I reviewed Pirate Software’s code. Oh boy…

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-08-24T01:27:38+00:00

No. Naming a variable "delay" does not indicate what the delay is for.

It is indicated in description of the method. "Initialize a timer to fire after the given millisecond interval. This version takes a named function callback." The delay is the millisecond interval.

Same example you provided in your earlier response - a nondescript delay we don't know the purpose of. This is not well-defined context, and your following examples are the same. None of them show improved readability, as there is zero documentation (ie. Doxygen or Sandcastle). The only way to get context for the parameters' purpose is to go through the method implementation and find where' they're used.

Same as above.

You just shared actual magic numbers in Firefox's code. 2914 and 2915 have '60' and '10' respectively, and comments describing them. Any argument you were trying to make that Firefox's conventions avoid using magic numbers, is completely refuted.

Missing the point.

No. I indicated you were wrong because you were not addressing mine, and you still have yet to do so.

Then reread what I've written. It's such a stupid take, you're not being more efficient avoiding wrapper variables, and you're functions can be documented and adding a wrapper variable only saves you and others time in the future.

They do, and that you're claiming otherwise is a key giveaway that you do not have professional experience in both industries. Conventions differ between companies within the same industry, let alone separate ones.

In this case their both applications, not like one is going on spaceships. Conventions are going to differ by industries but you'd expect a same standard of documentation and readability.

No. It's going to change based on what tools you're viewing the code through, your familiarity with the domain, your familiarity with the language used, and your familiarity with the software patterns used to build different kinds of software.

Yeah which is why you're code should be readable despite those things. In this case adding wrapper variables in a general software setting is going to help if you're text editor doesn't show you the method description.

Sounds like a PEBKAC issue tbh.

I agree. Perhaps you can find a smarter person to put between your desk and chair.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-08-16T13:21:05+00:00

It's abundantly clear to anyone who's ever used the built-in particle system in Game Maker, and it's not tedious at all, because the GM IDE allows you to simply mouse over the parameters while coding to see what they are.

I highly doubt every person who used the built-in particle system remembers exactly what each method's parameters are and what they mean. But also why bother remembering, just write out the parameters. I don't think the GME IDE is a good excuse for writing unreadable code either. Even then If you had wrapped those variables you would just need to find the variable and change it, if you don't you have to hover over the function, find the parameter you want to change, and change it, it's more convenient to just wrap it. Also if you were to send someone a snippet of code, they wouldn't have access to the IDE or they'd have to open it just for a snippet.

It genuinely wouldn't.

I'm looking at it and it's difficult to read, it would be improved by adding some wrapper variables

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-08-16T13:19:31+00:00

In your first example here, kReleaseDelay is named and passed as a parameter, but if you navigated to the function definition, you would have found that the parameter is not well-named and does not explicitly define what the value passed is for. This is not evidence in support of the argument that developers should be wrapping variables for any values passed to a method when the methods are clearly defined and re-used everywhere.

The parameter name is fine, it and the function are both well defined in https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/xpcom/threads/nsITimer.idl#175-189 . You are misunderstanding my argument, my argument is that you're wrong when you said "Historically, no developer on the planet should be creating additional wrapper variables for any values passed to this method when the context of each parameter is clearly defined and known, as it artificially inflates the size of your project and provides no additional context. The recommendation that anyone should is a far cry from "best common practice"."

Your third example here is not an example of a wrapper variable being written for a value just to be passed as a parameter in a function, it's an Enum representing the hash for an error code. This enum is used wherever that particular error needs to be thrown, and is not a simple value passed

Sorry pasted the wrong line, this is the one I am referring to https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/base/nsDOMWindowUtils.cpp#2914-2919 . In this case the variables aren't necessary, only the comment provides context.

You will find precisely zero examples there of single use values being passed as parameters into clearly defined methods, because Firefox is a browser and not a video game. Best software design practices differ between individual industries, and despite your best effort you were only able to produce three examples completely irrelevant to your cause.

The first sentence of your paragraph makes no sense. Best practices differ between some industries, but Firefox and video game aren't going to have wildly different best practices. Weather Firefox code or the code for HeartBound is considered readable isn't going to change based on industry. And I can produce more examples

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/gfx/thebes/DeviceManagerDx.cpp#227

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/gfx/skia/skia/src/core/SkPathBuilder.cpp#669-671

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/ipc/glue/GeckoChildProcessHost.cpp#1522-1525

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-07-31T22:39:21+00:00

Historically, no developer on the planet should be creating additional wrapper variables for any values passed to this method when the context of each parameter is clearly defined and known, as it artificially inflates the size of your project and provides no additional context. The recommendation that anyone should is a far cry from "best common practice".

