"While digging through some inherited code," writes Joe "M2tM" Smith, "I encountered a conditional masquerading as a loop."

"Thankfully, the fellow responsible is 'no longer with us', and I suppose this type of code stands as silent testament to why. This interesting loop is only created so the break keyword can be used as an elaborate GOTO."

bool bCreateModel = false;
for (;;)
{
    if (!pModel)
    {
        bCreateModel = true;
        break;
    }

    if (asModelParts.GetSize() != asModelPartsToLoad.GetSize())
    {
        bCreateModel = true;
        break;
    }

    for (UINT32 i = 0; i < asModelPartsToLoad.GetSize(); ++i)
    {
        if (asModelPartsToLoad[i] != asModelParts[i])
        {
            bCreateModel = true;
            break;
        }
    }

    break;
}

Paul was having a good morning.  It was a beautiful day outside, he managed to shave 15 minutes off his commute, and even the local coffee shop had his favorite donut in stock.  All of that changed when he got his first support call of the day.  It was from a client running "the beast" product.  "The beast", as Paul and his coworkers nicknamed it, was a legacy version of their application developed somewhere overseas years before Paul was hired, by hundreds of poorly trained, and probably poorly paid, developers.  The company's sales team actively encouraged clients to upgrade from the legacy application, but a select few had resisted.

"The beast" had a reputation for containing some of the worst code Paul had ever seen and every time he had to support it, he felt like he needed a shower afterwards.  It was during his fourth hour of debugging that Paul came across a previously unvisited function shown below. 

public boolean isWidgetReferenced(int widgetId) {
	boolean available = false;

	try {
		String query;
		ResultSet rs = null;
		int count = 0;

		Connection connection = getConnection();
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_REGION WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}
		if (0 < count) return false;

		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_OFFERING WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}
		if (0 < count) return false;

		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_ORDERS WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_NEW WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_HISTORY WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_STATS_RECORDED WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_VIEWED WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_SETS WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_INSTALLED WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_PENDING WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;
		query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM WIDGET_JOURNAL WHERE widgetId=" + widgetId;
		rs = connection.createStatement().executeQuery(query);
		for (; rs.next();) {
			count = rs.getInt(1);
			break;
		}

		if (0 < count) return false;

		available = true;
	} catch (Exception e) {
		logger.error("isWidgetAvailable", e);
	}

	return available;
}

Paul wasn't sure what bothered him the most: that the developer had used a strangely formed for() loop on a structure that always returned exactly one record; that the integer count could have been implemented as a boolean; or that the pattern had been repeated 10 times in this file and dozens of times in other files.  As it turns out, the root cause of the issue was unrelated to the sheer amount of repetitive code.  Had the developer taken the time to clean up this function, they might have noticed that they never closed any of the JDBC connection resources defined in the method.

Bob was in the process of shutting down a software company that he had built over the past seven years. He had found a buyer for all of the software that he'd developed, collected his "eff you money" and was now retiring.

In fact, things were at the point where Bob had already closed the building and redirected the phones to his home phone with a distinctive ring so that he could tie up loose ends while the building was up for sale.

Bob woke one morning at 8:00am to the phone ringing, crawled out of bed and picked up the ‘Bat Phone,' as he called it, in the living room.

"Hello?" Bob said, and gave the name of the company.

Without preamble or introduction, Bob was informed by a woman's voice, "Hi this is Sally Brumbaker, my user id is smb1985. My computer's frozen."

Bob didn't recognize the voice and certainly not the name. Also, it was before coffee. "Your computer's frozen?" Bob affirmed.

"Yes."

"Is the side cold?" Bob asked matter of factly.

"Wait a minute," replied Sally, and then after a pause, "No not at all."

"Ok, then," Bob assured her. "Your computer's not frozen, then, it's probably just running a program. Give it a minute."

"I don't understand, what do…" the woman began, and then, "Oh, ok. There is goes." and that, she hung up the phone and Bob did the same, thinking about how much cream to put into his coffee.

THREE MONTHS LATER

The ‘Bat Phone’ rings. Though the company had long been put to bed, Bob was suddenly reminded of was that he’d forgotten to stop the phone service.

"Hello?" Bob asked, and with a little hesitation, gave the name of his (now non-existent) company.

"Hello,” introduced the caller in a very serious tone, “I need to speak to someone in charge of your technical support."

"Well, that's pretty much me,” replied Bob, “What do you need?"

"Did you or someone working for you tell Sally So-And-So that she could tell if a computer was frozen by feeling the side?"

"What?"

