5 ms·

Lines of code that changed everything (2019)

79 points by pedrodelfino 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pedrodelfino 3y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21648568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21648568
- Amorymeltzer 3y ago
  Specifically, I think the callouts to jQuery (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21651438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21651438) and CGI (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21654600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21654600) are spot on.
p0w3n3d 3y ago
lines of code that change everything: #define true 0 #define false 1
- cratermoon 3y ago
  everything++
  - Joeboy 3y ago
    echo "everything" | sed s/every/no/
- dale_glass 3y ago
  Code optimizations: #define struct union // Saves memory #define while if // Improves performance
distcs 3y ago
> The Roomba’s Guidance System > Date: 2002 > Established a new way for technology (and cats) to move in the physical world > (define-behavior (bounce :start-when (or (bump?) bounce-trigger? ) :abort-when (bump-edge?) :onetime? t)) Does anyone closer to the source here know if Roomba is still written in Lisp?
- vren 3y ago
  ROS-1 still has quite a lot of functionality written in and accessible from lisp (c++ and python are the major languages nowadays). irobot was founded by alums of the MIT AGI lab, which used lisp extensively. I suspect that's why lisp is in there at all! It's very likely python/cpp nowadays though.
mypastself 3y ago
Great article, I feel like the quality of Slate has declined significantly in these past few years, so much so that I incorrectly remembered reading this much earlier than 2019. I wonder if the reason Stuxnet isn’t on there is because its impact is yet to be seen.
default-kramer 3y ago
Interesting stuff. Did HSTS seem out of place to anyone else? Not that it's not important, but compared to the rest of them, it hardly seems like it "changed everything." And from the gut, I'd guess that CORS has done more than HSTS to reduce harm on the internet.
- dfern 3y ago
  Not to mention Let's Encrypt...
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    Let’s encrypt was a huge quality of life saver of working with certificates before. They fully automated the process for the most popular servers.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  Like most bits of code in the article, they are more like a symbol that represents something that "changed everything" rather than code that actually matters. HSTS is not that important in itself, but it represents the general transition to "all https". Before that, https existed, but it was only used in select cases, like for entering your credit card number, early browsers even had a warning when https was enabled. Nowadays, https is the expected default, browsers are starting the throw a fit when they see plain http, and many tech-savvy users will go "Seriously, http? We are in the 21th century you know". More generally, the need for encryption-by-default also represents how the web is tied to the real world now. People use it to deal with real money, sign contracts, and exchange secrets that have real life consequences if they fall into the wrong hands. The author picked a bit of code to represent that, and he chose the HSTS header. Debatable, but I think it is a good choice.
Jeff_Brown 3y ago
The story about the Vancouver Stock Exchange's rounding error deleting half the value of the exchange over time and then being undone in a day leaves me with so many questions. Who gained and who lost from the fix? How did peoples' behavior change thereafter?
- fartasanelk 3y ago
  I found this paper: https://www5.in.tum.de/~huckle/Vancouv.pdf https://www5.in.tum.de/~huckle/Vancouv.pdf Quoting: “A year after the index began, it was sitting at 725 and it should have been at 960. As embarrassing as the whole affair has been for the VSE, things could have been worse. Had the exchange introduced options based on the rise and fall of the index – a feature of the Toronto Options Exchange planned for next January – the VSE would have had to adjust wins and losses of investors. As it was, the exchange only had to pay for three weeks of computer work and the fees of consultants brought in from Toronto and California to put the index back in order, Seasons said.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
j_not_j 3y ago
tar xzf netbsd-1.0.tar.gz "forking" netbsd established competition in the "free" BSD space by OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The FreeBSD system in particular was the basis for thousands of commercial products.
ultrablack 3y ago
The fast inverse square root also deserved to be there. It ushured in the age of real 3d games. And killed SGI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
- gadders 3y ago
  I was going to vote for deCSS and the illegal number issue.
julianeon 3y ago
This is an incredibly good article, like whole standard deviations above the average article quality on that site, for people who are wondering. It took a lot of research to track all those lines down and I'm glad someone took the time to do it.
sedatk 3y ago
It's disappointing that such an elaborate article omits that the "Like" was originated in FriendFeed which Facebook had bought. Upvoting was obviously a thing before FriendFeed too, but its specific form to signal the public with your opinion on a social feed had probably started with FriendFeed. Facebook had literally bought the Like button.

