The Ten Commandments For C Programmers by H. Spencer (1987)
groups.google.comLooks better rendered in PDF: https://www.unur.com/10cfcp.pdf
groff -ms -Tps 10cfcp.in > 10cfcp.ps
ps2pdf 10cfcp.psAh, I remember seeing this when it was first posted in comp.lang.c and being duly impressed. I had definitely a printed typeset copy in various work environments.
Remember, it was a time when the language had no function prototypes, and we were seeing more and more code abusing parameter passing and value returning by "knowing" what happens.
Re-reading it now, I'm amazed on how general the commandments are, the underlying wisdom applicable to any language and system.
The last thing we need right now is more antivax propaganda.
>Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which claimeth that ``All the world's a VAX'',
We could update that to "All the world's linux" today.
More directly comparable to renouncing “All the world’s an x86” around now.
> Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to re-invent them without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and productive.
Just reading through the list of names of libraries in a package manager is more than I can handle, let alone reading through their APIs. I imagine this was a bit more possible to do in the 80s. Still though, I wish there was a more manageable way to handle this.