4 ms·

I saw this a few days ago, at first I thought it was an easter egg on youtube's part - saying "so many views we overflow!" But it's real?! It seems incredibly

I saw this a few days ago, at first I thought it was an easter egg on youtube's part - saying "so many views we overflow!" But it's real?! It seems incredibly absurd that it could actually overflow, how are signed values useful for a count of views? How are you going to have negative views?

spb 12y ago
Say you're comparing the number of views between two different videos as (video_A.views - video_B.views). How do you represent that the second video has more views than the first?
- nly 12y ago
  video_B.views > video_A.views
  - tempestn 12y ago
    And what if you want to say how many more? You'd have to first check which one is greater, and then subtract in the right direction. The code is simpler if you just use signed integers.
    - vegedor 12y ago
      You could still typecast. The code may be simpler, but less explicit. In a storage heavy application it's still sensible to save bytes. Even if it is not a remarkable saving in this case, especially with compression algorithms reducing the impact. Assert will stop the program immediately, so you want to sensibly catch the error, at which point you need to know as much about the error condition as you need to know to use unsigned or casts correctly. So it's rather a question of taste, isn't it?
    - bobbykjack 12y ago
      To say "b has n more views than a", you need two operations whether you use signed or unsigned ints. Signed let's you say "these two videos have n different views" but, to be honest, it seems unlikely that you be doing either in so many places in your codebase, or so frequently during execution, to make the extra operation that significant.
      - tempestn 12y ago
        Yes, in this specific example you still need the same number of operations. My point was, when you just use signed integers, it's easier to conceptualize and harder to screw up. It's more flexible for unforeseen future use cases. Also, this is a very simplified example case; in most scenarios those unforeseen possibilities will be more significant. Given that switching to unsigned saves you exactly one bit, it's just not usually worth it. How often do you need exactly 32 bits of unsigned space, when 31 isn't enough, and you can't use 63? (I'm talking about standard-length integers here, not extreme situations where you're trying to make maximum use of 8 bits of storage or similar.)
xxxyy 12y ago
Legacy code I guess (from some really ancient times). Also tiny bugs like this make great content for blog posts, just like the 301+ views thing.
hk__2 12y ago
It is an easter egg: http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/2nrjc7/gangnam_style_has_exceeded_the_maximum_length_of/cmg7u87 http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/2nrjc7/gangnam_styl...
- rkachowski 12y ago
  Ah i see, i didn't expect Google to back up an easter egg with an associated G+ post
  - srtjstjsj 12y ago
    Usually it's not cool to advertise an easter egg, but when you are a big corporation, you try hard.
divegeek 12y ago
Java doesn't have unsigned integer types. Google is mostly a Java shop.
- hobo_mark 12y ago
  That is mostly false.
- fishnchips 12y ago
  Java is mostly confined to Android and the frontend (think GWT) which do not constitute a large proportion of the Google internal code as far as I can recall.
- Someone 12y ago
  Java's char is unsigned.
- exo762 12y ago
  If anything, google is mostly c++ shop.
lmm 12y ago
Lots of languages don't bother with a separate unsigned type. Maybe the backend is written in Java.
IvyMike 12y ago
In C/C++, unsigned ints can result in a few very subtle bugs--more details here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1555186/67591 http://stackoverflow.com/a/1555186/67591 TL;DR: Google's C++ coding standard says: "Document that a variable is non-negative using assertions. Don't use an unsigned type." As someone who has written a lot of C++ code to interact with hardware: I view an unsigned as a bucket of bits, and a signed as a number.

spb 12y ago

Say you're comparing the number of views between two different videos as (video_A.views - video_B.views). How do you represent that the second video has more views than the first?

nly 12y ago
video_B.views > video_A.views
- tempestn 12y ago
  And what if you want to say how many more? You'd have to first check which one is greater, and then subtract in the right direction. The code is simpler if you just use signed integers.
  - vegedor 12y ago
    You could still typecast. The code may be simpler, but less explicit. In a storage heavy application it's still sensible to save bytes. Even if it is not a remarkable saving in this case, especially with compression algorithms reducing the impact. Assert will stop the program immediately, so you want to sensibly catch the error, at which point you need to know as much about the error condition as you need to know to use unsigned or casts correctly. So it's rather a question of taste, isn't it?
  - bobbykjack 12y ago
    To say "b has n more views than a", you need two operations whether you use signed or unsigned ints. Signed let's you say "these two videos have n different views" but, to be honest, it seems unlikely that you be doing either in so many places in your codebase, or so frequently during execution, to make the extra operation that significant.
    - tempestn 12y ago
      Yes, in this specific example you still need the same number of operations. My point was, when you just use signed integers, it's easier to conceptualize and harder to screw up. It's more flexible for unforeseen future use cases. Also, this is a very simplified example case; in most scenarios those unforeseen possibilities will be more significant. Given that switching to unsigned saves you exactly one bit, it's just not usually worth it. How often do you need exactly 32 bits of unsigned space, when 31 isn't enough, and you can't use 63? (I'm talking about standard-length integers here, not extreme situations where you're trying to make maximum use of 8 bits of storage or similar.)

xxxyy 12y ago

Legacy code I guess (from some really ancient times). Also tiny bugs like this make great content for blog posts, just like the 301+ views thing.

hk__2 12y ago

It is an easter egg: http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/2nrjc7/gangnam_style_has_exceeded_the_maximum_length_of/cmg7u87 http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/2nrjc7/gangnam_styl...

rkachowski 12y ago
Ah i see, i didn't expect Google to back up an easter egg with an associated G+ post
- srtjstjsj 12y ago
  Usually it's not cool to advertise an easter egg, but when you are a big corporation, you try hard.

divegeek 12y ago

Java doesn't have unsigned integer types. Google is mostly a Java shop.

hobo_mark 12y ago
That is mostly false.
fishnchips 12y ago
Java is mostly confined to Android and the frontend (think GWT) which do not constitute a large proportion of the Google internal code as far as I can recall.
Someone 12y ago
Java's char is unsigned.
exo762 12y ago
If anything, google is mostly c++ shop.

lmm 12y ago

Lots of languages don't bother with a separate unsigned type. Maybe the backend is written in Java.

IvyMike 12y ago

In C/C++, unsigned ints can result in a few very subtle bugs--more details here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1555186/67591 http://stackoverflow.com/a/1555186/67591 TL;DR: Google's C++ coding standard says: "Document that a variable is non-negative using assertions. Don't use an unsigned type." As someone who has written a lot of C++ code to interact with hardware: I view an unsigned as a bucket of bits, and a signed as a number.