A nasty stomach flu had been making its way through the
Temple. Fully half the Spider Clan had fallen victim, so to
meet deadlines the monk Wangohan had been forced to team
with his longtime nemesis, the monk Landhwa.
To avoid conflicts that might lead to yet another
incapacitated developer, their newly appointed
master-in-training Zjing decided that they should work in
separate shifts—Landhwa by day, Wangohan by night.
“Finally,” said Zjing on the videoconferencing monitor, “we
cannot risk delays caused by arguments over coding style.
But neither do I wish to have two separate styles in one
application. Therefore, as Wangohan is new to this project,
he will follow Landhwa’s style as precisely as possible.”
Wangohan bowed his assent and took his leave to rest before
the night’s work.
When night fell, Wangohan began to familiarize himself with
Landhwa’s source code. He was pleased to see that there were
no magic literals, but pleasure turned to horror when he
discovered that every constant in the application—regardless
of purpose—had been declared in a single, huge, uncommented
Constants.java file:
.. public static final String HELP = "HELP"; public static
final String HELP2 = "Need help?"; public static final
String HELPU = "/help"; public static final String HELPTA =
"{{help}}"; public static final String HELPTB = "${help}";
public static final String HTTP = "HTTP"; public static
final String HTTPU = "http://"; public static final String
HTTPS = "https"; ...
Wangohan was about to refactor the file when he remembered
Zjing’s decree. Not wishing to disrespect the nascent
authority of his longtime friend, Wangohan lifted his
fingers from the keyboard and scowled at the monitor for a
long time.
In the morning, Landhwa found a message waiting for him from
Wangohan:
All has been coded according to your example.
Landhwa pulled the latest changes from the repository and
found that nearly every source file had disappeared. Only
two remained. The first Landhwa recognized; the second was
but a few hours old:
