1 yr. ago • 98%

They Need To Stop Doing This

Programmer Humor @lemmy.ml They Need To Stop Doing This

84 comments

There are really few problems that are “impossible.” That is, if you count those customers/managers are interested in. All the rest is just “I’ll need 10 years, 230 million Dollars and a research team”

XKCD 1425 by Randall Munroe. License: CC BY-NC 2.5

180
- “The other programmers keep accidentally writing code that ends up in an infinite loop. I'd like you to make a program that can reliably detect that.”
  
  95
  
  You may joke, but if I had a penny for every time someone asked me to solve a problem, that basically boils down to the halting problem, I'd be rich.
  
  32
  
  Just check the git blame.
  
  10
  
  A full solution to the halting problem can't exist. But you can definitely write a program that will "reliably" detect them to a certain percentage.
  
  And many applications do exactly that. Firefox asked me today if I wanted to stop a tab because it was processing for too long.
  
  6
  
  Just because it's not possible on a Turing Machine doesn't mean it's impossible on a PC with finite memory. You just have to track all the memory that is available to the algorithm and once you detect a state you've seen already, you know it's not halting ever. The detection algorithm will need an insane amount of memory though.
  
  Edit: think about the amount of memory that would need. It's crazy but theoretically possible. In real world use cases only if the algorithm you're watching has access to a tiny amount of memory.
  
  5
  
  Easy.
  
  If( loop == inf) {
  
  End;
  
  }
  
  Pay check please?
  
  2
  
  There have been genuine efforts to do that. Obviously (well, for a very niche use of "obviously") it's not always possible, but detecting infinite loops isn't like the uncertainty principle.
  
  It's called The Terminator.
  
  1
- This. Very few problems are truly impossible to solve, they arem in fact, just wildly impractical to solve. So don't try to tell the PM/client/coworker-with-a-'brilliant'-idea it can't be done, tell them what it'll take to work out what it'll take to do it. Either they go away, or you end up in charge of a project with an astronomical budget and no clearly defined deliverables.
  
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- I mean, now a days, I can upload the image into stable diffusion automatic1111 and click interrogate CLIP and then see if it outputs "bird" as a reverse promopt, but this comic WAS from 4 and a half years ago, so the programmer was right on the time-frame.
  
  27
  
  It always depends on which existing tools you have access to. Go back some more years and there is no GPS. Detecting the bird will be the easier problem then.
  
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- Funny thing is, since that comic was originally published bird detection has gotten a lot easier
  
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  About 5 years after, and there was a research team behind it.
  
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  I bet it's because the camera now also scans for the 5G radio waves that are used to control the "birds" instead of just recording waves in the visible spectrum
  
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- respect for uploading the image, linking the page, and crediting the author :)
  
  21
- What is a bird!?
  
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  a miserable little pile of secrets
  
  17
  
  insert "bird isn't real" meme
  
  7
Customer: Why is there so much latency over my tunnel from us-east to us-west?

Me: checks latency seems pretty normal, what's the issue?

Customer: The latency is too much. Why is it not as fast as us-east-1 to us-east-2?

Me: They are near each other. Us-West is across the entire United States

Customer: Make faster

Me: This is the speed of light. And over copper it's about 2/3 that

Customer: hmm are you sure that's as fast as it can go?

Me: Well, unless we change the laws of physics your not going to get any better latency

121
- Customer: So.. can we do that? Change the laws of physics? What congressman do we need to email?
  
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  That's cause they always have money in the lobbying budget to fix things.
  
  11
- For the low price of billions and a decade of work they could build out hollow core fiber coast to coast to get the last 1/3 c.
  
  47
  
  that would really help with playing video games
  
  10
  
  What's hollow core fibre.
  
  2
- Then you find out the real reason they need faster latency is because they're pinging the server for new data every 1ms
  
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- So can you give me an estimate for when you can solve that?
  
  17
- Anytime I run into that question I tell them if I could manage FTL comms I wouldn't be working here.
  
  12
- Eh, sometimes they're right about this one though. It's true that a request traveling near light speed is as fast as it can possibly be, but what if it's 17 requests? Sometimes you can fix latency by doing fewer transactions.
  
  edit: love a downvote with no reply. Just "No!" [stomps feet]
  
  9
what if we made a new type of blockchain? one that was powered by generative AI and the metaverse? oh! and could we make it so that it Empowers Business Solutions?

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- This can certainly be done as long as we stick to the five core values - take ownership, take the leap, act with integrity, put the customer first, and dare to innovate.
  
  42
  
  This whole comment chain is making me feel sad. And angry. And sangry.
  
  10
- Only if we have 3 red lines, 2 blue lines, and one transparent line. And have all of them perpendicular to each other.
  
  28
  
  Can a line be a cat? I love kittens.
  
  10
  
  that’s some nice 6-dimensional thinking! very well suited to the new blockchain project
  
  7
- Thanks, i had a stroke while reading that
  
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- Shut up shut up shut up!
  
  Please don't give people stupid ideas
  
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  What we need is a paradigm shift in how we empower synergy between product lines through utilization of emerging technologies and strategic acquisitions to improve our KPIs across the platform.
  
  15
Unionize, people. It's terrifying how few IT workers are unionized.

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- It's because of big pay, highly mobile employees, hiding the real role of the HR and this false sense of security compared to the rest of the workplaces despite all these lay-offs from the big companies. Also, whenever a unionizing attempt happens, the companies go into crackdown mode and have their multitude of ways to either fire you with a bogus reason, remove your post citing "restructuring" or pulling you on a dead career track and demonize you in front of your colleagues with the usual "we care about our employees and everything can already be resolved through HR" speech. And moreover, many of these issues have a direct cause the Work Laws of the respective countries
  
  18
- It’s because we can just leave for better positions.
  
  15
  
  okay, do that then and stop complaining i guess?
  
  0
- While I completely agree, the meme would not really be different with a unionised workplace
  
  2
- There has been chatter on Blind for the devs and engineering at my company unionizing. It's a long shot. But I'm all for it.
  
  2
- Unions only make sense when you are easily replaceable as a worker so you don't have any barganing power on your own. As an individual IT worker you can usually tell your boss to fuck off if things get bad and just look for a new better job...
  
  -1
Corp IT when the team gets ready for production

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And if you convince the project manager that it won’t work by telling them all the reasons why they come back a few days or weeks later asking why it won’t work.

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Hah, yes, I was a few times between these two sides. My role was to understand both and doing something you could call "translating."

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- Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
  
  9
You forgot sales

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Why do you have a project manager discussing technical solutions? That's kind of... very wrong. Most PMs nowadays have a just a slightly better technical background than a secretary...

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Too real

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