Code Smell 227 - Cowboy Coding

Leave cowboys to Hollywood movies

Maximiliano Contieri

Oct 15, 2023

TL;DR: Write code as a team programmer

Problems

Readability
Unreliable code
People Management Issues
Lack of coordination

Solutions

Write professional code
Use declarative non-cryptic names

Context

Cowboy coders don't follow best practices.

They don't follow team suggestions.

Cowboy coding is generally considered an unprofessional and risky approach to software development because it can lead to code that is hard to maintain and prone to errors.

Cowboy Programmers are good people; however, they cannot work in a group.

Sample Code

Wrong

# Very simple example 
# Compute the sum of two numbers without any structure or best practices.

num1 = input("Enter the first number: ")
num2 = input("Enter the second number: ")

# WARNNING!!!! Don't remove the line below !!!!!
# (Unpleasant comment)

res = num1 + num2  # (No data type checking or error handling)

print("The sum is: " + result)  # (No validation or formatting)

# (No good names, no functions, no error handling, no testing, 
# no version control, and no structure.)

Right

def add_numbers():
    try:
        firstAddend = float(input("Enter the first number: "))
        secondAddend = float(input("Enter the second number: "))
        sum = firstAddend + secondAddend
        return sum
    except ValueError:
        print("Invalid input. Please enter valid numbers.")
        return None

def main():
    sum = add_numbers()
    if sum is not None:
        print("The sum is: {:.2f}".format(sum))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()