Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

etherrotmutex.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 176 posts

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#11

Post by warent »

Const-me wrote: post #9
xthrowawayxx wrote: post #3

Can someone explain the significance of this like I'm 5?

Mutex is a synchronization primitive implementing mutual exclusion. When created with a name, they can be used to synchronize processes across the whole OS. For instance, a named mutex is a good way to ensure the program can only be running in a single instance. Specifically, the program creates a named mutex on startup, and locks it forever. If failed to lock, it shows a message saying "another instance is already r…

You must have interactions exclusively with prodigious 5 year olds

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#13

Post by iKlsR »

From the comments on the blog.

> This is a comment made in a software called InstallShield, version X at last, a software intent to create installers, so it probably will appear in many other products.

> Found in a InstallShield sample that I was reversing to check if it's a malware. The line made me chuckle, and it's so heartwarming to see someone actually made a blog on it and the fact the line has been around since 2003. Relics like these make me so nostalgic for the 00's Internet days. To anyone reading this, fist bump from a fellow Int3rW3bz lurker.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#14

Post by xthrowawayxx »

Const-me wrote: post #9
xthrowawayxx wrote: post #3

Can someone explain the significance of this like I'm 5?

Mutex is a synchronization primitive implementing mutual exclusion. When created with a name, they can be used to synchronize processes across the whole OS. For instance, a named mutex is a good way to ensure the program can only be running in a single instance. Specifically, the program creates a named mutex on startup, and locks it forever. If failed to lock, it shows a message saying "another instance is already r…

thank you :)

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#15

Post by nonethewiser »

warent wrote: post #11
Const-me wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mutex is a synchronization primitive implementing mutual exclusion. When created with a name, they can be used to synchronize processes across the whole OS. For instance, a named mutex is a good way to ensure the program can only be running in a single instance. Specifically, the program creates a named mutex on startup, and locks it forever. If failed to lock, it shows a message saying "another instance is already r…

You must have interactions exclusively with prodigious 5 year olds

It was a good explanation.

How good is "the man tried to think of a name no one ever thought of before?"

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#16

Post by Firmwarrior »

sprior wrote: post #7

Back when I was in high school and programming on the original IBM PCs I wrote a program that would graph "solids of rotation" (a function rotated around the X axis). Well I chose the obvious name based on the 8.3 filename limitations. One day someone looked over my shoulder and said "you named your program solid rot???" Oops.

Is/was "solid rot" slang for something somewhere?

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#17

Post by _carbyau_ »

Const-me wrote: post #9
xthrowawayxx wrote: post #3

Can someone explain the significance of this like I'm 5?

Mutex is a synchronization primitive implementing mutual exclusion. When created with a name, they can be used to synchronize processes across the whole OS. For instance, a named mutex is a good way to ensure the program can only be running in a single instance. Specifically, the program creates a named mutex on startup, and locks it forever. If failed to lock, it shows a message saying "another instance is already r…

Thanks!

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#19

Post by javert »

cronix wrote: post #18

Probably about the same odds as a company co-opting the common parlance such as "meta."

We don't have to let them steal a word from the English language, that belongs to all of us. We don't have to let them cause confusion. Just don't call it the name they want you to call it.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#20

Post by not2b »

sprior wrote: post #7

Back when I was in high school and programming on the original IBM PCs I wrote a program that would graph "solids of rotation" (a function rotated around the X axis). Well I chose the obvious name based on the 8.3 filename limitations. One day someone looked over my shoulder and said "you named your program solid rot???" Oops.

It gets worse. A very long time ago a was working for a startup that was doing real-time speech compression, for telephony applications, using a DSP, with the compression/decompression implemented in assembly language. The code had two processes, an analysis process and a synthesis process. My colleague named the entry point to the synthesis process synth_entry, and he named the entry point to the analysis process anal_entry. Either he honestly didn't realize, as he claimed, or he was better at keeping a straight face than anyone I ever met.
Post reply on HN