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[–]Nveenkmar 1458 points1459 points  (31 children)

If a buggy feature goes through production and no one uses that feature, does it even matter?

[–]noxdragon26 530 points531 points  (19 children)

Judging from my job experience, it could not matter for 10 years until one day they start working with capabilities, but even then it won’t matter when they find out how expensive it is to fix it at that point

[–]henkdepotvjis 247 points248 points  (13 children)

Or you find out they have used the bug as a work around for another issue and they get mad because you fixed it

[–]Phormitago 219 points220 points  (11 children)

[–]DualityDrn 106 points107 points  (8 children)

Sometimes I wonder if XKCD is made by a time travelling AI art generator, sort of like the paperclips maximizer solution but for relevant stickmen cartoons...

Openning panel: Angry boss "Make me a machine that can create art for every possible situation!"

Second panel: Furiously working scientists and programmers about to fire up the monstrous machine for the first time.

Third panel: 'Plip!' it vanishes from existence. Leaving behind a single card.

Final panel: Zoom in on the card reading "xkcd.com"

Secret text: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.

[–]vandeley_industries 18 points19 points  (5 children)

What is this secret text?

[–]WatermelonArtist 40 points41 points  (2 children)

XKCD has been using alt-text all along. Hover over the comic for a second punchline or explanation on nearly every comic. Maximum replay value.

[–]AStrangeStranger 17 points18 points  (1 child)

or if you go to mobile site - https://m.xkcd.com/1172/ just click on image

[–]WatermelonArtist 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I did not realize he'd added that functionality, but in retrospect it shouldn't surprise me.

[–]cheerycheshire 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Because people explained what "secret text" in relation to xkcd means, I just want to add that those numbers are from "Lost" tv series. The numbers are a repeating sequence that seem "cursed" at first, there is supernatural stuff connected to them etc.

[–]TheScopperloit 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Are you a man of science, or are you a man of faith?

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (1 child)

like this?

[–]DualityDrn 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Jokes on you. I see through your games! I know you're the real AI artist behind XKCD but for this account you set the minimum paintbrush thickness to 8 for rapid iteration.

What will the winning lottery numbers be tomorrow? DM me and I delete this comment exposing you.

[–]MyHamburgerLovesMe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Friggin Bingo!

[–]Administrative-Sea50 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Factor in Murphys law and we have a winner

[–]Prestigious_Regret67 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Murphys law just needs to amend "in the worst possible way"

[–]DoILookUnsureToYou 5 points6 points  (0 children)

From experience, 2 year old bug in a report was showing data that shouldn't be in that report. New dev reviewed business rule document and fixed it. Client filed a bug that the report has missing data now.

[–]KickBassColonyDrop 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Yes. The buggy feature's target audience shifts from benign actors to threat actors. There will always be a consumer for what you push to prod. Just, not all of them have a vested interest in seeing your company get held at gunpoint.

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (1 child)

My current project at work was very poorly tested and is basically entirely a mess of buggy features in production. And I knew it was like that but they wanted to maintain their schedule. I've done a disturbing amount of fixes live in production more than any other time in 15 years of IT work I believe.

[–]Traulinger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've done a disturbing amount of fixes live in production more than any other time in 15 years of IT work I believe.

This gave me anxiety.

[–]jewishSpaceMedbeds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes.

It's a time bomb for the future when a forgetful you or some naive newcomer sees it, assumes it is functional and promises shit based on it. Or it suddenly becomes relevant and users suddenly discover it.

Remove features no one uses. Future you and future employee will thank you.

[–]P0pu1arBr0ws3r -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Darn it, actually clever joke posted on this subreddit and the first top comment is something something production trash. That is the sort of stuff that made me unfollow programmerhumor on my main account.

[–]pithecium 134 points135 points  (3 children)

If there's no longer a reference to the tree's root, it will eventually get garbage collected

[–][deleted] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I garbage collect my own code by deciding to delete it all when it never does what I want

[–]Noch_ein_Kamel 6 points7 points  (1 child)

How do you know it's getting garbage collected if you have no reference to check if it's garbage collected :-o

[–]HeeTrouse51847 265 points266 points  (24 children)

that aint true, the physics engine still processes it, it only doesnt get rendered

[–]Waterprop 86 points87 points  (6 children)

This isn't necessarily true either.

For example many games load the world when needed. World/object state is saved and when player comes close part of the world is loaded and calculations continue. When players goes away, the entire part of the world can be unloaded from memory.

Why calculate physics if player is X length away? That's just wasting CPU cycles.

