Currently, work has me going through some 10 year-old web applications and changing the code to use MySQL instead of Oracle.

Every so often, I come across just plain bad code.  Here’s today’s first example, a SQL statement:

//get highest round
$value = $db->getOne(
"select value from table
where some_id=$id1
and other_id=$id2
and value >= all
(select value from table
    where some_id=$id1
    and other_id=$id2)
and rownum=1");

Here’s the code after I got done:

$value = $db->getOne(
"select max(value) from table
where some_id = '$id1'
and other_id = '$id2'");

So many times I’ve come across code from programmers who, for one reason or another, have decided that their problem requires a complex solution. And that’s just not the case. There’s usually always a simple solution if you look for it.