bitwix

Tangential comments about Software Development

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

When does a 114-line piece of code take six pages to print?

We're off to see a customer, carrying a bit of SQL Code that makes sure it dumps everything from a couple of tables. As we expect to discuss the code, I decided to print a copy - it's only 114 lines long, so it wouldn't take much paper. I watched the status bar tick up from page 1/6 to 6/6.

The SQL has to name each field being exported, and there are a lot of them. So the longest line in the code is 6,700 characters wide. Hence, a six-page printout.

Conclusions: Assume nothing. Have a fast laser printer, but get someone else to pay for toner.