5 ms·

Hardly a hot take but a lot of people seem to think that if code isn't actively being worked it, you can't use it, as if there can never be a point where fewer

Hardly a hot take but a lot of people seem to think that if code isn't actively being worked it, you can't use it, as if there can never be a point where fewer and fewer bugs are reported and fewer and fewer features are requested. when's the last time Knuth wrote a check for TAOCP? Is it "dead"?

kibwen 7y ago
Heh, that's kind of a bad example, because Knuth is still actively writing TAOCP, and presumably does still send out his (now symbolic) reward checks. Volume 5 expected by 2025! https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html
JorgeGT 7y ago
He is still working on it and the latest check I know about was from a few months ago: https://nickdrozd.github.io/2019/05/17/knuth-check.html https://nickdrozd.github.io/2019/05/17/knuth-check.html but I still agree with your first sentence.
philwelch 7y ago
The last fascicle of TAOCP was released last November.
fapjacks 7y ago
He no longer writes checks to people for bug-hunting and hasn't done so for years due to concerns about the proliferation of his banking information. He mails out certificates.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Why do checks have your banking secrets on them?
  - Izkata 7y ago
    ...so that they can be used? Those numbers across the bottom are your bank's routing number and your account number. I'm honestly surprised I don't hear more about e-check theft done using those numbers.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > Those numbers across the bottom are your bank's routing number and your account number. Those aren't secrets, are they? Isn't your bank account protected by separate secrets and or physical authentication tokens? You can't just take money out at a bank by giving a bank account number, surely?
      - jrockway 7y ago
        > You can't just take money out at a bank by giving a bank account number, surely? That's exactly what a check is. It's a legal document that says "I give you X dollars from account Y." You can use a napkin instead of a the pre-filled sheets of paper your bank sends you, and it's still the same legal document. Typically your signature is checked against one on file, but only for large transactions, and of course handwriting signatures can be forged. And, if you are writing checks against other people's bank account, you'll probably go to prison. That is the check on the system. (It's no different than signing a contract. I'll do this work and you'll pay me when it's done. What happens if they don't pay you? You sue them. The root of trust is the judicial system.)
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        Right, but the bank is still entitled to check with me before handing over the cash. They have no way of knowing that I signed the contract. Account numbers and squinting at a signature isn't any kind of proof!
        SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
        > the bank is still entitled to check with me before handing over the cash. They're allowed to, but have no (legal or socially expected) requirement to do so. I've never heard of a bank doing so for small (<$10k or so) amounts, and then only if fraud alerts are already present.
  - rafaelvasco 7y ago
    Check forging. Was a big problem years ago when checks were widely used; These days they're almost dead so; (See 'Catch me if you can' film if you didn't already!);
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      In the UK if I write a check my bank checks with me before honouring it. They don’t just let you wave a piece of paper with numbers on it and empty the account lol.
      - robk 7y ago
        In the UK fraud barely gets noticed by police. In USA there's serious jail time for check fraud
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        > In USA there's serious jail time for check fraud There's no serious jail time for it in the UK because the system doesn't let you do it in the first place!
        rafaelvasco 7y ago
        The superior system then;
      - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
        Direct debits are surprisingly easy to set up in the uk.
gaxun 7y ago
> when's the last time Knuth wrote a check for TAOCP? Pretty recently. I just got one in the mail today.
svat 7y ago
> when's the last time Knuth wrote a check for TAOCP? Got one in the mail yesterday (check was written Feb 10). In fact you can figure out how many checks were written in the last month, roughly: compare https://web.archive.org/web/20200110074014/https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200110074014/https://cs.stanfo... with https://web.archive.org/web/20200219035903/https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200219035903/https://cs.stanfo... I imagine most of these checks (definitely all $7 of mine) were from finding bugs in pre-fascicles, i.e. bleeding-edge drafts he's been putting up online. (See near the bottom of https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html) On the other hand, while you mention Knuth and "done", TeX and METAFONT are better examples. He declared them "done" in 1990 (https://tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb11-4/tb30knut.pdf https://tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb11-4/tb30knut.pdf), but still does bug fixes: > I still take full responsibility for the master sources of TeX, METAFONT, and Computer Modern. Therefore I periodically take a few days off from my current projects and look at all of the accumulated bug reports. This happened most recently in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2007, and 2013; following this pattern, I intend to check on purported bugs again in the years 2020, 2028, 2037, etc. The intervals between such maintenance periods are increasing, because the systems have been converging to an error-free state. (The latest round, in 2013, did surface one bug: the debug string representation of an "empty" control sequence was missing a space.)
- gaxun 7y ago
  Nice to see multiple of us are on here. > I imagine most of these checks (definitely all $7 of mine) The 0x$2.00 check I got from 10 Feb 2020 was for one typographical item in Volume 4A and one pedagogical improvement in Volume 1, Fascicle 1. So it is certainly possible to still get checks for material that is already published. Since it is now 2020, anyone with bug reports from the typography stuff should send them in soon, wouldn't want to miss the deadline.
  - svat 7y ago
    That's interesting, can you go into more detail on those two -- what was the pedagogical improvement, and the typographical item? Just curious...

