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0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

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Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#91
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So someone using "0xCAFEBABE" or whatever, do you really think women take it personally, or what is the problem here? If I were to use it, there would be no target, and I doubt in most common uses there are any, so it does not make much sense to me.

Just don't take the risk. Why is there a need to put potentially offensive words in the code when there are billions of alternatives? Some people may find it funny, but it mostly gives an image of immaturity.

I’ve never liked those hex words, especially the sexually connoted ones, but at the same time I find the existence of code checking for them very cringy.

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#94
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So someone using "0xCAFEBABE" or whatever, do you really think women take it personally, or what is the problem here? If I were to use it, there would be no target, and I doubt in most common uses there are any, so it does not make much sense to me.

Just don't take the risk. Why is there a need to put potentially offensive words in the code when there are billions of alternatives? Some people may find it funny, but it mostly gives an image of immaturity.

Because every word and every combination of hexadecimal characters is "potentially offensive", and because those prone to taking offense are perfectly capable of finding it anywhere that they want to anyway?

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#95

My preferred way to make a "magic" constant has been using base64. For example, 0x31a82270 maps to base64 `MagicA==`. This approach is most useful when the magic constant itself shouldn't be obviously ASCII but still should be meaningful enough.

too bad pointer alignment isn't visible in a base64 dump of memory

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#96
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean anything?

It's a reference to a song ("867-5309 / Jenny") by Tommy Tutone. It's pretty dated by now.

It was fun to read about this in the North American Numbering Plan documentation.

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#97
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reformatted: irb> [184594741, 2880289470, 2881141438, 2965027518, 2976579765, 3203381950, 3405691582, 3405697037, 3735927486, 4027431614, 4276992702].map! { _1.to_s(16) } => ["b00b135", "abadbabe", "abbababe", "b0bababe", "b16b00b5", "beefbabe", "cafebabe", "cafed00d", "deadbabe", "f00dbabe", "feedbabe"]

I wonder why are many many "babe" constants included, but only a single "d00d" constant.

if your coworker says 'ana over in sales is a babe' they're almost certainly commenting on her appearance, not just mentioning her gender. even if they don't explicitly mention her b16 b00b5, you may reasonably wonder if they're judging you on the same basis, and in particular whether you'd have a better yearly peer evaluation if you were a dowdy man instead of a dowdy woman

if they instead say 'leslie over in sales is a dood' they're just being explicit about his gender, perhaps because someone thought he was female

i'm not endorsing any value judgments for or against these statements, just explaining what other people's thinking (factually) is which leads to the kind of value judgments that lead to policies against putting b00b135 in your source code

i suspect cafed00d was included as a (possibly counterproductive) gesture to allay equity concerns like yours rather than because of any serious concern that a cafed00d constant would cause anyone any concern on its own

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That says all I need to know about the community.

Really? Current mainstream political shibboleths are more important than for example their stance on module versioning or on whether C code should have a right to exist?

it seems likely that the degree of importance they accord to current mainstream political shibboleths is informative about the community's value system and decision-making process, and therefore how it will change its policy on module versioning and c code in the next few years

probably some people will think it's encouraging information, and others will think it's discouraging information, but either way it's important information

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#99
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... > but sometimes considered offensive if used by a man to a woman he does not know There are billions of other magic numbers to choose from anyway.

So someone using "0xCAFEBABE" or whatever, do you really think women take it personally, or what is the problem here? If I were to use it, there would be no target, and I doubt in most common uses there are any, so it does not make much sense to me.

perhaps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41238488 will provide helpful context on the different ways people think about these things

Re: 0xCAFEBABE & 0xFEEDFACE (2003)

#100
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reference to a song ("867-5309 / Jenny") by Tommy Tutone. It's pretty dated by now.

Dated?! DATED?! BLASPHEMY! ;-)

It's as old now as the first Jazz concert at Carnegie hall was to it. Fred Astaire's "Nice Work if You Can Get It" was #24 on the charts that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_in_music
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