SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1

Objective: Write Less Code

Everyone wants to write elegant code. That is, we want to do cool work with less code. The cooler the work is and the less code it takes us, the greater the ratio of elegance. If we can’t make our work cooler, it stands to reason that at least we can improve the elegance ratio (the ratio of coolness to code volume) by doing the same work in fewer lines of code.

That’s a superficial reason, but there are better reasons to write concise code:

• We’ll finish coding a working application more quickly.
• We’ll have less code to test, to document, or to have peer reviewed.
• We’ll have fewer bugs if we have fewer lines of code.

It’s therefore an instinctive priority for programmers to eliminate any code they can, especially ...