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Great story, but I don't think it qualifies as a nightmare. It's just a really interesting and challenging puzzle. The fact that the author elected to work on i

Great story, but I don't think it qualifies as a nightmare. It's just a really interesting and challenging puzzle. The fact that the author elected to work on it for free ("This is nerd war") clearly places it in that category. If you can exit a nightmare, you exit the nightmare. Speaking for myself the only coder's nightmare I have is the one I think every coder has. It's the universal programmer nightmare: you don't really _know_ your stuff works, the way you can know that turning a key in a lock will open a door. Maybe you missed something. Maybe you didn't test something. Maybe it's going to break over the coming holiday weekend.

ordu 7y ago
It is a coder nightmare, not a nerd nightmare. ;)
gridspy 7y ago
True, but he discovered that had he written a new version from scratch, the new version would have been erased and replaced. It was detecting the question set - he would have been required to put the questions into his version too. So by declaring nerd war, he actually saved himself a day.
ricree 7y ago
The problem itself was interesting, but a compromised compiler is absolutely a nightmare. It took that long to figure out even with blatant evidence of something fishy. How long does it persist when the vulnerability is subtle?
pzh 7y ago
For some reason, I don’t find that story believable at all. It sounds like somebody read “Reflections on Trusting Trust” and decided to exercise their creative writing muscle by passing it off as their own experience.
- imtringued 7y ago
  Yeah it's just fan fiction.
moring 7y ago
My take on why this isn't a nightmare: He got great support from everybody involved. No extra pressure, no artificial deadlines, no unpaid work expected from him and there was even little denying the problem (except that his statements were not taken as truth without presenting evidence, which I think is fair).

ordu 7y ago

It is a coder nightmare, not a nerd nightmare. ;)

gridspy 7y ago

True, but he discovered that had he written a new version from scratch, the new version would have been erased and replaced. It was detecting the question set - he would have been required to put the questions into his version too. So by declaring nerd war, he actually saved himself a day.

ricree 7y ago

The problem itself was interesting, but a compromised compiler is absolutely a nightmare. It took that long to figure out even with blatant evidence of something fishy. How long does it persist when the vulnerability is subtle?

pzh 7y ago

For some reason, I don’t find that story believable at all. It sounds like somebody read “Reflections on Trusting Trust” and decided to exercise their creative writing muscle by passing it off as their own experience.

imtringued 7y ago
Yeah it's just fan fiction.

moring 7y ago

My take on why this isn't a nightmare: He got great support from everybody involved. No extra pressure, no artificial deadlines, no unpaid work expected from him and there was even little denying the problem (except that his statements were not taken as truth without presenting evidence, which I think is fair).