I think some of these recommendations, while overall excellent, are somewhat self-contradictory. For example, functions that are no longer than one screenful, A

I think some of these recommendations, while overall excellent, are somewhat self-contradictory. For example, functions that are no longer than one screenful, AND ban on function pointers, AND the general rule to keep the codebase readable. How do you implement a state machine, like a byte code interpreter? You need some way to dispatch functions based on opcodes. You could argue it has no place in mission-critical code, but well-understood, time-bound state machines (like Plan9-style regexes or BPF) can actually greatly increase code readability. Also: Greenspun's tenth rule.