abadideaFeb 2, 2024

A few times I have told the anecdote that the singly most baffling thing I ever saw in a code review — not the most insecure, just the most “how could a real programmer have written this? how could this ever make sense?” thing — was simply a C++ variable “number_of_trucks” … declared as float. Unambiguously referring to real physical trucks in a fleet.

Reader, it’s been over ten years and I am blowing the gods damn whistle. I had edited that story to protect the guilty: the variable was named number_of_planes. It was shipped by a company whose name begins with “B” and rhymes with “GOING out of business.”

Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫Feb 2, 2024

@0xabad1dea

But now it makes sense. Number of planes can go from 1.0 to 0.99 in flight.

Show threadBlouie the Blue HeelerFeb 2, 2024

@petealexharris @0xabad1dea

If a sufficient number of parts falls off in flight all that eventually remains is a floating point. Sound plausible 😝

Show threadBen AvelingFeb 2, 2024

@bluish_gecko

If too many parts fall off, it stops floating.

@petealexharris @0xabad1dea

Show threadBlouie the Blue HeelerFeb 2, 2024

@BenAveling @petealexharris @0xabad1dea

Mathematically speaking a point is an infinitesimally small fraction of space.
So if there’s nothing left to float it can’t fall 😄
So it comes down to the question which „epsilon“ is the acceptable round-off for „zero planes“!

Show threadBen AvelingFeb 2, 2024

@bluish_gecko A sufficiently small part of a plane could be small enough to float for quite a long time. But we're getting into the Jumbo-Max-Of-Theseus at this point.

@petealexharris @0xabad1dea

Show threadBlouie the Blue Heeler

@BenAveling @petealexharris @0xabad1dea

Could this be called 737-min-maxing then?

Feb 4, 2024 at 9:32pmWeb