When your code works but no idea how

@stux

You can learn a lot about an individual
just by reading through his code,
even in hexadecimal.
Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.

Perhaps my greatest shock came
when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it.
No test. *None*.
Common sense said it had to be a closed loop,
where the program would circle, forever, endlessly.
Program control passed right through it, however,
and safely out the other side.
It took me two weeks to figure it out.

@xenotrope @stux And you added comments, or even changed the code, to make it clearer to those who follow you in maintaining it, yes?

@PatternChaser @stux

I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the
offending test,
telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it.
He didn't seem surprised.

https://users.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/mel.html

The Story of Mel