This article How to Write Unmaintainable Code covers some of the most brilliant techniques known to man. Some of my favorite ones are:

New Uses For Names For Baby

Buy a copy of a baby naming book and you'll never be at a loss for variable names. Fred is a wonderful name, and easy to type. If you're looking for easy-to-type variable names, try adsf or aoeu if you type with a DSK keyboard.

Creative Miss-spelling

If you must use descriptive variable and function names, misspell them. By misspelling in some function and variable names, and spelling it correctly in others (such as SetPintleOpening SetPintalClosing) we effectively negate the use of grep or IDE search techniques. It works amazingly well. Add an international flavor by spelling tory or tori in different theatres/theaters.

Be Abstract

In naming functions and variables, make heavy use of abstract words like it, everything, data, handle, stuff, do, routine, perform and the digits e.g. routineX48, PerformDataFunction, DoIt, HandleStuff and do_args_method.

CapiTaliSaTion

Randomly capitalize the first letter of a syllable in the middle of a word. For example ComputeRasterHistoGram().

Lower Case l Looks a Lot Like the Digit 1

Use lower case l to indicate long constants. e.g. 10l is more likely to be mistaken for 101 that 10L is. Ban any fonts that clearly disambiguate uvw wW gq9 2z 5s il17|!j oO08 `'" ;,. m nn rn {[()]}. Be creative.

Recycle Your Variables

Wherever scope rules permit, reuse existing unrelated variable names. Similarly, use the same temporary variable for two unrelated purposes (purporting to save stack slots). For a fiendish variant, morph the variable, for example, assign a value to a variable at the top of a very long method, and then somewhere in the middle, change the meaning of the variable in a subtle way, such as converting it from a 0-based coordinate to a 1-based coordinate. Be certain not to document this change in meaning.

Cd wrttn wtht vwls s mch trsr

When using abbreviations inside variable or method names, break the boredom with several variants for the same word, and even spell it out longhand once in while. This helps defeat those lazy bums who use text search to understand only some aspect of your program. Consider variant spellings as a variant on the ploy, e.g. mixing International colour, with American color and dude-speak kulerz. If you spell out names in full, there is only one possible way to spell each name. These are too easy for the maintenance programmer to remember. Because there are so many different ways to abbreviate a word, with abbreviations, you can have several different variables that all have the same apparent purpose. As an added bonus, the maintenance programmer might not even notice they are separate variables.

Obscure film references

Use constant names like LancelotsFavouriteColour instead of blue and assign it hex value of $0204FB. The color looks identical to pure blue on the screen, and a maintenance programmer would have to work out 0204FB (or use some graphic tool) to know what it looks like. Only someone intimately familiar with Monty Python and the Holy Grail would know that Lancelot's favorite color was blue. If a maintenance programmer can't quote entire Monty Python movies from memory, he or she has no business being a programmer.

Document the obvious

Pepper the code with comments like /* add 1 to i */ however, never document wooly stuff like the overall purpose of the package or method.

Document How Not Why

Document only the details of what a program does, not what it is attempting to accomplish. That way, if there is a bug, the fixer will have no clue what the code should be doing.

Side Effects

In C, functions are supposed to be idempotent, (without side effects). I hope that hint is sufficient.

Use Octal

Smuggle octal literals into a list of decimal numbers like this:

array = new int [] { 111, 120, 013, 121, };

Extended ASCII

Extended ASCII characters are perfectly valid as variable names, including ß, Ð, and ñ characters. They are almost impossible to type without copying/pasting in a simple text editor.

Names From Other Languages

Use foreign language dictionaries as a source for variable names. For example, use the German punkt for point. Maintenance coders, without your firm grasp of German, will enjoy the multicultural experience of deciphering the meaning.

Names From Mathematics

Choose variable names that masquerade as mathematical operators, e.g.:

openParen = (slash + asterix) / equals;

Code That Masquerades As Comments and Vice Versa

Include sections of code that is commented out but at first glance does not appear to be.

for(j=0; j<array_len; j+ =8) { total += array[j+0 ]; total += array[j+1 ]; total += array[j+2 ]; /* Main body of total += array[j+3]; * loop is unrolled total += array[j+4]; * for greater speed. total += array[j+5]; */ total += array[j+6 ]; total += array[j+7 ]; }

Without the colour coding would you notice that three lines of code are commented out?

Arbitrary Names That Masquerade as Keywords

When documenting, and you need an arbitrary name to represent a filename use "file ". Never use an obviously arbitrary name like "Charlie.dat" or "Frodo.txt". In general, in your examples, use arbitrary names that sound as much like reserved keywords as possible. For example, good names for parameters or variables would be"bank", "blank", "class", "const ", "constant", "input", "key", "keyword", "kind", "output", "parameter" "parm", "system", "type", "value", "var" and "variable ". If you use actual reserved words for your arbitrary names, which would be rejected by your command processor or compiler, so much the better. If you do this well, the users will be hopelessly confused between reserved keywords and arbitrary names in your example, but you can look innocent, claiming you did it to help them associate the appropriate purpose with each variable.

