hello world
the teacher in my class told us this english expression, "bad c code is
like a daemon's nose". however, we dont understand why this is used.
does anyone knows the origins of this expression? it references to some
rpg or something?
"Like a d[a]emon's nose" is not familiar to me. However,
"demons will fly out of your nose" was often used as a comical
description of the possible consequences of undefined behavior.
Perhaps your teacher was indicating that bad C code is likely
to find itself engaging in undefined behavior.
The original ANSI Standard introduced the phrase "undefined
behavior" to the C community at large, and when that Standard
was new there was quite a flurry of bizarre descriptions of U.B.
Every day or two a new and odder one would appear on Usenet; the
one I myself liked best was "chocolate pudding will ooze from
your keyboard." After a while, though, the game of inventing
ever odder U.B. descriptions grew stale, and "demons will fly
out of your nose" became standard usage. It was often shortened
to just "nasal demons," or even re-rendered in an oblique form
like "if `x' is negative at this point, you may hear creaking
from your nasal cavities as the demons stretch their wings."
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http://catb.org/jargon/html/N/nasal-demons.html>
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http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/green/gfd34/art/> (bottom)
