How to detect if a number is even

Ategon@programming.dev to Programmer Humor@programming.dev – 15 points –
15

Good solution! I think you should show the last 3 lines that makes it work tho. FIFY:

private bool IsEven(int number){
    if (number == 1) return false;
    else if (number == 2) return true;
    else if (number == 0) return true;
    else if (number == -1) return false;
    else return !IsEven(abs(number) - 1);
}

That's terrible! Didn't we all learn that each method must have exactly one return statement? Please refactor to use a return variable and a single return. And get off my lawn!

I always figured this was a nice joke but obviously not code that would ever actually be written by someone... Then I ran into this millimeter to inch conversion code in production this past month:

if (isNaN(mm)) return 0;
if (mm == 6) {
    inch = 0.125;
}
else if (mm == 8) inch = 0.25;
else if (mm == 10) inch = 0.375;
else if (mm == 15) inch = 0.5;
else if (mm == 20) inch = 0.75;
else if (mm == 25) inch = 1;
else if (mm == 30) inch = 1.25;
else if (mm == 40) inch = 1.5;
else if (mm == 50) inch = 2;
else if (mm == 60) inch = 2.5;
else if (mm == 80) inch = 3;
else if (mm == 90) inch = 3.5;
else if (mm == 100) inch = 4;
...

Even worse is, that the accurate conversion to one inch is 25.4mm.

even worse, the first if statement randomly has brackets while none of the others do

I've actually seen this type of code produced by a human-being who was trying to write good code. It was one of the students in my introduction to programming class in university, we had to write a function that squared a number or something, and he had written hundreds of lines of if-statements. Sometimes you just use what you know to complete an assignment I guess 🤷

Though I want to add this case for interview questions: "Write code that outputs every prime number smaller than 10."

And if the candidate doesn't do 'print "2,3,5,7";', I will deduct points.

I did something similar for a programming competition once because I couldn't remember the c64 basic function to return string length.

Once I got home I rewrote it properly because it bugged me so badly. LEN(string variable) was the command. Stupid!

Wow… did he not know about the multiplication operator?

Apparently not. It was very strange. Although it was the first few days of class and he might not have realized * is multiplication, because when does a non-programmer ever use * for multiplication?