Cyclomatic complexity is a software metric that measures the number of linearly independent paths through a program's source code. It's a fancy way of saying "how many different ways can this code execute" and is often used as a proxy for code complexity and maintainability (because apparently writing simple code is too hard for some 10X engineers).

How to use it in a sentence

• I was going to refactor that gnarly function, but then I saw its cyclomatic complexity score was higher than Elon Musk's ego, so I decided to just rewrite it from scratch in Rust.

• My manager keeps nagging me about the cyclomatic complexity of my code, but I told him that's just the price you pay for my genius-level abstractions and design patterns cribbed straight from Gang of Four.

If you actually want to learn more...

• Cyclomatic Complexity: What, Why, and How to Reduce It - This article breaks down what cyclomatic complexity actually measures and some practical tips to keep it under control, but ain't nobody got time for that.

• Cyclomatic Complexity - The Wikipedia article on cyclomatic complexity dives into the mathematical theory behind it, for those engineers who like to pretend they're still math majors.

• Complexity Metrics - Cyclomatic Complexity - More info on using cyclomatic complexity as a metric, along with benchmarks in case you want to see how your spaghetti code stacks up. Spoiler alert: not well.

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