Too Many `a`s (with apologies to Dr Seuss)

1 min read Original article ↗
(Original here http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171612)
Did I ever tell you that Programmer McCave
Had twenty-three variables and he named them all `a`
Well, he did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.
You see, when he wants wants to add `a` to 2
He doesn't get a number oh no no no
All twenty-three `a`s cause a buffer overflow
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'
As you can imagine, with so many `a`s.
And often he wishes that, while he was coding,
He hadn't ignored that sense of foreboding
And called one of them runCount, And one of them lastNum
And one of them allSales and another roundSum
And one of them lastId, and another userNames
And one subnetMask, or numStartedGames
Any old names would actually do
even if they were just `bar` or `foo`
And adding hyphens or humble underscores
He could have come up with so many more!
Like read_app_config_from_this_file_name
But no, he went and called them all the same
If only he hadn't given into the hype
And used a language strongly typed
He would have avoided this horrible fate
But he didn't and so now it's too late.