Keith Devens .com

Anti-idioms

Really cool post from Adam on programming anti-idioms.

Knowing a programming language's idioms is the key to being fluent in that language.
It is also important to know what not to do. Just because a language allows a certain coding style doesn't mean that style is a good one.

The anti-idiom he uses as an example is one where you can butcher C++'s exception handling to be able to "return" a value of any type. Read the post for specifics... however, I say that this type of thing is actually an anti-pattern, not an anti-idiom. In fact, I don't think you can even have "anti-idioms". An idiom doesn't really carry a value judgement along with it; an idiom is just a thing people commonly do. [Design] Patterns on the other hand, do carry a value judgement.

I like the way wiki says it, "an AntiPattern is a pattern that tells how to go from a problem to a bad solution", whereas a pattern tells us how to go from a problem to a good solution.

Seen on LtU.

Another reason this is an anti-pattern instead of an anti-idiom which I didn't mention before is that this is a large-scale design rather than a small scale bit of code that would be called an idiom.

Ehud brings up a good possible use for the term anti-idiom:

Perhaps the term anti-idiom should be reserved for incorrect code people repeatedly produce, esp. if related to well known idioms.

Maybe something like for(n=0;n<=count;n++){...} would be an anti-idiom? Or to use Adam's example, something like while(*++n = *++m);?

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00:21 (utc-4)
edited: 17:20 (utc-4)