The exceptional beauty of Doom 3’s source code
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 15th Jan 2013 21:24 UTC
General Development "I was really excited to write this article, because it gave me an excuse to really think about what beautiful code is. I still don't think I know, and maybe it's entirely subjective. I do think the two biggest things, for me at least, are stylistic indenting and maximum const-ness. A lot of the stylistic choices are definitely my personal preferences, and I'm sure other programmers will have different opinions. I think the choice of what style to use is up to whoever has to read and write the code, but I certainly think it's something worth thinking about. I would suggest everyone look at the Doom 3 source code because I think it exemplifies beautiful code, as a complete package: from system design down to how to tab space the characters." John Carmack himself replies in the comments.
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RE[4]: Good article
by OzzyLondon on Wed 16th Jan 2013 15:30 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Good article"
OzzyLondon
Member since:
2011-11-18

a = a + 1 = a.operator+( T other )
a++ = a.operator++( int )
++a = a.operator++()

Three completely different function calls

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: Good article
by Alfman on Wed 16th Jan 2013 16:02 in reply to "RE[4]: Good article"
Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

OzzyLondon,

"a = a + 1 = a.operator+( T other )
a++ = a.operator++( int )
++a = a.operator++()
Three completely different function calls"

You are absolutely correct. And the post-increment operator highlights a C++ syntactic hack in and of itself. Personally I'm a bit disappointed that the language designers reverted to such an ugly hack (passing in unused int parameter to distinguish between functions).

Reply Parent Score: 2