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.
spstanley
CheapPontoonThat was ... oddly specific.