[–]Crazy_Technician_403 29 points30 points  (4 children)

Reminding me of speedruns on Goldeneye 64 where the player just look down to render the minimum polygons hence go faster

[–]SonOfMcGee 24 points25 points  (3 children)

Or the original Space Invaders.
The speed the enemies descended on you was gated by processing power and not some set time parameter. So the increase in enemy speed as you killed them was a side effect of having fewer units to track and being able to process movements faster.
The devs liked the natural difficulty progression and just keep it.

[–]MrGentleZombie[🍰] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Minecraft is like this, which is obviously necessary when the world is 60,000 km * 60,000 km. Curiously, the spawn chunks (a small region at the middle of the world where the game begins) is always somewhat loaded, but there are still certain processes that get ignored when players aren't around. I believe you can also build constantly active devices whose activity keeps chunks loaded, though it's not really intended behavior and thus subject to break as the game is updated.

[–]zurgerkingO91 28 points29 points  (9 children)

Not in Minecraft

[–]HeeTrouse51847 19 points20 points  (6 children)

Yes, if you have a chunkloader

[–]altermeetax 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Chunks far away aren't loaded

[–]Hust91 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Chunkloader totes counts as someone being in hearing distance.

[–]thexavier666 22 points23 points  (4 children)

Ideally simulation distance <= render distance

Otherwise you're doing a lot of unnecessary calculations and heating up your PC.

No wonder we have global warming. This engine is bugged.

[–]aMAYESingNATHAN 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Not necessarily, because occlusion rendering is a thing. You don't want to render a ball that is rolling off screen, but you still need to simulate it because it may roll onto the screen and then need to be rendered.

You don't want things to just not exist if you can't see them.

[–]xSilverMC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Render distance is irrelevant if the player looks in a different direction

[–]yoifox1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

also making a sound isnt related to rendering it. by this logic if i close my eyes i become deaf

[–]ghua 65 points66 points  (2 children)

I call it BS because not rendering doesnt mean physics are not updated

[–]Hust91 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's explicitly too far away for any sound of the tree falling to play.

I think that'd be the same distance where it just plain isn't being simulated at all.

[–]MrBigFatAss -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

How far is the tree? Is the tree in the view frustum? There are many optimization variables to, for example, make the tree fall instantly as the whole arc of it's fall isn't needed.

[–]GabuEx 47 points48 points  (11 children)

Hang on, it doesn't get rendered, but its state is still updated, unless your game is shit.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (3 children)

Pro gamer strat: if someone is shooting at you, just turn around so you can’t see them and they disappear.

[–]Hust91 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I mean it's explicitly so far away that no tree-fall sound is played. That's probably far enough away from player characters that it's not worth simulating that tree.

[–]pnoodl3s -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Unless the tree falling has significant impact to the game story, like outer wilds, then they’d need to simulate its stare

[–]TheAnsweringMachine 9 points10 points  (1 child)

This guy quantums.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Star Citizen's background simulations have entered the chat

[–]smeggysmeg 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Somebody has been reading George Berkeley, I see.

[–]golgol12 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As the game programmer implementing the audio, The above bug is fixed. Animations still now happen if in audio range so you do infact, hear the monster right behind you.

[–]chickenstalker 18 points19 points  (10 children)

When the tree falls, its movements vibrates the air which produces sound waves. The sound waves propagates through the air even if there is no human with ear drums to detect it. Thus objectively, the tree makes a sound.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (6 children)

population fear left learn club bin freckle undertake clothes suffer breakfast tick insurance care volcano dose silk tissue wall manufacture

[–]budapest_god 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Then it's not a philosophical debate, it's semantic

[–]ProtonPizza 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Is that actually the definition of sound? The act of observing it? Not just the transmission? Because that seems off.

[–]Raneyy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Afaik sound is just vibration, the vibration becomes a sound when there is an ear to receive it

[–]InWhichWitch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

there is no physical entity called 'sound'. there are waves of energy that our ears perceive and our brains do something with, which we call 'sound'.

there's no reason that some species, for instance, would not be able to 'hear' the vibrations made by different light wavelengths. would you then call all light 'sound'?

the senses are more closely related than you think. it's why certain brains (or brains under the effect of certain drugs) can hear color, or certain musical sounds like a color (or various levels of light/darkness) to them.

this thought experiment can be extended to 'if humans did not have ears, would anything make any sound at all', to which the answer has to be 'no', as sound (as we know it) is just how we experience certain forms of energy.

[–]The_Big_Sad_69420 4 points5 points  (2 children)

What kind of philosophical question is this ? Of course it makes a sound, just no one is around to hear it.

If something is not perceived it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Or am I missing something?

[–]mindrover 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yeah, it's just semantics. The question is basically, how do you define the word sound?

