Tag Archives: global constants

Rule #6: Always Define Literals

23 Monday Jun 2025

Posted by in CS101

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It has been more than a few minutes since I posted a Coding Rule, so I thought it was high time I did. There are at least two things I’ve previously written about as important but didn’t elevate to Rules. Both have been bugging me; they should be rules. Today (and a week from now) I’m correcting that oversight.

To be honest, this Rule is so important, I’m not sure why I didn’t make it the third one. Rule #1 and Rule #2 are definitely more important, but the ones currently listed as #3 – #5 are not as important as today’s (they are very important, though).

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The Thing About Constants

16 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in CS101

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Along with “always use less-than” is another great piece of always advice, except this one is a prohibition, a never rather than an always (same thing, really, from a programmer’s point of view).

It has to do with never having literal values embedded in your code.

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Managing Complexity

22 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Opinion

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Somewhere I heard someone claim that: “Programming is an exercise in managing complexity.” The word “is” makes the sentence slightly ambiguous. It could mean: “Programming is just an exercise in managing complexity,” implying that that’s all programming is. Or it could mean: “Programming is an exercise in managing complexity (in addition to other things).”

I would absolutely disagree with the first interpretation; programming is definitely more than just managing complexity. On the other hand, managing complexity is a huge aspect of programming.

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