kibwen 7y ago

Heh, that's kind of a bad example, because Knuth is still actively writing TAOCP, and presumably does still send out his (now symbolic) reward checks. Volume 5 expected by 2025! https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html

JorgeGT 7y ago

He is still working on it and the latest check I know about was from a few months ago: https://nickdrozd.github.io/2019/05/17/knuth-check.html https://nickdrozd.github.io/2019/05/17/knuth-check.html but I still agree with your first sentence.

philwelch 7y ago

The last fascicle of TAOCP was released last November.

fapjacks 7y ago

He no longer writes checks to people for bug-hunting and hasn't done so for years due to concerns about the proliferation of his banking information. He mails out certificates.

chrisseaton 7y ago
Why do checks have your banking secrets on them?
- Izkata 7y ago
  ...so that they can be used? Those numbers across the bottom are your bank's routing number and your account number. I'm honestly surprised I don't hear more about e-check theft done using those numbers.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Those numbers across the bottom are your bank's routing number and your account number. Those aren't secrets, are they? Isn't your bank account protected by separate secrets and or physical authentication tokens? You can't just take money out at a bank by giving a bank account number, surely?
    - jrockway 7y ago
      > You can't just take money out at a bank by giving a bank account number, surely? That's exactly what a check is. It's a legal document that says "I give you X dollars from account Y." You can use a napkin instead of a the pre-filled sheets of paper your bank sends you, and it's still the same legal document. Typically your signature is checked against one on file, but only for large transactions, and of course handwriting signatures can be forged. And, if you are writing checks against other people's bank account, you'll probably go to prison. That is the check on the system. (It's no different than signing a contract. I'll do this work and you'll pay me when it's done. What happens if they don't pay you? You sue them. The root of trust is the judicial system.)
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        Right, but the bank is still entitled to check with me before handing over the cash. They have no way of knowing that I signed the contract. Account numbers and squinting at a signature isn't any kind of proof!
        SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
        > the bank is still entitled to check with me before handing over the cash. They're allowed to, but have no (legal or socially expected) requirement to do so. I've never heard of a bank doing so for small (<$10k or so) amounts, and then only if fraud alerts are already present.
- rafaelvasco 7y ago
  Check forging. Was a big problem years ago when checks were widely used; These days they're almost dead so; (See 'Catch me if you can' film if you didn't already!);
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    In the UK if I write a check my bank checks with me before honouring it. They don’t just let you wave a piece of paper with numbers on it and empty the account lol.
    - robk 7y ago
      In the UK fraud barely gets noticed by police. In USA there's serious jail time for check fraud
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        > In USA there's serious jail time for check fraud There's no serious jail time for it in the UK because the system doesn't let you do it in the first place!
        rafaelvasco 7y ago
        The superior system then;
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      Direct debits are surprisingly easy to set up in the uk.

gaxun 7y ago

> when's the last time Knuth wrote a check for TAOCP? Pretty recently. I just got one in the mail today.

svat 7y ago

> when's the last time Knuth wrote a check for TAOCP? Got one in the mail yesterday (check was written Feb 10). In fact you can figure out how many checks were written in the last month, roughly: compare https://web.archive.org/web/20200110074014/https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200110074014/https://cs.stanfo... with https://web.archive.org/web/20200219035903/https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200219035903/https://cs.stanfo... I imagine most of these checks (definitely all $7 of mine) were from finding bugs in pre-fascicles, i.e. bleeding-edge drafts he's been putting up online. (See near the bottom of https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html) On the other hand, while you mention Knuth and "done", TeX and METAFONT are better examples. He declared them "done" in 1990 (https://tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb11-4/tb30knut.pdf https://tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb11-4/tb30knut.pdf), but still does bug fixes: > I still take full responsibility for the master sources of TeX, METAFONT, and Computer Modern. Therefore I periodically take a few days off from my current projects and look at all of the accumulated bug reports. This happened most recently in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2007, and 2013; following this pattern, I intend to check on purported bugs again in the years 2020, 2028, 2037, etc. The intervals between such maintenance periods are increasing, because the systems have been converging to an error-free state. (The latest round, in 2013, did surface one bug: the debug string representation of an "empty" control sequence was missing a space.)

gaxun 7y ago
Nice to see multiple of us are on here. > I imagine most of these checks (definitely all $7 of mine) The 0x$2.00 check I got from 10 Feb 2020 was for one typographical item in Volume 4A and one pedagogical improvement in Volume 1, Fascicle 1. So it is certainly possible to still get checks for material that is already published. Since it is now 2020, anyone with bug reports from the typography stuff should send them in soon, wouldn't want to miss the deadline.
- svat 7y ago
  That's interesting, can you go into more detail on those two -- what was the pedagogical improvement, and the typographical item? Just curious...