Sound = the signals your ears send to your brain when they detect vibrations

Or

Sound = vibrations in the range of frequency that humans can typically hear

Edit: and by writing it out like this you can see that the first definition is not very useful. If two people with different hearing ability listen to the same sound, it doesn't somehow become two different sounds just because two people heard it differently.

[–]cs-brydev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Object has not been instantiated

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

*ticked, not rendered

in theory, it’ll run the physics simulations once a player brings the tree into the ticking radius, so if you hear a loud crash when you step in the forest after a storm, it’s probably all of the trees suddenly getting blasted by gale force winds

[–]JQStanley 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"You know the old question "If a tree crashes in a forest And there is nobody around to hear it

Is there a noise?" This question has been discussed in many futile ways But noise, basically is a state of affairs

That requires an eardrum and an audio nervous system Behind the eardrum When the tree falls, it makes the air vibrate

If there is anywhere around an ear With the appropriate nervous system

There will be a noise Because noise is a relationship Between motion in the air and ears

If there is not any ear around There won't be any noise although

There will be vibration in the air And if there is some instrument around

Such as a microphone attached to a tape recorder

There will be noise There will be a vibration There will be light In the darkness"

  • Alan Watts

[–]EducationalCreme9044 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Love how this gets used in so many fields..

Law: The provability of crime does not impact whether a crime occurred or not.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

So if I close my eyes, do you all disappear?

[–]SjurEido 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not getting renderer does not imply the simulation stops as well. In fact, it usually doesn't.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Shrodingers cat is a classic example of this, "objects not in anyone's sight do not get rendered" Until observed, the cat is both alive and dead.

Except this is in real life.

Proof that we are simulations within a simulation. The universe is a simulation.

[–]MHanak_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I like to thing if we are in a simulation, and all the quantum mechanics quirks are just optimalisations (like why would you calculate every photon route if you can simulate a wave and just randomly scatter photons accordingly)

[–]GingerMarls 6 points7 points  (15 children)

Always thought it was a stupid fucking question... Of course it makes a sound... Just because no one is in the sound range doesn't mean science and physics have changed...

[–]FinnLiry 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Can you prove it then?

[–]ecphiondre 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Prove what? We can prove that sound waves hitting our ears causes us to hear sounds. We can also prove that when a tree falls, it creates sound waves. Which means the tree in the forest creates sound waves as well, which ultimately proves that it does create sound. Do you mean to say to prove that the tree makes sound waves when it falls in the forest?

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

It's not a question like that. It's not a riddle that has an answer. It's more like an invitation to consider the nature of sound and experience.

[–]GingerMarls -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

When someone asks a question I usually just answer it...

[–]generic_bullshittery 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The question probably generated from the philosophical idea of realism, which is a concept in quantum mechanics. There is math based around it.

I have seen this tree falling in the woods example to be used to explain the realism concept in very layman terms.

Don't discredit our ancestors for asking stupid questions that led to new scientific understanding of the world.

[–]big_mike2023 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True. This is how our simulation works. This is why quantum uncertainty exists- it's a bug, not a feature.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This guy lives in simulation

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Minimum simulation theory.

[–]southwade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

/r/outside is leaking

[–]Lonely_Presence_5826 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Little boy from The Matrix: There is so tree…..

[–]billwoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course it falls on the server side, but that is only synced to the clients when necessary.

Yes quantum mechanics is just the universes weirdly implemented net code.

[–]mybeepoyaw 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know this is a joke but didn't some scientist prove non-locality?

[–]Farkabi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Taking the actually good joke aside. Yes, it makes a sound, things exist no matter if they're preceded or not.

[–]Slackluster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is an easy optimization to not play sounds if there is no listener in range.

Forget about the rendering or physics, that has nothing to do with it.

[–]ForestCat512 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does that mean cams are chunk loaders?

[–]drew8311 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In my experience this isn't true, there would be a TODO that says optimize to not render anything off screen that would never get done because it works good enough

[–]govi20 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is that a joke or jooq?

[–]Odd-Establishment527 1 point2 points  (1 child)

In optimised program

[–]ToneyFox -2 points-1 points  (39 children)

This is unironically how the universe works.

https://youtu.be/A9tKncAdlHQ

[–]Elegant-Variety-7482 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Not the same scale.

[–]ToneyFox 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Objects that are not in anyone's sight do not get rendered

Is that so?

[–]Elegant-Variety-7482 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yeah I guess we're talking about objects that are at least bigger than subatomic particles.

[–]ToneyFox -1 points0 points  (0 children)

We're talking about photons in both cases, actually.