79 points by pedrodelfino 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pedrodelfino 3y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21648568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21648568

Amorymeltzer 3y ago
Specifically, I think the callouts to jQuery (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21651438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21651438) and CGI (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21654600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21654600) are spot on.

p0w3n3d 3y ago

lines of code that change everything: #define true 0 #define false 1

cratermoon 3y ago
everything++
- Joeboy 3y ago
  echo "everything" | sed s/every/no/
dale_glass 3y ago
Code optimizations: #define struct union // Saves memory #define while if // Improves performance

distcs 3y ago

> The Roomba’s Guidance System > Date: 2002 > Established a new way for technology (and cats) to move in the physical world > (define-behavior (bounce :start-when (or (bump?) bounce-trigger? ) :abort-when (bump-edge?) :onetime? t)) Does anyone closer to the source here know if Roomba is still written in Lisp?

vren 3y ago
ROS-1 still has quite a lot of functionality written in and accessible from lisp (c++ and python are the major languages nowadays). irobot was founded by alums of the MIT AGI lab, which used lisp extensively. I suspect that's why lisp is in there at all! It's very likely python/cpp nowadays though.

mypastself 3y ago

Great article, I feel like the quality of Slate has declined significantly in these past few years, so much so that I incorrectly remembered reading this much earlier than 2019. I wonder if the reason Stuxnet isn’t on there is because its impact is yet to be seen.

default-kramer 3y ago

Interesting stuff. Did HSTS seem out of place to anyone else? Not that it's not important, but compared to the rest of them, it hardly seems like it "changed everything." And from the gut, I'd guess that CORS has done more than HSTS to reduce harm on the internet.

dfern 3y ago
Not to mention Let's Encrypt...
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Let’s encrypt was a huge quality of life saver of working with certificates before. They fully automated the process for the most popular servers.
GuB-42 3y ago
Like most bits of code in the article, they are more like a symbol that represents something that "changed everything" rather than code that actually matters. HSTS is not that important in itself, but it represents the general transition to "all https". Before that, https existed, but it was only used in select cases, like for entering your credit card number, early browsers even had a warning when https was enabled. Nowadays, https is the expected default, browsers are starting the throw a fit when they see plain http, and many tech-savvy users will go "Seriously, http? We are in the 21th century you know". More generally, the need for encryption-by-default also represents how the web is tied to the real world now. People use it to deal with real money, sign contracts, and exchange secrets that have real life consequences if they fall into the wrong hands. The author picked a bit of code to represent that, and he chose the HSTS header. Debatable, but I think it is a good choice.

Jeff_Brown 3y ago

The story about the Vancouver Stock Exchange's rounding error deleting half the value of the exchange over time and then being undone in a day leaves me with so many questions. Who gained and who lost from the fix? How did peoples' behavior change thereafter?

fartasanelk 3y ago
I found this paper: https://www5.in.tum.de/~huckle/Vancouv.pdf https://www5.in.tum.de/~huckle/Vancouv.pdf Quoting: “A year after the index began, it was sitting at 725 and it should have been at 960. As embarrassing as the whole affair has been for the VSE, things could have been worse. Had the exchange introduced options based on the rise and fall of the index – a feature of the Toronto Options Exchange planned for next January – the VSE would have had to adjust wins and losses of investors. As it was, the exchange only had to pay for three weeks of computer work and the fees of consultants brought in from Toronto and California to put the index back in order, Seasons said.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

j_not_j 3y ago

tar xzf netbsd-1.0.tar.gz "forking" netbsd established competition in the "free" BSD space by OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The FreeBSD system in particular was the basis for thousands of commercial products.

ultrablack 3y ago

The fast inverse square root also deserved to be there. It ushured in the age of real 3d games. And killed SGI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root

gadders 3y ago
I was going to vote for deCSS and the illegal number issue.

julianeon 3y ago

This is an incredibly good article, like whole standard deviations above the average article quality on that site, for people who are wondering. It took a lot of research to track all those lines down and I'm glad someone took the time to do it.

sedatk 3y ago

It's disappointing that such an elaborate article omits that the "Like" was originated in FriendFeed which Facebook had bought. Upvoting was obviously a thing before FriendFeed too, but its specific form to signal the public with your opinion on a social feed had probably started with FriendFeed. Facebook had literally bought the Like button.