4 ms·

This is stupid and unproven quote. Citation needed. I hate that HN is repeating this over and over and it snot even real nor funny not new joke. Try to say tha

This is stupid and unproven quote. Citation needed. I hate that HN is repeating this over and over and it snot even real nor funny not new joke. Try to say that at job interview if you don't believe

swiftcoder 9mo ago
> Try to say that at job interview if you don't believe If your interviewer doesn't at least crack a smile when you make the off-by-one joke, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. You don't want to work with that dude
AlotOfReading 9mo ago
It's not to be taken as a serious assessment of actual "hardest problems", but they're all difficult. Naming things is obviously impossible. Everyone gets cache invalidation wrong at first, from Intel/AMD to your build system.
lo_zamoyski 9mo ago
To spell it out for you... 1. It's a joke. The hyperbole is intentional, but it does communicate something relatable. 2. You don't need a citation. Probably anyone with enough software development experience understands the substance of the claim and understands that it is (1).
bena 9mo ago
Naming things is one of the hardest problems we have. In general. Taxonomy is incredibly difficult because it is essentially classification. And things never fit neatly into boxes. Giving us such bangers as: Tomatoes are fruit; Everything is a fish or nothing is a fish; and Trees aren't real.
pixl97 9mo ago
And to add further to the joke here the full saying goes more like >There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. And, if you actually work in software a very large portion of your hard to troubleshoot/fix issues are going to be the above.
- troupo 9mo ago
  It's not DNS It can't be DNS There's no chance in hell it's DNS ... It was DNS
  - swiftcoder 9mo ago
    DNS is a special hell: naming things and caching rolled into one!
  - spl757 9mo ago
    first thing i check: ping 8.8.8.8
anyonecancode 9mo ago
Well, there's the variation I heard recently: There are only two problems in computer science. We only have one joke, and it's not very funny.
- dgently7 9mo ago
  or the the similar but unrelated... "there are only 10 kinds of programmers, ones who can read binary and ones who can't"
razingeden 9mo ago
In case you need to hear this again, > “Sarcasm is difficult to grasp on the internet, but some people apparently have more visceral reactions to their misunderstanding than others.”
antonvs 9mo ago
Yes, and we also need a citation about that quote about a horse and a duck walking into a bar. It doesn't sound very likely to me. Martin Fowler has some history of this joke: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html

This is stupid and unproven quote. Citation needed. I hate that HN is repeating this over and over and it snot even real nor funny not new joke. Try to say that at job interview if you don't believe

swiftcoder 9mo ago

> Try to say that at job interview if you don't believe If your interviewer doesn't at least crack a smile when you make the off-by-one joke, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. You don't want to work with that dude

AlotOfReading 9mo ago

It's not to be taken as a serious assessment of actual "hardest problems", but they're all difficult. Naming things is obviously impossible. Everyone gets cache invalidation wrong at first, from Intel/AMD to your build system.

lo_zamoyski 9mo ago

To spell it out for you... 1. It's a joke. The hyperbole is intentional, but it does communicate something relatable. 2. You don't need a citation. Probably anyone with enough software development experience understands the substance of the claim and understands that it is (1).

bena 9mo ago

Naming things is one of the hardest problems we have. In general. Taxonomy is incredibly difficult because it is essentially classification. And things never fit neatly into boxes. Giving us such bangers as: Tomatoes are fruit; Everything is a fish or nothing is a fish; and Trees aren't real.

pixl97 9mo ago

And to add further to the joke here the full saying goes more like >There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. And, if you actually work in software a very large portion of your hard to troubleshoot/fix issues are going to be the above.

troupo 9mo ago
It's not DNS It can't be DNS There's no chance in hell it's DNS ... It was DNS
- swiftcoder 9mo ago
  DNS is a special hell: naming things and caching rolled into one!
- spl757 9mo ago
  first thing i check: ping 8.8.8.8

anyonecancode 9mo ago

Well, there's the variation I heard recently: There are only two problems in computer science. We only have one joke, and it's not very funny.

dgently7 9mo ago
or the the similar but unrelated... "there are only 10 kinds of programmers, ones who can read binary and ones who can't"

razingeden 9mo ago

In case you need to hear this again, > “Sarcasm is difficult to grasp on the internet, but some people apparently have more visceral reactions to their misunderstanding than others.”

antonvs 9mo ago

Yes, and we also need a citation about that quote about a horse and a duck walking into a bar. It doesn't sound very likely to me. Martin Fowler has some history of this joke: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html