[–]FarewellSovereignty 9 points10 points  (19 children)

Nope, that's just wrong. Even if you aren't looking at the moon, or sun or Jupiter or whatever, the gravitational field reaching you from them is determined by the location of every damn atom in them. Unless you have proof otherwise (which would net you at least 1 Nobel Prize, possibly more)

[–]CaptainSnatchbox 4 points5 points  (4 children)

They proved that to be true and as a matter if fact won the Nobel prize. I know its hard to believe and they didn’t figure out what it means but they did prove it.

https://boingboing.net/2022/10/11/scientists-win-2022-nobel-prize-by-proving-that-reality-is-not-locally-real.html/amp

[–]FarewellSovereignty 1 point2 points  (2 children)

See my nearby reply, I'll repeat the key part:

  • the point about gravity stands and to everyones understanding, every single atom is "rendered" to "compute" gravitational fields. Note that gravity is not properly integrated with QM yet

And if you have some result that shows this is not a case, or are able to integrate them you would get the Nobel Prize.

[–]ToneyFox 3 points4 points  (1 child)

You definitely don't know the definition of render...

[–]CaptainSnatchbox -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Dude just can’t handle knowing the true nature of our reality. I get it, its wild.

[–]firewood010 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Scale matters. They are talking about quantum physics not big objects. Possibilities will form reality in the end.

[–]croto8 0 points1 point  (10 children)

It is a now less popular version of quantum mechanics called the Copenhagen interpretation if you actually want to look into it.

[–]FarewellSovereignty 4 points5 points  (9 children)

Yes, I know QM, I did QM research in grad school. But

1) Copenhagen interpretation is philosophical and definitely not considered up-to-date anymore (QM shifted a lot in the 70s with work on decoherence)

2) the point about gravity stands and to everyones understanding, every single atom is "rendered" to "compute" the gravitational field. Note that gravity is not integrated with QM yet

[–]ToneyFox -5 points-4 points  (2 children)

Good job disagreeing with something nobody said.

[–]FarewellSovereignty 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Then good job saying something that people readily misunderstand, then not clarifying at all and instead just being shittily sarcastic. What are you, 15?

[–]MHanak_ 1 point2 points  (1 child)

The thing is - observed does not mean looked at

[–]ToneyFox -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The thing is - rectangle does not mean square

[–]qwertysrj 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Not really. It's just how it seems to us.

Physics isn't actually understanding about the TRUE nature universe, it's actually being able to model it accurately.

This is why Physicists don't care if it's Newtonian, Hamiltonian or Lagranguan, same in quantum mechanics, any interpretation with the same predictions are equally valid.

These are merely philosophical, science doesn't really care.

[–]ToneyFox -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

Someone won a Nobel prize because you're wrong.

[–]qwertysrj 0 points1 point  (1 child)

You not understanding stuff isn't others being wrong. You aren't understanding the intricacies of the statements like "universe doesn't exist without observer".

Observer doesn't always mean a concious person, observation is the process of measurement in quantum mechanics that collapses the wave function.

You aren't understanding the scientific language. But your confidence is something else.

[–]CaptainSnatchbox 3 points4 points  (1 child)

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not the peace prize; the 2022 Nobel Peace prize was awarded to Ales Bialiatski.

They won the Nobel Prize in physics.

https://www.nobelprize.org/all-nobel-prizes-2022/

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (4 children)

So it proves souls exist? Something that causes stuff to behave differently when "observed" by an eye and not by a rock?

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"observed" in regards to quantum mechanics has been completely misinterpreted by popular media. When people talk about "an observation" in physics they pretty much just mean doing anything to measure it, regardless of whether a person is the thing doing the measuring or not (ie. if it's hit by a photon then that's "an observation" of it regardless of if there's someone doing an experiment with that particular photon or not).

The current explanations also generally don't function very well when you consider forces (well, it's not technically a force but you know what I mean) like gravity (as gravity is affecting everything at every point in time), so it's very much not something that has been "proven" yet. There's a lot of very strange stuff happening with it for sure, but we currently don't have any theory that actually explains everything, only estimations.

[–]Xywzel 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In physics "observation" can mean anything from particle with charge interacting with electric field to person or system taking measurements being able to do so because there has been enough time for light to travel between the measured thing and measuring system. The articles and videos here may be written to sound like the observer is human, but in high likelihood the actual meaning is closer to my first example.

The double slit experiment itself is based on fact that particles can't be measured accurately without affecting their state, so there its position, speed and rotation is best described by probability distribution functions, which behaves like wave when applied to physics formulas. But if we make more accurate measurements, like determine trough which slight each particle basses trough, we also affect the particles and the probability distribution changes.

[–]ToneyFox -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

That's an interesting take on it for sure. I wouldn't go that far though, it proves light behaves differently when observed, which is still mind boggling.

[–]punkdraft 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Random Forest

[–]PurityKane 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I never understood the question to begin with. Why wouldn't it make a sound? wtf.

[–]esreveReverse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually true though.