explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1537: Types

2015-06-12T19:17:04Z

Rafaeladson: /* +2 */

Relevant: WAT talk https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

Are (6) and (7) about completing sequences?

If the sequence was [1, 2, 3, ?] we would expect the ? to be a placeholder for 4. So [1, 2, 3]+2 is wrong := FALSE. But [1, 2, 3]+4 is correct := TRUE.

"+2 appears to be applying a unary + to the number 2" : or it adds the number of the line, 10, to 2 => 12. Also, the eleventh line, "2+2" may add 2 to all the following 2, explaining line 12. (that theory is from a friend of mine) [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 12:17, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
: Also, for the lines 6 and 7, the operation "[1,2,3]+x" may add x to the set [1,2,3] and return true if the operation succeeded or false if not. Adding 2 to the set [1,2,3] returns false because 2 is already in [1,2,3]. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 12:23, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Yellowish Blue: http://www.livescience.com/17948-red-green-blue-yellow-stunning-colors.html is NaN!

''"The ironic thing is that fractions with 2 in the nominator are not the kind of numbers that typically suffer from floating point impreciseness."''
- This is not technically correct. Should read "fractions with 'power of 2' in the '''de'''nominator. However, the 3/2 would cause precision errors.
: I don't know proper English wording for things, but 3/2=3*2^-1, so it would be represented exactly under IEEE-754 too. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.217|141.101.89.217]] 13:58, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there more to this comic, a fixed set of rules that can tie all the examples together, or does each line make its own joke independently? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.5|108.162.219.5]] 12:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

== "normally" ==

<blockquote>This would make sense if it was <code>[] + 2</code></blockquote>

It really wouldn't. Javascript returns <code>"2"</code> (god knows why) and Python gives an error. Don't really feel like testing many other languages, but I also think it's not really a logical assumption to make at all. Can't think of a reason for <code>[] + 2</code> to return <code>[2]</code>... ever. It ''might'' make a little bit of sense in Randall's oddly typed language, but not in any sane one. --[[User:TotempaaltJ|TotempaaltJ]] ([[User talk:TotempaaltJ|talk]]) 12:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

: Javascript first converts <code>[]</code> (the empty array) to the empty string (using the rule "stringify each element and join with a comma"), then treats the operation as <code>"" + 2</code>, which results in conversion of the other operand to string and then concatenation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.214|141.101.97.214]] 12:46, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

line 4: asci code of N + 2 = asci code of P [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 13:07, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

My favourite xkcd in a while. =8o) Of the list I got a good laugh out of numbers 8 and 13. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I think a lot of this is his joke about programming languages loving the number 4. 2 + "2" = "4", [1,2,3] + 4 = true, 2+2 = DONE, and the range one all seem to support this. Also reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/221/

Why isn't yellowish blue just green? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 16:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

line 4: I read NaP as Not a Problem. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.12|141.101.104.12]] 17:00, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Line 3 is missing its prompt. There does not appear to be any relevance to the joke, nor has anyone yet explained why it should be missing. Typo? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.183|108.162.221.183]] 17:10, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Note that some programming languages avoid the problem of overloaded '+' operator between operands of vividly different types by using other symbols for string concatenation (be it "a"~"b" or "a"."b") and numerical addition. The real WTF is abusing '+' for string concatenation, which has very different properties from numerical addition, not being symmetrical for example: concat("aa", "bb") == "aabb", while concat("bb", "aa") == "bbaa" != "aabb". --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 17:38, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Series of comics? I don't recall any others about Randall's new programming language... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.29|141.101.98.29]] 19:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

== +2 ==
I think this is a japanese language joke. The + sign can also refer to the kanji 十, which is 10 in japanese. This would explain the result being twelve. 十二, or 10 2, is twelve in japanese.

Talk:1537: Types

2015-06-12T19:15:48Z

Rafaeladson: Opening discussion in one of the items.