Difference between revisions of "Talk:1671: Arcane Bullshit"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 27: Line 27:
 
:Agree, the "breaking everyone else's computer" is definitely about low code quality. It's true than programming with "goto" is harder, but maybe that was the reason only people who known how to program was doing it. Nowadays, everyone thinks he can program, but based on number of bugs it's obviously not true. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 14:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 
:Agree, the "breaking everyone else's computer" is definitely about low code quality. It's true than programming with "goto" is harder, but maybe that was the reason only people who known how to program was doing it. Nowadays, everyone thinks he can program, but based on number of bugs it's obviously not true. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 14:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
  
The current explanation completely misses the point and honestly should be taken down -- no offense to the original writer. Arcane BS here means "wizard-like stuff" in the sense of what programmers do which is different from what users would do. Where regular users just buy a computer and never open it, the arcane programmer might just actually open the computer and start swapping parts in and out, with or without a precise grasp on what s/he's doing. Same goes on the software part where a user might just run Windows in the 80s since it comes off-the-shelf and one never modifies it, whereas the arcane programmer might go through the effort of installing a UNIX-like system such as Minix and recompile the kernel to adjust parameters, add new modules, all of which involve complicated command lines that look like insane arcane magic to normal users. This is what is called "hacking" in the sense of the original meaning of the work "hacker" as you can find in The Jargon file and that work "hacking" really meant tinkering (the other side was "cracker", but the media easily confuses the too.)
+
The current explanation completely misses the point and honestly should be taken down -- no offense to the original writer. Arcane BS here means "wizard-like stuff" in the sense of what programmers do which is different from what users would do. Where regular users just buy a computer and never open it, the arcane programmer might just actually open the computer and start swapping parts in and out, with or without a precise grasp on what s/he's doing. Same goes on the software part where a user might just run Windows in the 80s since it comes off-the-shelf and one never modifies it, whereas the arcane programmer might go through the effort of installing a UNIX-like system such as Minix and recompile the kernel to adjust parameters, add new modules, all of which involve complicated command lines that look like insane arcane magic to normal users. This is what is called "hacking" in the sense of the original meaning of the work "[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html hacker]" as you can find in [http://www.catb.org/jargon/ The Jargon File] and that work "hacking" really meant tinkering -- the word "cracker" was coined after misuse of the former by the media.  
  
It was tinkering for the sole purpose of tinkering, which is why the comics says this accomplishes nothing.
+
It was tinkering for the sole purpose of tinkering, which is why the comics says this accomplishes nothing. It is however an excellent way to learn how computers really work, something, again, that normal end-users don't care for, thus the "arcane" aspect.
  
 
Also note that in the 80's there was no Linux (the project started in 1991) and no GNU (the project started in the mid 80s with the manifesto but GNU had no kernel at first till it got combined with Linux to form the now-ubiquitous GNU/Linux.)
 
Also note that in the 80's there was no Linux (the project started in 1991) and no GNU (the project started in the mid 80s with the manifesto but GNU had no kernel at first till it got combined with Linux to form the now-ubiquitous GNU/Linux.)
  
 
The tag line is easily explained: nowaday hacking (tinkering) on Linux is a common thing; the arcane hacking happens at the secops level. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 17:02, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 
The tag line is easily explained: nowaday hacking (tinkering) on Linux is a common thing; the arcane hacking happens at the secops level. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 17:02, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Revision as of 17:10, 23 April 2016

I was obsessively refreshing XKCD and the new comic popped up. Then I did the same on ExplainXKCD to make an explanation. Here's my first rough-draft attempt. Papayaman1000 (talk) 13:34, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Your explanation confuses OOP with structured programming. Svorkoetter (talk) 15:03, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Developing a kernel is not the same as compiling a kernel. You would, for example, rebuild a Linux kernel after you've added a module, or changed some parameters. Also, the purpose of object-oriented programming is not to solve the problem of spaghetti code. (That problem was solved by structured programming.) It's to enforce principles of abstraction, information hiding and modularity. Krishnanp (talk) 15:20, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I modified the explanation on OOP to include Structured & Procedural language code and briefly described the 80's era of low level languages. Digital_Night (talk) 15:41, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, I rewrote the kernel compiling explanation to explain why someone would recompile a 80's era kernel. Modular kernels sure are nice! Digital night (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Could this be a reference to the large amount of open-source projects using C (an arcane bull* language from the 70s/80s that need 10000 lines ./configure scripts to work) ? 108.162.219.79 16:38, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

T.M.I. 162.158.222.231 18:54, 22 April 2016 (UTC)


I think this comic refers to keeping or fixing 30 over year old programs and their "bs" factor. At which the most extreme will be something like gentoo where you have to compile everything first before doing anything productive. (Sorry gentoo users didnt meant to start a flame war) 103.31.5.240 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

While installing applications on gentoo takes longer because it's being compiled, it's the time of the COMPUTER. You can do something else while it's compiling. -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid the explanation misses the point completely ... Rather than excursion to programming techniques and languages, the sociology behind that should be focused on. Programmers were considered mages (hence "arcane", or do I get the meaning of it wrong, not being native speaker?), and don't forget also that 80's were the time when the GNU project started. The title text then may refer to changing standards in (released) software quality - I remember my ZX Spectrum crashing because of overheating, but not because of software problems. And its system was written in assembler that is kinda badmouthed by the current version of the explanation, in favour of sophisticated languages. Then, with DOS, a problem emerged from time to time, but not a big deal. Then, with Windows 95, the system crashed daily ... Nowadays, programmers just throw their bullshit code on users, and break "everyone else's computer", also thanks to Internet etc. It has very little to do with programming language choice and jumps/gotos. - 141.101.95.123 06:58, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Agree, the "breaking everyone else's computer" is definitely about low code quality. It's true than programming with "goto" is harder, but maybe that was the reason only people who known how to program was doing it. Nowadays, everyone thinks he can program, but based on number of bugs it's obviously not true. -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The current explanation completely misses the point and honestly should be taken down -- no offense to the original writer. Arcane BS here means "wizard-like stuff" in the sense of what programmers do which is different from what users would do. Where regular users just buy a computer and never open it, the arcane programmer might just actually open the computer and start swapping parts in and out, with or without a precise grasp on what s/he's doing. Same goes on the software part where a user might just run Windows in the 80s since it comes off-the-shelf and one never modifies it, whereas the arcane programmer might go through the effort of installing a UNIX-like system such as Minix and recompile the kernel to adjust parameters, add new modules, all of which involve complicated command lines that look like insane arcane magic to normal users. This is what is called "hacking" in the sense of the original meaning of the work "hacker" as you can find in The Jargon File and that work "hacking" really meant tinkering -- the word "cracker" was coined after misuse of the former by the media.

It was tinkering for the sole purpose of tinkering, which is why the comics says this accomplishes nothing. It is however an excellent way to learn how computers really work, something, again, that normal end-users don't care for, thus the "arcane" aspect.

Also note that in the 80's there was no Linux (the project started in 1991) and no GNU (the project started in the mid 80s with the manifesto but GNU had no kernel at first till it got combined with Linux to form the now-ubiquitous GNU/Linux.)

The tag line is easily explained: nowaday hacking (tinkering) on Linux is a common thing; the arcane hacking happens at the secops level. Ralfoide (talk) 17:02, 23 April 2016 (UTC)