This Daily WTF reminded me of a guy I used to work with who would use this pattern in every single function he wrote.
Public Const cSTRINGFOO As String = "foo"
Public Function Foo() As Boolean
Dim ret As Boolean = False
Try
Console.WriteLine(cSTRINGFOO)
ret = True
Catch ex As Exception
ret = False
Throw New Exception("", ex)
End Try
Foo = ret
Exit Function
End Function
I’m not sure what he was expecting to happen here, but there were some clues:
- Every function he wrote returned true or false to indicate that it had successfully completed without an exception.
- Every exception was wrapped in another, except where he forgot and swallowed the exceptions.
- He would always use constants for string literals, even if he only used the literal once (like above), and even if the constant was much longer than the literal.
Mind you, I discovered this self-imposed standard a while after he quit, so I never really got to the bottom of it.