Leon CowleHahahahahahaha. Indeed!
Kim van Wyk@leoncowle good grief - even if they don't know *why* it's significant you'd expect someone writing about computery topics to at least have a feel that the number is special and ask a colleague if it's meaningful, even if just because it comes up so often.
Adrianna Pińska@kimvanwyk @leoncowle Oh, I remember this. They "fixed" it after people complained, and somehow made it about ten^H^H^Height times worse: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/whatsapp-group-chats-bigger-maximum-size-256-people-users-a6856491.html
Juli Jane@leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk
Not sure why you think that this explanation is bad. So why do you take offense with it? One of the groundbreaking early computers used switches after all, image related.
To a lay audience I think the explanation is absolutely fine.
@julijane @confluency @kimvanwyk I'm going to politely (friendly!) disagree with you there. If someone asks me how an iPhone works, I'm not going to explain it in terms of vacuum tubes, irrespective of how important early vacuum tube computers were.
Also, it's a terrible explanation. It's not “one of the most important numbers in computing”. And they don't say why 8 "switches" are used. Why not 7? Or 9? 8 in their explanation *comes across* just as “oddly specific” as their original 256 claim.
@leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk And I have to disagree back. You are manufacturing offense with the explanation. They offer an explanation for the 8 switches, because they explain that this is then one byte.
But keep being offended if that floats your boat. Pay no attention to the fact that the article was not about bits and bytes at all and this is just an explanation added because of
even more complaints before.
I'm in nerd circles for almost 30 yrs and still get annoyed by nerd pedantry.
@julijane @confluency @kimvanwyk Your offense statement perplexed me in your initial reply, and you're now doubling down on it, it seems. I was never offended. Still am not. I find their original faux pas hilarious, and their revised explanation hilariously bad. Still do. (And your replies are adding to the fun).
spstanley
CheapPontoonThat was ... oddly specific.
AndThisIsMrsPeacock 🏳🌈@julijane @leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk I kinda agree, the switch explanation may seem a little obscure but saying "because it's eight place values of binary" isn't really any better. Most non-tech people probably understand on/off switches just as well.
@julijane @leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk Although in my opinion they should have just gone for it and increased the limit to 65536 people (ducks)
A. Fleury-Gobert@andthisismrspeacock @julijane @leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk
they should have stopped at 32768 and allow negative number of users in a group...
they should have stopped at 32768 and allow negative number of users in a group...
AL@andthisismrspeacock @julijane @leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk
they could have used the pdp-8 model, 12 bit machine if I remember right, and gone 4096. which is 07777.
Toni Aittoniemi@leoncowle @julijane @confluency @kimvanwyk I know what happened; Some kind soul tried to explain bits to them.
They obviously failed, not thanks to their lack of effort, either. 😸
Martin Vermeer FCD@julijane @leoncowle @confluency @kimvanwyk Yep. Remembering loading the PDP-11 bootstrap loader into core memory by hand through the front-panel switches. Early 1980s.
@julijane @leoncowle @kimvanwyk Hey, I just woke up and saw that this interaction blew up. To clarify, the reason that I think that the new explanation is "bad" is that it attaches too much significance to the number 256, in a way that reveals a lack of understanding of whatever was explained to them about it. Yes, it's technically true that 256 is 2^8, with all that that entails -- but *that has nothing to do with why WhatsApp picked it* (why 8?). 1/
@julijane @leoncowle @kimvanwyk They picked it because it's an appropriately-sized number which is a power of two. The writer of the article still doesn't understand that in computing powers of two are "round" for implementation reasons, and that's why if someone wants "around a hundred or two" they'll actually pick 128 or 256. I was frustrated by this ongoing misunderstanding, which was being perpetuated to readers, and that's why I was making fun of it. 2/
@julijane @leoncowle @kimvanwyk On a different note, I think people are getting overly fixated on your phrasing, and I can see that the conversation in this thread has taken a hostile turn which I think is uncalled for. I apologise for any part I had in sparking it off.
I don't want to scold anyone, but I'm politely asking that anyone replying considers that we may all be speaking "the same language", but we use different dialects and slang, and tone doesn't always translate. 3/3
Alex ☕🇨🇦@confluency @julijane @leoncowle @kimvanwyk yep this is the actually interesting question. My guess is one byte probably the largest chunk of memory they could expand to without doing a database migration