Code Names Must Not Match Screen Names

Choose your variable names to have absolutely no relation to the labels used when such variables are displayed on the screen. E.g. on the screen label the field "Postal Code" but in the code call the associated variable "zip".

Choosing The Best Overload Operator

In C++, overload +,-,*,/ to do things totally unrelated to addition, subtraction etc. After all, if the Stroustroup can use the shift operator to do I/O, why should you not be equally creative? If you overload +, make sure you do it in a way that i = i + 5; has a totally different meaning from i += 5; Here is an example of elevating overloading operator obfuscation to a high art. Overload the '!' operator for a class, but have the overload have nothing to do with inverting or negating. Make it return an integer. Then, in order to get a logical value for it, you must use '! !'. However, this inverts the logic, so [drum roll] you must use '! ! !'. Don't confuse the ! operator, which returns a boolean 0 or 1, with the ~ bitwise logical negation operator.

Exceptions

I am going to let you in on a little-known coding secret. Exceptions are a pain in the behind. Properly-written code never fails, so exceptions are actually unnecessary. Don't waste time on them. Subclassing exceptions is for incompetents who know their code will fail. You can greatly simplify your program by having only a single try/catch in the entire application (in main) that calls System.exit(). Just stick a perfectly standard set of throws on every method header whether they could actually throw any exceptions or not.

Magic Matrix Locations

Use special values in certain matrix locations as flags. A good choice is the [3][0] element in a transformation matrix used with a homogeneous coordinate system.

Magic Array Slots revisited

If you need several variables of a given type, just define an array of them, then access them by number. Pick a numbering convention that only you know and don't document it. And don't bother to define #define constants for the indexes. Everybody should just know that the global variable widget[15] is the cancel button. This is just an up-to-date variant on using absolute numerical addresses in assembler code.

Never Beautify

Never use an automated source code tidier (beautifier) to keep your code aligned. Lobby to have them banned them from your company on the grounds they create false deltas in PVCS/CVS (version control tracking) or that every programmer should have his own indenting style held forever sacrosanct for any module he wrote. Insist that other programmers observe those idiosyncratic conventions in "his " modules. Banning beautifiers is quite easy, even though they save the millions of keystrokes doing manual alignment and days wasted misinterpreting poorly aligned code. Just insist that everyone use the same tidied format, not just for storing in the common repository, but also while they are editing. This starts an RWAR and the boss, to keep the peace, will ban automated tidying. Without automated tidying, you are now free to accidentally misalign the code to give the optical illusion that bodies of loops and ifs are longer or shorter than they really are, or that else clauses match a different if than they really do. e.g.

if(a) if(b) x=y; else x=z;

Testing is for cowards

A brave coder will bypass that step. Too many programmers are afraid of their boss, afraid of losing their job, afraid of customer hate mail and afraid of being sued. This fear paralyzes action, and reduces productivity. Studies have shown that eliminating the test phase means that managers can set ship dates well in advance, an obvious aid in the planning process. With fear gone, innovation and experimentation can blossom. The role of the programmer is to produce code, and debugging can be done by a cooperative effort on the part of the help desk and the legacy maintenance group.

If we have full confidence in our coding ability, then testing will be unnecessary. If we look at this logically, then any fool can recognise that testing does not even attempt to solve a technical problem, rather, this is a problem of emotional confidence. A more efficient solution to this lack of confidence issue is to eliminate testing completely and send our programmers to self-esteem courses. After all, if we choose to do testing, then we have to test every program change, but we only need to send the programmers to one course on building self-esteem. The cost benefit is as amazing as it is obvious.

Reverse the Usual True False Convention

Reverse the usual definitions of true and false. Sounds very obvious but it works great. You can hide:

#define TRUE 0 #define FALSE 1

somewhere deep in the code so that it is dredged up from the bowels of the program from some file that noone ever looks at anymore. Then force the program to do comparisons like:

if ( var == TRUE ) if ( var != FALSE )

someone is bound to "correct" the apparent redundancy, and use var elsewhere in the usual way:

if ( var )

Another technique is to make TRUE and FALSE have the same value, though most would consider that out and out cheating. Using values 1 and 2 or -1 and 0 is a more subtle way to trip people up and still look respectable. You can use this same technique in Java by defining a static constant called TRUE. Programmers might be more suspicious you are up to no good since there is a built-in literal true in Java.

Exploit Schizophrenia

Java is schizophrenic about array declarations. You can do them the old C, way String x[], (which uses mixed pre-postfix notation) or the new way String[] x, which uses pure prefix notation. If you want to really confuse people, mix the notationse.g.

byte[ ] rowvector, colvector , matrix[ ];

which is equivalent to: