What is the longest programming misconception you've held (that you are aware of)?
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I'm unaware that I suffer from any. :~ But, related to "negative integers", one misconception which I have seen at least one person state is the idea that signed integers (twos complement) are lower level (more native to the hardware) than unsigned integers -- that the CPU has to work harder to perform unsigned math. I'm pretty sure that I saw someone state that you should avoid using unsigned integers because they're slower! :omg:
Yes, I don't think that applies for most CPUs however, it is fairly well known that in programming GPUs with CUDA it is much better to use signed integers than unsigned because the overflow handling is much faster. Nvidia's GPU cores are known for having many odd limitations.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I did not know C++ allowed
defaultanywhere except the end, either, until your post. So that is my newest longest-running programming misconception! :laugh:While not explicitly aware of it, my understanding of the switch statement is that all the case declarations (which includes default) were merely labels, so I am not surprised you can stick the default anywhere in the list, I've just never seen it done before. Kinda like the idea though.
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That depends, some systems have a "negative space" that is one larger than the positive space (or consider 0 to be a positive number, which is also an odd idea) We'd need to move away from binary computers to sort all this crap out! Can I suggest trinary? "True", "False", and "Dunno"? :laugh:
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
OriginalGriff wrote:
Can I suggest trinary? "True", "False", and "Dunno" "Null"?
As in SQL null, not C# null
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
1. That OO is a good idea. 2. That exceptions are a good way to handle errors.
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
That other programmers knew what they were doing :sigh:
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
Here's an excellent explanation of two's compliment Twos complement: Negative numbers in binary - YouTube[^]
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Note: The following is a personal statement of preference, not an invitation to a jihad. Not really a programming misconception, but a coding style choice. For a very long time, starting in the mid-1980's through about 2010 or so, I used K&R braces exclusively. When I started writing C#, I used Allman[^] braces, following the style recommended by Microsoft and a couple of the books I was using. As time has gone on Allman has become my preferred style. I have some vision problems due to age and glaucoma, so my code needs frequent blank lines to separate logical blocks. Allman braces provide white space that isn't merely cosmetic. I've even got an editor macro that converts K&R braces to Allman. I have a large body of C++ that I recently converted as part of a refactor and refresh effort on an old product that I'm maintaining.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
That other programmers knew what they were doing :sigh:
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
That
asyncexecution does not mean it'sparallel/threadedand it has varied behavior depending on the runtime.To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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I use Allman for C# but for Javascript(mostly Typescript) is make use of K&R. I do this because it's the generally accepted style for both languages and I am used to swapping between them. It's also because working as part of a small team within a larger group(a team of 5 developers within a group of 20+ developers) it's easier to follow the generally accepted standards, or rather code doesn't get past code review if it doesn't follow those standards. At home I do the same, using Allman for C# and K&R for Typescript or any other form of Javascript - it just kind of 'feels' right.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
I try to do the same, but am working on a Java project that's using alman because the lead dev's brain locks up trying to do any other styles. He wanted to do C# capitalization rules too, but eventually yielded on that part because Android Studio's autocomplete is strictly case sensitive, and having to try and remember different casing styles for our code vs android code was blowing up everyone else's brains.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
The longest programming misconception I've ever held is that JavaScript (ECMAScript) is "bad". It took me a long time to see JavaScript as (just another "assembly language") but I've finally made "peace" with JavaScript. I think...
