Attack of the Lazy Coder

I’m having such a great time dealing with lazy code. Check out these gems I’ve found just today …

var periodError 
    = string.Format(
        "The Survey Return does not contain a valid Reporting Period");

Why format something that with no parameters? I changed the code to this:

var periodError 
    = "The Survey Return does not contain a valid Reporting Period";

Here’s another good one:

var periodError
    = string.Format(
        "Specified period {0} does not match the expected period {1}.",
        surveyReportingPeriod.ToShortDateString(),
        aReportingPeriod.ToShortDateString());

Let’s completely avoid the format specifiers and convert everything to strings manually. I changed it to this:

var periodError
    = string.Format(
        "Specified period {0:d} does not match the expected period {1:d}.",
        surveyReportingPeriod,
        aReportingPeriod);

What I’m finding really frustrating is that I know the developer who wrote this code, and he’s a smart guy who writes good code most of the time.

Upon reflection, I’d suggest that this code is less important for the actual errors, and more as a reminder that we all can make those errors, even (or especially) those of us who think we’re pretty good at what we do.