"Sally says she called this number three months ago, and was informed by a support tech that she could tell if a PC was frozen by feeling for the side being cold. Since then, she's been feeling the sides of people's computers, and she's completely humiliated."

"Sally works in your IT department?" Bob asked.

"No, Sally is the Director of our human resources department," Bob was informed.

"And this is...?"

"I sit on the board for Plainston-Princeboro Teaching Hospital."

"I see. So, Sally hires doctors and nurses."

"She does - and now she's been humiliated by you or someone at your company,” huffed the voice on the phone,” What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Well, first," Bob answered, "I'd like to say that, if I get seriously hurt, I'll drag myself right past YOUR hospital."

"WHAT!?"

"Sir," Bob said, with great sincerely, "you have to admit, that's pretty dumb."

Suddenly, the man on the other end of the line was at a sudden loss for words.

"Ok," he said finally, a little deflated, "Sally isn't the most computer savvy person we have, but that doesn't give you the right to prey on her..."

"Sir," Bob said, "I took that call, Sally didn't identify herself, and as soon as she thought she had an answer from me, she hung up the phone before I could explain that I was kidding. I'm sorry if I humiliated her, but I have no idea how she got my number and this isn't a computer technical support company."

"Oh, I see," the person informed Bob. "We’ll, just be more careful, next time,” and with that, hung up the phone.

Since then, Bob disconnected the ‘Bat Phone’ for good, officially severing himself from his old life, but still gets a chuckle thinking of a smartly dressed executive going through the hospital, troubleshooting issues by feeling the sides of PC's and telling their users whether they were frozen of not.

Think of all those old applications you’ve had to maintain. You know the type: the ones written by long-forgotten developers in long-lost languages. The ones that, after spending days searching for that one line of code that needs to be changed, you frustratingly decree “this f%*#@ thing needs to be rewritten.” And, naturally, the ones that never are, nor never will be rewritten.

Call it luck or persistence, but after dozens and dozens of maintenance requests over the years, Israel Brewster finally was given the opportunity to rewrite an application. From scratch. And the right way, this time. No shoddy VB6 front-end; no horribly-designed SQL Server 2000 (only) database; and certainly no Microsoft Access-based administration tool.

Though, after his third straight week of digging through form validation logic requirements – many of which were quadruplicated (or more), inconsistent, and often incorrect –he’s started to question if a rewrite is even possible. Consider, for example, Command 696: a method named that simply because Command1 through Command695 were already taken.

Private Sub Command696_Click()

  On Error GoTo Err_Command696_Click

  Dim stDocName As String
  Dim Response As Integer

  If Frame500 = 1 And pax > 37 Then
     MsgBox "CHECK PAX DASH 8 LIMIT 37 SEATS", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If Frame500 = 2 And pax > 29 Then
     MsgBox "CHECK PAX DASH 8 LIMIT 29 SEATS", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If totalload1 > 2000 Then
     MsgBox "OVERWEIGHT Fwd Shelf ", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If ttshelf > 1000 Then
     MsgBox "OVERWEIGHT Aft Shelf ", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If totalload1 + ttshelf > 2000 Then
     MsgBox "OVERWEIGHT Aft Compartment max 2000 lbs ", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If Frame500 = 1 And totalloadsecd > 0 Then
     MsgBox "DASH 8 WITHOUT SECTION D ", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If Frame500 = 2 And totalloadsecd > 2150 Then
     MsgBox "OVERWEIGHT SECTION D ", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If Remaining < 0 Then
    MsgBox "DASH 8 OVERWEIGHT REDUCE LOAD !!!!", vbOKOnly
  Else
  End If
  If ttload <= 0 Then
    Response = MsgBox("ARE YOU SURE AFT CARGO COMPARTMENT IS EMPTY!!!!", vbYesNo)
  Else
   Response = 6
  End If
  If Frame500 = 1 And pax <= 37 And totalload1 <= 2000 And _
     ttshelf <= 1000 And totalloadsecd = 0 And _
     Remaining >= 0 And totalload1 + ttshelf <= 2000 And Response = 6 Then
    stDocName = "csaprintinfo37seats"
    DoCmd.OpenReport stDocName, acPreview
  Else
  End If
  If Frame500 = 2 And pax <= 29 And totalload1 <= 2000 And _
     ttshelf <= 1000 And totalloadsecd <= 2150 And _
     Remaining >= 0 And totalload1 + ttshelf <= 2000 And Response = 6 Then
    stDocName = "csaprintinfo29seats"
    DoCmd.OpenReport stDocName, acPreview

  Else
  End If