4 ms·

"I'm in awe of your truly marvelously disgusting hack. That is truly a work of art." Ha. How should one take such a comment?

breadbox 9y ago
Me, I'd put it on my resume.
- blazhennyjnerd 9y ago
  The guy is a professor of bioinformatics in Göttingen. He probably won't be involved with such nonsense as resumes any time soon. https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/uecker-martin-prof-dr-----cardiovascular-magnetic-resonance-imaging-research-group-uni-med/549182.html https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/uecker-martin-prof-dr-----c...
mikeash 9y ago
If I got such a reaction from someone like Linus, I’d probably print it out and frame it on my wall.
Someone1234 9y ago
I'd take it as a complement. Calling something a "disgusting hack," isn't inherently insulting, it is just a description of how well self documenting and obvious its workings are, which in this case is not at all. Whereas calling something a "work of art" particularly from Linus is high praise. And while there is some subjectivity to if something is a "hack" or not, the original author doesn't even seem to contend that too much. They were more interested in pointing out that this method likely works across compilers (since it relies on less undefined behaviour than it might first appear). In any case, it is a neat trick, that I wouldn't want to run across in a codebase since I'd have to spend too long figuring it out.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseldo 9y ago
  I agree with you - I think I would take it as a compliment as well. Also, I take back my original post on what the best comment is in this post. This is better: "this will break the minds of everybody who ever sees that expression"
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  It is like Duchamp's Fountain in a way. Challenges the perception and pushes what is possible. The trick can be properly documented in a page of text and wrapped in a macro... (D'oh!) It is probably non-conforming anyway or depends on a choice made by the implementation.
vanni 9y ago
In my opinion it's clearly a compliment.
kthejoker2 9y ago
I think in this life at least all that's left for Linus to enjoy are marvelously disgusting hacks. So with that understanding this is probably the ultimate compliment.
keldaris 9y ago
I think it's the highest compliment I've ever seen Linus express to somebody. And he's not wrong, the hack is adorable. It would never have occurred to me that doing this was even possible in C.

breadbox 9y ago

Me, I'd put it on my resume.

blazhennyjnerd 9y ago
The guy is a professor of bioinformatics in Göttingen. He probably won't be involved with such nonsense as resumes any time soon. https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/uecker-martin-prof-dr-----cardiovascular-magnetic-resonance-imaging-research-group-uni-med/549182.html https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/uecker-martin-prof-dr-----c...

mikeash 9y ago

If I got such a reaction from someone like Linus, I’d probably print it out and frame it on my wall.

Someone1234 9y ago

I'd take it as a complement. Calling something a "disgusting hack," isn't inherently insulting, it is just a description of how well self documenting and obvious its workings are, which in this case is not at all. Whereas calling something a "work of art" particularly from Linus is high praise. And while there is some subjectivity to if something is a "hack" or not, the original author doesn't even seem to contend that too much. They were more interested in pointing out that this method likely works across compilers (since it relies on less undefined behaviour than it might first appear). In any case, it is a neat trick, that I wouldn't want to run across in a codebase since I'd have to spend too long figuring it out.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chrisseldo 9y ago
I agree with you - I think I would take it as a compliment as well. Also, I take back my original post on what the best comment is in this post. This is better: "this will break the minds of everybody who ever sees that expression"
AstralStorm 9y ago
It is like Duchamp's Fountain in a way. Challenges the perception and pushes what is possible. The trick can be properly documented in a page of text and wrapped in a macro... (D'oh!) It is probably non-conforming anyway or depends on a choice made by the implementation.

vanni 9y ago

In my opinion it's clearly a compliment.

kthejoker2 9y ago

I think in this life at least all that's left for Linus to enjoy are marvelously disgusting hacks. So with that understanding this is probably the ultimate compliment.

keldaris 9y ago

I think it's the highest compliment I've ever seen Linus express to somebody. And he's not wrong, the hack is adorable. It would never have occurred to me that doing this was even possible in C.