Mail Archives: djgpp/2001/06/28/16:10:36
As an aside, perhaps it would be helpful to be a tad more observant
before jumping to the conclusion that someone is ignorant of hex, or
anything else for that matter. The example just discussed is
instructive.
Sure, it looks like he misread an 0x18 as "18 bytes". Firstly, has any
of you never made a mental slipup like that, especially if
tired/frustrated? You look for a number you're expecting to see, see
something else, and go "WHY THE HELL IS IT 18 BYTES?" Maybe you
misread it as decimal; maybe you were actually still thinking in hex
when you wrote it. Could be an honest mistake by someone non-ignorant.
Of course, this alone doesn't suggest much either way. But then you'll
notice that his sample code had a hex constant in it. Would be be
putting 0xfoo in his code if he didn't know jack about hex? One doubts
this. Moreover, and even more telling, he put 0x12345678 -- eight hex
digits, no more, no less -- in an assignment to an int that he knew
would (with the particular compiler involved) be 32 bits. This
strongly suggests that he knows that each digit above specifies 4 bits
in the result. Of course, a hex virgin might happen to write something
like that, but equally as likely he'd write 0x145 or 0x5727598291...
also, the choice of digits indicates the author was particularly
conscious that there were eight digits, not nine and not seven, nor
any other number, indicating further that he recognized the
significance of exactly eight hex digits -- namely, that it specifies
an even 32 bits, which was the size of the data type he assigned it
to.
So hopefully, some people here will look a little more closely at a
posting before jumping to a conclusion about its author. Little pieces
of evidence often add up to useful information that may belie the
initial, and possibly deceptive, impression...
I do not mean to flame anyone here, or lay blame, e.g. "You should
have looked at his other use of hex you idiot!" or anything of that
sort. I merely wish to show that this instance was, in principle,
avoidable, and by looking closely we may learn how a similar future
incident might be averted. This one can't now -- it's water under the
bridge. The next one is what deserves consideration now. Flames and
recriminations will, of course, lead nowhere; careful observation and
consideration however might prevent problems in the future.
--
Bill Gates: "No computer will ever need more than 640K of RAM." -- 1980
"There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of." -- 1980
"This antitrust thing will blow over." -- 1998
Combine neo, an underscore, and one thousand sixty-one to make my hotmail addy.
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