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You don't need to fade it by saying it's personal preference when it's the Correct™️ way. Bring the jihad! :laugh: My rationale is that other coding styles often waste horizontal space but use vertical space miserly. The control statement before the
{needs to stand out so that you don't have to squint to read its condition. It also aligns the{…}and reduces the number of broken lines, which is another thing I try to avoid (hence 3-space indentation instead of 4 or even 8, whose users should be forced to edit all their spaces manually.)Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.Not an answer to the original question, however, since this part of the thread is dealing with style/formatting... Thankful that VS now supports the .editorconfig specification. I prefer and use 2 space indentation, as to avoid scrolling left and right to be able to read my code. I also use { and } on their own lines at almost all times, the primary exceptions would be public: inline accessor get methods where exposing the member variable itself would be a bad idea... ie. private: DWORD m_cbAllocated; public: inline DWORD get_Allocated() const { return m_cbAllocated; } In those cases, I find that breaking the method down into multiple lines is overkill. I also like white spaces after ( and before ) as long as it is not an empty construct. It simply makes it easier for me to read. ie. if( ERROR_SUCCESS == ( lRet = RegOpenKeyExA( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, rPF.sPath(), 0, KEY_READ, &hKey ) ) ) In comparisons to constants, I always like to have the constant on the left (see above). This serves two purposes... It is easier to see what I am comparing to without scrolling right past all parameters, and it ensures that a typo (say a missing '=' sign), doesn't compile if comparing to an lValue. (resulting in a bug) ie. LONG lRet = RegOpenKeyExA( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, rPF.sPath(), 0, KEY_READ, &hKey ); if( ERROR_SUCCESS = lRet ) { ... } Not for everyone, but after doing this for 30+ years, it's what I'm used to, and no employer in their right mind is going to force me to change this late in the game. Here's the complimentary grain of salt .
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
That foreach loops in PHP scope and clean up their memory references. Spoiler, they do not! I fixed quite a few long outstanding bugs with unset() calls when I figured this out. I know its in the documentation but I bet quite a few of us don't RTFM on the looping structures.
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In a trinary-sign computer, there would be a much bigger difference between logical and arithmetic operations. One way to do so would be to enforce that only non-negative values may be used in logical operations. A better solution IMO would be to ignore positive or negative signs, performing the logical operation only on the magnitudes. A zero sign would indicate that the magnitude must be "normalized" to zero before performing the operation. The result of the operation would either have a positive sign (if non-zero) or a zero sign (if zero). I leave the design of the hardware as an exercise to our hardware colleagues... :)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Note: The following is a personal statement of preference, not an invitation to a jihad. Not really a programming misconception, but a coding style choice. For a very long time, starting in the mid-1980's through about 2010 or so, I used K&R braces exclusively. When I started writing C#, I used Allman[^] braces, following the style recommended by Microsoft and a couple of the books I was using. As time has gone on Allman has become my preferred style. I have some vision problems due to age and glaucoma, so my code needs frequent blank lines to separate logical blocks. Allman braces provide white space that isn't merely cosmetic. I've even got an editor macro that converts K&R braces to Allman. I have a large body of C++ that I recently converted as part of a refactor and refresh effort on an old product that I'm maintaining.
Software Zen:
delete this;I always thought of the Allman style as "readable" style as opposed to "space-saving publishing" style. Matching braces always allowed me quicker reading of where blocks began and ended. I never knew Allman existed as I programmed Macs and other PCs.
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
For 30 years, I have thought readability was the "truth". Then I bought a book called "Clean Code" by Robert C. Martin and found clean code was this convoluted set of rules of hard to read code that made no sense. I am now aware that "readability" means "machine readability".
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
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Until just now I believed negative integers were just a flip of the first bit. Wow, how wrong I was, for MANY years! Are there some architectures where that is the case, to make myself feel a little better?
That functional programming might be useful for anything. At first it seemed to me that, due to its recursive nature, it might be good for writing compilers. This was a misconception I held for nearly two minutes, which, as any GPU will tell you, is an eternity!
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The Russian Setun computer (1958) was a base 3 computer, but I have no idea how it represented negative numbers
Ger2001 wrote:
The Russian Setun computer (1958) was a base 3 computer
Ah, so it could represent the thesis, the anti-thesis, and the synthesis in a single digit. :D My proposal was for a CPU that has a signed-magnitude representation, but with a sign indicator that has three possible states - positive, zero, and negative. The magnitude might be in binary or any other convenient base. To my knowledge, this has never been tried, presumably because the hardware would be more complex than the currently popular twos-complement implementation. OTOH, my proposal would eliminate the anomalies of "signed zero" and of a negative range larger than the positive range. It would also be more consistent - unary minus would operate properly on all numbers in the range, which does not apply to the minimum value in a twos-complement implementation.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
