c programmer's disease

2 definitions found

c programmer's disease - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  C Programmer's Disease
  
     <programming> The tendency of the undisciplined C programmer
     to set arbitrary but supposedly generous static limits on
     table sizes (defined, if you're lucky, by constants in header
     files) rather than taking the trouble to do proper dynamic
     storage allocation.  If an application user later needs to put
     68 elements into a table of size 50, the afflicted programmer
     reasons that he or she can easily reset the table size to 68
     (or even as much as 70, to allow for future expansion) and
     recompile.  This gives the programmer the comfortable feeling
     of having made the effort to satisfy the user's (unreasonable)
     demands, and often affords the user multiple opportunities to
     explore the marvellous consequences of fandango on core.  In
     severe cases of the disease, the programmer cannot comprehend
     why each fix of this kind seems only to further disgruntle the
     user.
  
     [Jargon File]
  
     (2001-12-31)
  

c programmer's disease - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  C Programmer's Disease
   n.
  
     The tendency of the undisciplined C programmer to set arbitrary but
     supposedly generous static limits on table sizes (defined, if you're
     lucky, by constants in header files) rather than taking the trouble
  to
     do proper dynamic storage allocation. If an application user later
     needs to put 68 elements into a table of size 50, the afflicted
     programmer reasons that he or she can easily reset the table size to
     68 (or even as much as 70, to allow for future expansion) and
     recompile. This gives the programmer the comfortable feeling of
  having
     made the effort to satisfy the user's (unreasonable) demands, and
     often affords the user multiple opportunities to explore the
  marvelous
     consequences of fandango on core. In severe cases of the disease,
     the programmer cannot comprehend why each fix of this kind seems only
     to further disgruntle the user.