Talk:2527: New Nobel Prizes

2021-10-12T09:05:27Z

162.158.91.90:

I can't understand the title text --[[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 02:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
:I think it's implying that they're so desperate to stop Dr. Adams that they're offering a Nobel Prize to whoever gets her to stop. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.21|162.158.63.21]] 03:09, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
I think the comic is riffing on the gender imbalance. We're led to expect the dialogue to say all this year's Nobel prizes went to men (which in 2021 they did - which was newsworthy). ---- {{unsigned|141.101.107.229 who didn't use tildes}}

I think it's more like discovering new particles, than elements, with some sort of Enhanced Standard Model of Nobel Prizes probably being added to by the likes of supersymmetric partners, Higgses, etc. (But might be worth a mention that (pure) Mathematicians conspicuously miss out Nobel glory due to a deliberate oversight/snub? Not that I have skin in that game, but it's a known fact.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.53|162.158.159.53]] 08:29, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

This is probably also a jab at the "Nobel prize for Economics", which was awarded yesterday. That prize exists since the 1970s, but can't be regarded as a "real" Nobel prize in many ways: completely different awarding body, not an original Nobel prize as specified in Alfred Nobel's will, often not considered as relevant as the original prizes etc. One could say it is a completely unrelated prize that is just cleverly marketed by smuggling Alfred Nobel's name into it and by awarding it one day after the "real" Nobel prizes. In that way, one could thoretically create a near infinite number of new "Nobel prizes" for irrelevant stuff, as the comic suggests. -[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.90|162.158.91.90]] 09:05, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

1755: Old Days

2016-11-04T13:20:59Z

162.158.91.90: /* Table of statements */ time sharing systems.

{{comic
| number = 1755
| date = November 4, 2016
| title = Old Days
| image = old_days.png
| titletext = Lot of drama in those days, including constant efforts to force the "Reflections on Trusting Trust" guy into retirement so we could stop being so paranoid about compilers.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More explanation required on computer programming. Fill out the explanation column in the [[#Table of statements|table]] that lists all the statements.}}
This comic is showing a conversation between (young) [[Cueball]] and (old) [[Hairbun]] about computer programming in the past, specifically the {{w|compilers}}. Cueball, having a faint idea of just how difficult and byzantine programming was "in the old days", asks Hairbun to enlighten him on the specifics. Hairbun promptly seizes the opportunity to screw with his head.

While her initial explanation that code needed to be compiled for multiple architectures is correct, Hairbun's claims rapidly grow ridiculous to the point where the improvement from {{w|C (programming language)|C}} to {{w|C++}} was that C++ finally supported {{w|floppy disks}} but just punched holes in them rather than using {{w|punch cards}} "like C used". (A notch in the side of 5.25" floppy disks indicates when the disk could be written. Though many floppy disks were intended to have only a single side with data, many people used a hole punch to notch the opposite side of the disk, allowing a drive to write data to the other side of the disk in a single sided drive.)

Hairbun tells Cueball a tall tale about how hard it was back in the '''old days''', making it sound like some of the programming languages used today (C, C++) were written on punch cards and that you had to ship your code in the mail to a computer company ({{w|IBM}} in this case) to compile your code, which would take from four to six weeks. If there was a simple error, you would have to ship it again for another compilation.

Nothing of what she tells Cueball makes any sense, but it is clear from Cueball's final ''Wow'' that he falls for it, ready to believe anything the old Hairbun tells him about how horrible it was to program in the olden days. It is true that it was tough and slow to program on punch cards, which were actually used for an extended period of time, but there is nothing in the rest of Hairbun's story that accurate, except that it was a big deal when the floppy disk was invented.

In the title text, Hairbun continues her musings on the old compiler days, stating that there was ''a lot of drama in those days''. Specifically the references ''[http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html Reflections on Trusting Trust]'' a famous 1984 paper by {{w|UNIX}} co-creator {{w|Ken Thompson}} in which he described a way to hide a virtually undetectable backdoor in the UNIX login code via a second backdoor in the C compiler. Using the technique in his paper, it would be impossible to discover the hacked login by examining the official source code for either the login or the compiler itself. Ken Thompson may have actually included this backdoor in early versions of UNIX, undiscovered. Ken Thompson's paper demonstrated that it was functionally impossible to prove that any piece of software was fully trustworthy.

Hairbun claims that one of the dramas she refers to was that people tried to force Ken Thompson to retire, so everyone could stop being so paranoid about compilers. In reality, any coder who created the first version of a compiler (or a similar critical component) could inject a similar backdoor into software, so it would be false safety. Even if no one else would have thought of this, then Thompson's paper was there for any future hacker to see. Though the problem was (claimed to be) solved in {{w|David A. Wheeler}} Ph.D dissertation "[http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/ Fully Countering Trusting Trust through Diverse Double-Compiling (DDC)]".