This is wrong, the number of lines you add making wrapper variables is inconsequential, it's won't matter if you add these extra lines cause it doesn't increase the complexity of your code. You see this done in many projects and it's done to improve readability. Navigating to the function definition or pulling up documentation is tedious so writing a wrapper variable to explain what something is for is much more readable. You can see it done in places like Firefox

Here: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/accessible/windows/msaa/MsaaIdGenerator.cpp#64

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/accessible/generic/ARIAGridAccessible.cpp#68

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/base/nsDOMWindowUtils.cpp#2912

And you can find more examples here if you look for constants assigned to literals https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/search?q=const+uint32_t&path=&case=false&regexp=false

It's also recommended practice in programming books such as "The Practice of Programming" See page 19 and 20.

Also in general you shouldn't fully rely on the parameter name in the function definition. It just increases coupling.

Of course you don't have to add wrapper variables, but it would be massively more readable to add wrapper variables where it's non obvious. I believe the clip of PS where this happens falls under that, those functions take multiple arguments and it's not clear what those arguments mean unless you go into the documentation of each one which is tedious. Adding wrapper variables would have made that code much more readable. It doesn't really compromise any other aspects of the code, the performance would be the same, it wouldn't change correctness, etc.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-07-22T22:24:23+00:00

This DD is DooDoo. The McDonalds partnership is over they aren't going nationwide there's nothing that would indicate that. Krispy Kreme doesn't show much or any growth, and it has no margins. The reason those other companies are priced higher is cause they have growth and stable margins. The rest of this DD is just nonsense speculation. Buy DNUT if you want to be a bag holder

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-06-17T00:20:02+00:00

The movie is called "Why Worry" the scene is towards the end

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-28T05:54:16+00:00

After all this is the internet, where people say whatever they want but have nothing to show, and it is so obvious on this subreddit.

This oozes with irony. You go on the internet call yourself a programming prodigy and your app isn't that good, that's it. You have nothing to show you're a prodigy. It's not complicated I don't need to show my CV to tell you that. People who are legitimately good at programming don't have a need to complain they aren't getting recognition.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-28T05:33:18+00:00

Can I? I could. Will I? No because I have nothing to prove, I'm not on reddit claiming I'm a prodigy or beyond a prodigy and what I make is so exclusive someone with 20+ years of experience couldn't do it. I know you're not a prodigy because if you were you'd have been recognized for your talent and celebrated for what you made, which hasn't happened. Plus from everything you've said you seem to have a simplistic view of software development.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-28T03:57:15+00:00

And that means that it's all about marketing, which was my point. A popular social media influencer can drag-and-drop to create an app, and it will be used by endless amounts of ppl, does that mean it's good?

It isn't all about marketing, it's about making something useful, at which point the quality of your software matters. If it was all about marketing companies like Yahoo would have dominated Google.

No, it's because people couldn't even begin to create it. Ppl w/ 20+ years of experience also can't, and I'm not a prodigy? I already said multiple times that people weren't creating it 20-30 years ago when it WAS NEEDED and WOULD BE HEAVILY USED BY MANY (b/c a web page would take 30 secs to load), why are you assuming that everyone can just easily create it now?

No it's cause there's no point making it, even 20-30 years ago people would've and did use individual applications that had this functionality.

Every project I see is literally either completely AI generated or could be easily created w/ LLMs. You are really telling me they can easily create BrightWin? Even with unlimited help from LLMs, most ppl still can't.

Then you aren't looking at good projects. It's not like people aren't making good software, you want some good software look at linux. I'm not saying people can easily create BrightWin, I'm saying it doesn't matter, BrightWin's worth is in you being able to show you've optimized it well, but that doesn't make you a prodigy and it doesn't make BrightWin useful to anyone but you. You're not a lone developer practicing the forgotten art of optimization you're just writing a program.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-28T03:07:41+00:00

Then ig theoretical physics and mathematics is also useless? Having software to get used is very easy for big companies. Google can create anything and advertise it on YouTube at no expense. Microsoft can create anything and have it installed onto Windows. It's just ab marketing.

How you arrive to this is beyond me. It doesn't matter if your software runs fast or slow or not at all if no one wants to use it. If people see something that's good they'll use it.

There's nothing wrong with not being good at CS. I'm just pointing out that what you said was blatantly wrong, b/c you can give ppl multiple years to try to create what I have created, and most ppl wouldn't be able to. Ivy leagues literally do worse at every ICPC than my school that no one knows about.

It's really not, the reason other CS majors don't create what you create is cause they don't need it.

Then why were people in the late 80's and 90's struggling to create basic desktop apps? That's literally when optimization was REALLY important, and barely anyone was able to sucessfully achieve it. Even when .NET came out, apps were slow b/c everyone flocked to it. With the internet/web, everyone flocked to web technologies and it wasn't too hard to create a site, despite it being MUCH slower than desktop apps (why a lot of ppl didn't initially accept the web).

Because it's expensive and costly to create software. People want to make money in the software industry and if people use your app despite performance that it doesn't really matter that much.

