C programmers commit fresh crimes against readability

(theregister.com)

72 points | by Bender 2 hours ago

2 comments

  • anthk 1 hour ago
    On the subleq VM, it would run faster if they implemented Muxleq, but it woudn't win the IOCCC contest maybe. Altough in unobfuscated it's C it's just an extra short if clause with two more lines.

    On 32k roms for the GB emulator:

    https://github.com/tbsp/Adjustris

    Old build:

    https://pdroms.de/?__df=24010f101611170c163a13544b55553a4d22...

    Someone ping back the IOCCC creator, please.

  • RicoElectrico 1 hour ago
    > Nixie tube is a tiny electrical tube with filaments in the shapes of all the digits stacked one on top of another, and it displays the desired digit by making just that filament glow

    Lol, no. That's a Numitron (although they were 7 segment)

    • tasty_freeze 56 minutes ago
      You are confidently incorrect.

      https://ethw.org/Nixie_Tubes

      • master-lincoln 28 minutes ago
        your article says it's a gas discharge vacuum tube, so no filament. You seem to be confidently incorrect too.
      • RicoElectrico 52 minutes ago
        Filament implies it is resistively heated, per tube terminology. Nixie is essentially a neon lamp, specially shaped, whose cathode is cold.
        • adrian_b 9 minutes ago
          You are of course right, but you should have pointed out that the text quoted by you was not 100% wrong, because the ten cathodes have indeed the forms of the ten digits and they are stacked one above the other.

          The only wrong parts were that the cathodes are not filaments and the cathodes themselves do not glow.

          The Nixie tubes are filled with neon at low pressure and the electric discharges through them produce the so-called negative light, i.e. where the luminescent gas is confined around the cathode. Therefore the negative light takes the shape of the cathode. The cathodes are not glowing, but they are surrounded by glowing neon gas.

          In my opinion, negative light, which comes from an apparently empty space, looks somehow more beautiful than solid light emitters, like an incandescent filament or a fluorescent lamp.

          The neon tubes that were used in advertising for making letters or other shapes, use positive light instead of negative light, i.e. where the luminescent gas occupies most of the glass tube, away from the electrodes, so giving various shapes to the glass tube provides various shapes of the visible light, regardless of the shapes of the electrodes (unlike for negative light, where the shape of the cathode matters, while the shape of the glass tube is irrelevant).