==Table of statements==
{|class="wikitable"
!Statements
!Concepts used
!Explanation
|-
|Compile things for different processors
|Compile?
|Many popular modern programming languages are either interpreted - meaning that they run directly from source code - or compile to an intermediate bytecode, like Java or common Python implementations. Programs written in such languages are portable across processor architectures - x86 to ARM, for example. Lower-level languages must take into account the features available on a given processor architecture and operating system. Before that, even, programs needed to compile directly into the native machine language for each processor they were intended to run on.
|-
|To compile your code, you had to mail it to IBM. It took 4-6 weeks.
|Similar to sending Kodachrome slide film to Kodak to be developed.
|While IBM has released multiple compilers, they sent the compiler to you, you did not send the code to them. There is some kind of truth in the statement, though: When programming on mainframes, programmers submitted their source code in the evening for compilation over night. When there was an error in the code, they did not get a compiled version of it back, and had to resubmit their code. Sometimes there were time slots available for compilation, and in universities, students will have to wait for their next time slot for another try.
|-
|Before garbage collection, data would pile up until the computer got full and you had to throw it away.
|A {{w|Garbage Collection|Garbage Collector}} is a piece of the software that cleans the {{w|RAM}} memory of data that is no longer being used in the execution of a program.
|Garbage collection is a form of memory management that generally destroys objects or frees up memory once a program no longer needs it. In languages without automatic memory management, like C, the program must keep track of what memory has been allocated, and free it once it is no longer needed. If the program does not, it can end up trying to use more memory than the computer has, and may crash. This was, however, a temporary condition. In the worst case, a simple reboot will clear the computer's memory.
|-
|Early compilers could handle code fine, but comments had to be written in assembly.
|A {{w|Comment (computer programming)|comment}} in programming is a text written in natural language that is meant to explain some feature on the source code. {{w|Assembly}} is a low-level programming language.
|Comments, in code, are portions of one or more lines that are ignored by the compiler. They are commonly used to explain or comment on the code itself. But sometimes the comments are written in a certain way to automatically compile manuals from it.
|-
|C could only be written on punch cards.You had to pick a compact font, or you'd only fit a few characters per card.
|{{w|C (programming language)|C}} is a programming language. A {{w|punch card}} is a primitive form of storing data; it stored data in {{w|binary language}} with holes in a paper or cardboard card where a hole meant a 1 and the absence of a hole meant a 0.
|While punch cards were used through the late 1970s and early 1980s to enter programs and data in COBOL, FORTRAN and other early languages, the use of punch cards and punch card machines had been replaced by a {{w|Text Editor}} long before C (or C++) was developed as a language.

Also, as punch cards store characters in binary, there is no font involved and they store up to fixed limit of characters per card (80 characters in the most common format.)
|-
|C++ was big because it supported floppy disks. It still punched holes in them, but it was a start
|{{w|C++ (programming language)|C++}} is a programming language. A {{w|Floppy disk}} is a (more advanced than punch cards but still old) form of storing data magnetically.
|Hairbun says that the improvement from C to C++ was the C++ finally supported floppy disks, but then it turns out that in C++ the floppy disks were just used instead of punch cards. So the programing was to make holes in floppy disks rather than punch cards. This would of course not be an improvement as floppy disk are not as easy (actually very hard) to make holes in, compared to punch card, which are made for this purpose and then the whole concept of using floppy disk to store data magnetically is ignored (you could not re-use the floppy again). In any case, a hole punched in a floppy disk would render it useless.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Hairbun are standing together and Cueball is talking to her.]
:Cueball: What were things like in the old days?
:Cueball: I hear that you had to ... compile things for different processors?
:Hairbun: Yeah

:[Same setting in a slimmer panel, now Hairbun is replying.]
:Hairbun: To compile your code, you had to mail it to IBM.
:Hairbun: It took 4-6 weeks.

:[Close-up of Hairbun from the waist up.]
:Hairbun: Before garbage collection, data would pile up until the computer got full and you had to throw it away.

:[Same setting as in the first panel with Hairbun gesturing toward Cueball raising one hand palm up.]
:Hairbun: Early compilers could handle code fine, but comments had to be written in assembly.

:[In a frame-less panel Hairbun is seen from the front, with both arms out to the side with both hands held palm up.]
:Hairbun: '''C''' could only be written on punch cards.You had to pick a compact font, or you'd only fit a few characters per card.

:[Exactly the same setting as the first panel, but with Hairbun doing the talking.]
:Hairbun: '''C++''' was big because it supported floppy disks.
:Hairbun: It still punched holes in them, but it was a start.
:Cueball: Wow.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Programming]]

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Talk:2527: New Nobel Prizes

1755: Old Days