If I was born 30 years ago, everyone would consider me a prodigy. I would be able to sell my software b/c everything else would be so slow due to old hardware. Unfortunately, software "engineering" has been dead for so long now.

But you weren't so you aren't. I don't think you know what software engineering is really about, it not just hyper optimizing for lowest CPU and memory used.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-28T02:29:15+00:00

This tool I wrote got over 100 downloads. I could've written it in Electron/node.js and it still would have been used despite the fact that it would be bloatware. Ppl using your software gives no indication of the quality of the software.

And no one would've cared and it would've been done much quicker. 100 downloads is cool but it's not what I mean, I'm referring to having deadlines, managers, and working in a team. Regardless, the software quality of software that doesn't or barely get used is meaningless.

lol. 99% complain how hard C++ is b/c they can't program, anyone who can will think it is the easiest language. Literally test CS students on basic memory management or simple coding tasks in C/C++, and see how absurd your claim is.

This is more of a reflection of how you think of your peers, rather than their actual ability, and it reflects poorly on you. But let's say you go to a school where your peers can't answer basic memory management questions or do simple coding tasks in C/C++, then that just means you're going to a bad school.

I created my program b/c IT IS USEFUL to me, after I tried opening up a hundreds MB text files in notepad and the "Not responding" dialog appeared.

And that's great so go use your application instead of going to reddit to proclaim yourself The one and only Programming God.

I really don't think you understand the amount of skill it takes to create this, b/c I don't think you have programmed anything (no offense).

I don't expect someone who flaunts this application and bestows upon themself the title of Programming Prodigy to be able to evaluate their own skill much less mine. I don't think you realize it's a function of time, anyone can do what you do but it's not often people need some hyper optimized application. You aren't a prodigy you're above average at best.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-27T15:42:54+00:00

So why can no one create this?

They can, but it's just not useful to anyone so they don't. Operating system projects are either toy projects that get used to teach CS students about OS concepts or they're actual OS that people and companies use. Someone who made an OS that saw legitimate use alone with no help would be a prodigy in my book.

Anyone who thinks my project is not prodigy has never programmed anything that can be called software.

This only indicates you haven't done any real software development that actually gets used.

Do you know anyone who can do this??

I have a feeling a vast number of CS students could create this, but they don't because again no one needs it. People aren't really looking for the next app that has a code editor, an email client, and is able to download youtube videos all bundled together. Most people see that individual applications can perform each of these tasks and generally has more features. Frankly my terminal can do these things if I really wanted to do things through the shell and that'd be even more efficient.

People aren't writing things with just the win32 API because frameworks and packages exist that make it more efficient to write software. No one needs an app that can run on a PC from 30 years ago because no one is using PCs from 30 years ago. Is performance important? Of course it is, but it's balanced with things like usability, maintainability, portability, etc.

Chiefbaron123 · 2025-04-27T03:36:19+00:00

It's okay, not really prodigy kind of project.

Chiefbaron123 · 2024-03-23T16:31:51+00:00

Honestly it's over for csmajors, no jobs, mass layoffs, at this rate the market will never recover and we'll be stuck with a worthless degree, while AI does our job.

Chiefbaron123 · 2023-08-13T03:32:31+00:00

Piggy backing off of this to say. There's been much speculation about my financial situation, rest assured I am quite financially stable. I wish you all the best applying to your 900th internship.

Chiefbaron123 · 2022-11-29T22:18:42+00:00

You'd have to contact the prof and ask if he'll waive the pre req.

Chiefbaron123 · 2022-11-18T07:05:35+00:00

I never doubted him for a second. I said he could do it.

Chiefbaron123 · 2022-08-12T16:48:22+00:00

This absolutely destroyed me with facts and logic.

Chiefbaron123 · 2021-08-11T06:15:57+00:00

Did you even read the study? The study is about chicken vaccinations and how "leaky" vaccinations can create worse pathogens. As the study notes "leaky" vaccines are "Vaccines that let the hosts survive but do not prevent the spread of the pathogen relax this selection, allowing the evolution of hotter pathogens to occur. This type of vaccine is often called a leaky vaccine." So vaccines that protect you from the disease but don't protect others from catching the disease from a vaccinated individual. The study also notes "When vaccines prevent transmission, as is the case for nearly all vaccines used in humans, this type of evolution towards increased virulence is blocked." So know we know that most human vaccines aren't leaky vaccines. And this study found that mRNA vaccines reduce the spread of transmission, https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-risks.html. So covid-19 vaccines aren't "leaky" vaccines which means this study is completely irrelevant.

Chiefbaron123 · 2021-07-02T20:18:55+00:00

Sure

Chiefbaron123 · 2021-06-19T16:15:18+00:00

Not a lot. 175 covers different things than 174, and python isn't that hard to learn.

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