1. Thou shalt run lint
frequently and study its pronouncements with care, for verily its perception and
judgement oft exceed thine.
2. Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at
its end.
3. Thou shalt cast all function arguments to the expected type if they are not
of that type already, even when thou art convinced that this is unnecessary,
lest they take cruel vengeance upon thee when thou least expect it.
4. If thy header files fail to declare the return types of thy library
functions, thou shalt declare them thyself with the most meticulous care, lest
grievous harm befall thy program.
5. Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for
surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type
``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.
6. If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event of
difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the checks triple
the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing fingers, for if thou
thinkest ``it cannot happen to me'', the gods shall surely punish thee for thy
arrogance.
7. Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to re-invent them without
cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and
productive.
8. Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure clear to thy fellow man
by using the One True Brace Style, even if thou likest it not, for thy
creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new
impediments to understanding.
9. Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six characters, though
this harsh discipline be irksome and the years of its necessity stretch before
thee seemingly without end, lest thou tear thy hair out and go mad on that
fateful day when thou desirest to make thy program run on an old system.
10. Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which claimeth
that ``All the world's a VAX'', and have no commerce with the benighted heathens
who cling to this barbarous belief, that the days of thy program may be long
even though the days of thy current machine be short.
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