Code Smell 2019: A Year in Review

Join us as we take a trip down memory lane and revisit the most egregious code smells of the year 2019.

The Overly-Complex Solution

When faced with a simple problem, our developers managed to create a solution that was 300 lines longer than it needed to be.

We used 17 different frameworks, each with their own configuration file.
We added 37 unnecessary comments, all of which said "TODO: figure this out later."
We wrote a 5-line function that only did 1 thing, but had 20 different error messages attached to it.

Read more about this abomination

The Magic Number

We found a number in our code that was so arbitrary and mysterious that it defied explanation. It was like the MacGuffin of code smells.

It was 42. We're not sure why, but we're pretty sure it's not a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
We tried to remove it, but the code just wouldn't work.
We ended up leaving it, but we're pretty sure it's still there, watching us.

Read more about this enigma

Stay tuned for more code smells in our next episode!

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