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Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

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Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#291

Post by dmichulke »

mistersquid wrote: post #68
sbov wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a whole class of problem - I wonder if there's a name for it. More examples include: talking about welfare being unnecessary because no one is starving. Or people on medications stopping because they feel better (while still on them).

I think this is actually a version of confirmation bias since > Confirmation bias, also known as Observational selection or The enumeration of > favorable circumstances is the tendency for people to (consciously or > unconsciously) seek out information that conforms to their pre-existing view > points, and subsequently ignore information that goes against them, both > positive and negative [0] [0] http://rationalwiki…

I think it's selection bias because you sample from the set of perceived problems which are the ones that actually occurred relative to the ones that could have happened.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#292

Post by qb45 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #135
cm2187 wrote: post #8

Self-confidence as a programmer is when starting a new project, storing the transaction ID as a long rather than an int...

It gets better when you realize that on Windows a long is still only 32 bit....

You mean 64bit Windows?

It gets better yet when you realize that on 32bit systems (like in TFA) long usually is 32bit too ;)

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#293

Post by tonyedgecombe »

wpietri wrote: post #216
justin66 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Who among us is writing code today worried about how it will be used in 2052? The good programmers who are fortunate enough to be working on software that matters.

I doubt that's true, unless you mean it tautologically. There are plenty of good programmers working on software that matters that should absolutely not be trading off hazy possible benefits in 2052 for significant costs now. It's occasionally necessary. When I wrote the code for Long Bets [1], I took a number of prudent steps to make sure things would have a good shot at surviving for decades. But I only took the ch…

I don't know, I think the attitudes that make you a good programmer mean you won't be satisfied leaving broken code in your product, no matter how far out the consequences are.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#294

Post by Jedd »

ChickeNES wrote: post #210
Jedd wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not merely an insightful repository of analysis and explanations around the more profound aspects of our world, John Ralston Saul's exquisite Doubter's Companion includes some answers - acerbic accusations bundled free - to the more pedestrian issues: "DANDRUFF: The ANSWER is usually vinegar. To some problems there are solutions. "What we call dandruff is often the result of a PH imbalance on the skin, which shampoo…

Stop spreading psuedo-scientific alternative-medicine falsehoods. Dandruff is in no way caused by a "PH imbalance on the skin": http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dandruff/diagn...

Are you claiming vinegar is an ineffective treatment, or merely that the explanation for why it's effective doesn't meet your requirements?

If the latter, I can probably agree. If the former, please do some more research.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#295

Post by dopkew »

chrisweekly wrote: post #286
sslayer wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greased wheels don't squeak.

How about: "prodigal brother syndrome"? I suspect the parable it alludes to passes the cultural literacy threshold for comprehension, at least in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son for those wondering.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#296

Post by mcv »

chesserik wrote: post #74
windowshopping wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can help you understand how and why! Computers set limits internally on how big numbers can be when they're keeping track of stuff. Your developers had given each game a number to identify it. So your first game was #1, the 40th game was #40, and so on. The limit for how big the number could be was a bit over 2 billion, and your players have just now played a bit over 2 billion games, and so that id number suddenl…

Yes - I understand HOW it happened, just not sure WHY. Meaning, I'm not sure what the developer was thinking, and at this point, I'm not going to track down exactly who it was and point fingers. I think everyone has learned enough through this highly interesting bug. It certainly was interesting to see the slack room exploding with theories and debugging. A new iOS client has been submitted to Apple (hurry plz!!!), a…

Probably when this was initially developed, nobody thought you'd ever go over 2 billion games. This error is brought to light by your success and popularity.

Computer history is riddled with assumptions like that. The Y2K problem, Unix dates running out in 2037, and 32 bit computers unable to address more than 4 GB of memory are just the big ones. It's everywhere. Smaller software projects are generally built for what you need right now, and less for what might happen in the distant future.

Ideally you want to retain some awareness that this is an issue so you can start working on once you go over a billion games, but in a small company, there are probably always more urgent things to worry about, and nobody ever gets around to fixing this technical debt.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#297

Post by vinceguidry »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #161
Sonorous wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a pop-culture name, I'd call it the Head & Shoulders Problem, after those old shampoo commercials: "You use Head & Shoulders? But you don't have dandruff!" "Exactly!"

I wish. I do have dandruff (depending on where in the world I happen to be). Head & Shoulders does absolutely nothing.

Dandruff is generally caused by fungi living on the scalp. The fungi eat up your skin and make it dry. The dry skin flakes off.

Dandruff shampoos work by killing the fungi. There are three main types of anti-fungals, zinc pyrithione is used in Head and Shoulders, selenium disulfide in Selson Blue. There is a third one not commonly used called ketoconazole that you may want to try.

There is also coal tar shampoo, which is not an anti-fungal, instead it slows skin cell growth and sloughs off the dead skin.

Selson Blue works well for me, I use it daily. If I go off of it for a few days the dandruff kicks into high gear.

The thing about dandruff shampoos is you have to use them with a certain regularity because even if you kill the fungi, the condition takes a few days to clear up, the damage to your scalp is done. You need to create a hostile environment for the microorganisms, and that takes time.

Your dandruff is probably caused by only one type of organism that thrives in particular climates. Next time you're there, you might get ahold of two or three shampoos and try them for a week each and see if it clears up. Then you know which is 'your' anti-fungal.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#298

Post by pc86 »

hvidgaard wrote: post #241
cm2187 wrote: post #8

Self-confidence as a programmer is when starting a new project, storing the transaction ID as a long rather than an int...

It's the smart thing to do - 4.3 billion is not that much. I had some students that asked me if even a long would be enough to handle exponential growth, after all it's only twice as big. As a thought experiement I asked them to come up with a time to fill a 32 bit int completely. They came up with roughly a year. Then as a margin of error I said, let's assume you have 4.3 billion transactions every second instead. T…

Uh it's not twice as big.

    2^32  ~              4,294,967,000
    2^64  ~ 18,446,700,000,000,000,000

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#299

Post by pixl97 »

Danieru wrote: post #187
sundvor wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Wait, we spent two million dollars servicing your fleet of 100 cars in the last year, and you're complaining that none of them broke down? Why spend all that money on maintenance when they just keep running?"

Are you sue those numbers are right? That's 20k per car per year. At such a cost running the cars with no maintenance then buying new cars every break down is cheaper.

> running the cars with no maintenance

Your car runs into a bus full of children.

Other lawyer: Jury, they saved millions of dollars per year not checking the brakes on their cars, you should award those millions of dollars, and some more millions of dollars to the families whose children died that day.

Re: Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played

#300

Post by BearGoesChirp »

amrrs wrote: post #267
gooseus wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me think of a hypothetical scenario proposed in one of Nassim Nicolas Taleb's books where-in some senator gets a bill passed in the weeks before 9/11 requiring reinforced doors on all commercial airplane cockpits. No parade would be thrown for this senator for having prevented 9/11 and likely he'd be castigated for having given airlines an excuse to raise prices due to restrictive government regulations.

That's a very definitive bias we always hold. Praising a player who falls behind and achieves something while not paying much attention to one who does something normally. Chaos gets attention!

The guy at work who causes a complex IT problem and fixes it by working late one night: team player doing what he can to support the company.

The guy at work whose work doesn't cause a problem and things keep working fine: why aren't you as much a team player as that other guy?

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