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Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

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Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#181

Post by Ekaros »

loopdoend wrote: post #99
saghm wrote: post #2

> remember, all of the following statements are false at least some of the time, but for some of these, perhaps not very often > 5. There is a such thing as a TCP packet > 6. There is no such thing as a TCP packet I don't understand this at all. Either the concept of a TCP packet exists, or the concept does not exist. Even it's not being used in certain scenarios, I don't see how you can argue that "there's no such t…

It exists but more as a TCP stream, which is broadcast as packets...

Unicast. Unless we are talking about wifi... Which gets to very similar context based mess.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#182

Post by halayli »

This post is meaningless without clearly defining what reliable means.

Regarding ack not being received by sender when connection breaks, it's a weak and dishonest argument thinking it will strengthen their position, but completely ignoring the fact that TCP reliability is dependent on the simple and obvious fact that the connection exists!

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#184

Post by maxbond »

jayd16 wrote: post #78
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The following list contains only falsehoods: 1. You're wrong 2. Okay, you're right 3. Okay maybe you're right or wrong but certainly not both

Aha! You're null.

Or a false premise, perhaps (from which anything follows).

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#185

Post by Paradigma11 »

thayne wrote: post #176
School-Cotton wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what he means by France having a “weird” naming system in common use. As far as I can tell, the traditional French naming system works exactly the same way as the traditional American one (except that it’s more common for French people to have several middle names rather than zero or one, but I don’t think that’s too rare in the US either). Maybe he’s referring to the fact that some last names are two words…

> I don’t think that’s too rare in the US eithe Anecdotal, but the only people I've met in the US with more than one middle name are people who originally came from another country. Although, I wonder if maybe that is enforced by the fact tha legal forms and similar typically assume you only have first, last, and optionally a (single) middle name.

So you are saying Donald John Trump is likely not a US born Citizen?

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#186

Post by Max-q »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #185
thayne wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think that’s too rare in the US eithe Anecdotal, but the only people I've met in the US with more than one middle name are people who originally came from another country. Although, I wonder if maybe that is enforced by the fact tha legal forms and similar typically assume you only have first, last, and optionally a (single) middle name.

So you are saying Donald John Trump is likely not a US born Citizen?

"more than one middle name" :)

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#187

Post by overdrive110 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #136
lovecg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the article that started it all is https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... - crucially every entry is self-explanatory, which is a point that a lot of the subsequent “Falsehood…” list authors miss.

I wonder what he means by France having a “weird” naming system in common use. As far as I can tell, the traditional French naming system works exactly the same way as the traditional American one (except that it’s more common for French people to have several middle names rather than zero or one, but I don’t think that’s too rare in the US either). Maybe he’s referring to the fact that some last names are two words…

Perhaps he is thinking of how marriage does not change your last name, but rather gives you an extra, optional last name. [1] The French ID card has two last name fields!

[1] https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nom_d%27usage_en_France

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#188

Post by krick »

lovecg wrote: post #67
koala_man wrote: post #29

I find this "falsehoods programmers believe" format of making pointed claims that you intentionally don't clarify to be unhelpful and obnoxious

I believe the article that started it all is https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... - crucially every entry is self-explanatory, which is a point that a lot of the subsequent “Falsehood…” list authors miss.

Every point is not self-explanatory, and some are clearly true (while the assumption is they must be false). For instance, it surely is true that any name will fit in under a Terabyte of text, if it can be encoded at all (and assuming the contrary is counter-productive). Claiming you should not assume any name can be spelled in Unicode is absurd as well. And, yes, it's perfectly fine to assume that if your system must have "real" (i.e. proved by any kind of document) names, you won't have to deal with Klingon names (even though it isn't a huge relief, honestly, since they still can have pretty much whatever format). For most systems, even more restrictive assumptions than that are totally fine.

You don't have to defend the "original" post just because it was patio11's. This idea was awful and stupid from the very beginning, and every new post of this "series" just repeats the offence.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#189

Post by [deleted] »

Feathercrown wrote: post #82
inopinatus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not mutually exclusive statements, because they don't exist in isolation: they are both potentially true and false depending on the context of discussion.

But they assert whether or not something exists, as an absolute statement. Maybe TCP packets don't exist in a particular situation, but there is still such a thing as a TCP packet in that case.

[deleted]

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about TCP

#190

Post by inopinatus »

saghm wrote: post #138
inopinatus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not mutually exclusive statements, because they don't exist in isolation: they are both potentially true and false depending on the context of discussion.

This seems like it's either a linguistic or philosophical question; either I don't interpret the words "such a thing" in a way that the author meant it, or I have a divergent different philosophical worldview on the concept of "existence" from the author's own view. Either way, this stuck out to me because usually these type of lists have very simple, understandable statements that just happen to surprise some people…

> these type of lists have very simple, understandable statements

I would classify these statements as koans, and further observe that one of the defining characteristics of these lists is that they are wry. With that in mind the couplet is evidently presented in cheek to illustrate the need for context, since this is the pathway to resolve the overt contradiction without getting stuck in a rigid thinking trap.

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