor mans C++

Examples of bad code

Dealing with and USING bad code

Bad Code Culture

Seeing the bigger picture

Thats still all subject of change...

... and I don't want to spoil too much here :)

Your part

As I wrote I have seen many code bases in the industry in my years as a freelancer and trainer, but of course I haven't seen everything. So, I'd like to start a discussion on the topic of bad code on reddit, but also you are welcome to send me your examples and/or opinion on the topic to me (info-att<<domainname>.com). I most likely will have a more indepth series on this on this blog in summer, and might present a follow up at CppCon in September.

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