Least there be any misunderstanding, we do not encourage these obscure programming practices. We publicize the results only as a public service — to give this dangerous form of expression a safe outlet. "Please, please, boys and girls, don't attempt this trick at home. Remember these are highly trained professionals." (We hope.)

I suspect an eastern mystic would take satisfaction from the preprocessor's critical role in many of the winning entries. When used simply and directly, the pre-processor contributes as much to understandability and maintainability as any language component. But when purposely exploited — when the pre-processor's latent powers are stretched to achieve non-obvious ends — understandability and maintainability are seriously damaged.

"Too much of a good thing" and all that.

We'll continue our public service campaign in the next issue by announcing the winners of our Bad C Pun Contest. Like the obfuscated code contest, the bad pun contest is intended as a "safety valve". Through this contest we were able to capture and destroy several hundred distressingly bad C puns, hopefully removing them from circulation, at least for a while.

An independent judge selected the most nearly humorous groaners for prizes. We saved only the winners, and will share those with you in the next issue. But, please don't expect much — remember this was a "bad" pun contest, and bad they were.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Ward
Editor/Publisher