This document contains 20 sections summarizing various issues and annoyances Gene has encountered in codebases, including verbose null checks and conditionals, hardcoded log levels causing large test outputs, unused exceptions, and constants defined separately from their values instead of using enums. It advocates for clearer documentation, more readable code, and avoiding logic in catch blocks that always throw exceptions.

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Agility. Security. Delivered.
Creative Solutions to
Already Solved Problems II
Gene Gotimer
@CoverosGene

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Single email protection
When returning a form with Personally Identifying Information (PII):

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Irony training
On starting the annual, mandatory information security training:

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Trust us. It is safe.

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At least it's a standard
Browsers are configured with 2 home pages that cannot be changed.
Even in environments with no connectivity to those pages.

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booleans are confusing
In a test:
1298 if (condition1 && condition2)
1299 assertFalse("This will fail!", false);
1300 else
1301 assertTrue("successful", true);
which asserts that false is false or true is true.
No. It won't. Ever.
passes
passes

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Adding assert for sonar
assertTrue("Currently, test fails, but adding assert for sonar", true);
assertTrue(false);
Even if it doesn't need to fail
it will.

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How do I get this?
/**
* Creates a new chainable builder.
*
* @return A chainable builder
*/
public QuestionBuilder get() {
return this;
}

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Be verbose
String specialty = null;
if (mesg.getAppMeta() != null && mesg.getAppMeta().getAppType() != null
&& mesg.getAppMeta().getAppType().equals(AppType.FORM_123B.getDbValue())) {
if (mesg.getAppData() != null && mesg.getAppData().getSupplierType() != null
&& mesg.getAppData().getSupplierType().getType() != null) {
specialty = mesg.getAppData().getSupplierType().getType();
}
} else {
if (mesg.getAppData() != null && mesg.getAppData().getSpecialty() != null) {
if (mesg.getAppData().getSpecialty().getIsDoctor() != null
&& mesg.getAppData().getSpecialty().getIsDoctor()) {
specialty = "Primary Specialty: ";
specialty = getDoctorSpecialty(mesg, specialty);
} else {
if (mesg.getAppData().getSpecialty().getIsNonDoctorPractitioner() != null
&& mesg.getAppData().getSpecialty().getIsNonDoctorPractitioner()) {
…

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Very verbose
Hard-coded, in a test:
Logger.getRootLogger().setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
Added 500Mb of log output to every build.

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Just irritating
…
String authHost = "/auth/userDetailsList/" + contId;
;
if (authHost != null) {
…

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Really irritating
private void getXXX() {

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Guess which branch this is
/**
* @deprecated This is for testing only, remove before merge to master
* @param json
* @return
*/
@Deprecated()

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Documentation is important

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Unclear behavior
If we start with totalObjects being 5:
totalObjects = totalObjects++;
then we end with totalObjects being 5.

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No exceptions thrown here
An exception is created
…
} else {
new IllegalArgumentException("AppFormMap.createEvent: …");
}
…
but never thrown

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Always thrown here
…
} catch (FacadeException fe) {
respBuilder = processFacadeEx(respBuilder, fe);
// Putting business logic in here as the method
// always throws a facade exception
…

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I  null checks
if (user.getCode() != null) {
json.addProperty(CODE, user.getCode());
} else {
json.addProperty(CODE, null);
}

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And I  constants
/** The Constant I_INDICATOR. */
public static final String I_INDICATOR = "I";
/** The Constant N_INDICATOR. */
public static final String N_INDICATOR = "N";
/** The Constant P_INDICATOR. */
public static final String P_INDICATOR = "P";
/** The Constant Y_INDICATOR. */
public static final String Y_INDICATOR = "Y";
/** The Constant X_INDICATOR. */
public static final String X_INDICATOR = "X";

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In case the values ever change
public static final String ZERO = "0";
public static final int INT_ZERO = 0;