All true believers doth wish for a better error-handling mechanism, for explicit checks of return codes are tiresome in the extreme and the temptation to omit them is great. But until the far-off day of deliverance cometh, one must walk the long and winding road with patience and care, for thy Vendor, thy Machine, and thy Software delight in surprises and think nothing of producing subtly meaningless results on the day before thy Thesis Oral or thy Big Pitch To The Client.
Occasionally, as with the ferror() feature of stdio, it is possible to defer error checking until the end when a cumulative result can be tested, and this often produceth code which is shorter and clearer. Also, even the most zealous believer should exercise some judgement when dealing with functions whose failure is totally uninteresting... but beware, for the cast to void is a two-edged sword that sheddeth thine own blood without remorse.
7 Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to reinvent them without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and productive.
Numberless are the unwashed heathen who scorn their libraries on various silly and spurious grounds, such as blind worship of the Little Tin God (also known as ``Efficiency''). While it is true that some features of the C libraries were ill-advised, by and large it is better and cheaper to use the works of others than to persist in re-inventing the square wheel. But thou should take the greatest of care to understand what thy libraries promise, and what they do not, lest thou rely on facilities that may vanish from under thy feet in future.
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.
These words, alas, have caused some uncertainty among the novices and the converts, who knoweth not the ancient wisdoms. The One True Brace Style referred to is that demonstrated in the writings of the First Prophets, Kernighan and Ritchie. Often and again it is criticized by the ignorant as hard to use, when in truth it is merely somewhat difficult to learn, and thereafter is wonderfully clear and obvious, if perhaps a bit sensitive to mistakes.
While thou might think that thine own ideas of brace style lead to clearer programs, thy successors will not thank thee for it, but rather shall revile thy works and curse thy name, and word of this might get to thy next employer. Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are precisely the optimal choices is much less important. So it is with brace style.
As a lamentable side issue, there has been some unrest from the fanatics of the Pronoun Gestapo over the use of the word ``man'' in this Commandment, for they believe that great efforts and loud shouting devoted to the ritual purification of the language will somehow redound to the benefit of the downtrodden (whose real and grievous woes tendeth to get lost amidst all that thunder and fury). When preaching the gospel to the narrow of mind and short of temper, the word ``creature'' may be substituted as a suitable pseudoBiblical term free of the taint of Political Incorrectness.
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.
Though some hasty zealots cry ``not so; the Millenium is come, and this saying is obsolete and no longer need be supported'', verily there be many, many ancient systems in the world, and it is the decree of the dreaded god Murphy that thy next employment just might be on one. While thou sleepest, he plotteth against thee. Awake and take care.
It is, note carefully, not necessary that thy identifiers be limited to a length of six characters. The only requirement that the holy words place upon thee is uniqueness within the first six. This often is not so hard as the belittlers claimeth.
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.
This particular heresy bids fair to be replaced by ``All the world's a Sun'' or ``All the world's a 386'' (this latter being a particularly revolting invention of Satan), but the words apply to all such without limitation. Beware, in particular, of the subtle and terrible ``All the world's a 32-bit machine'', which is almost true today but shall cease to be so before thy resume grows too much longer.
