(10-22-2025, 03:10 PM)madscijr Wrote: (10-20-2025, 03:21 PM)Unseen Machine Wrote: I came tenth so defo not the smartest! And Im 42...pete will say im a baby!
Ha!
We need a ranking of whose code gives Steve the biggest headaches - I hate to brag but I think I might top the list!!! 
Chris or ARB would probably top the list for who's code makes Steve's brain smoke the most.
Chris wrote a program which used to print a ton of results like:
PRINT "A"; a; "B"; b; "C"; c; "D"; d ....... all the way to "Z"; z
Was a short program. Only about a thousand lines of print code or something. Wouldn't compile in any 32-bit version of QB64. But that single line of QB64 code machine translated into a few bazillion lines of C-code and the compiler wouldn't process it at all. My brain melted utterly digging into what the heck was going on there between the code, QB64, gcc, and everything else. I think it's *still* smoking from that simple bit of programming, and Chris is still pushing the limits of the compiler constantly with similar type stuff. Every 6 months or so, I get a personal message or email asking for help in sorting out some new impossibility that he's stumbled across with his unique programing style. Anyone else would write a SUB to do handle the code, but he's used to COPY/PASTE and just plunks it back in and... breaks my poor brain badly.
ARB.... doesn't know how to use arrays, or else has some personal vendetta against their use. I'll never forget the lottery program which had 44 distinct variables in it.... and SORTED them. *WITHOUT AN ARRAY*.
It was... fascinating to study and stare at and a program that could be written in 100 lines of code was designed in 50,000 lines of code or some such. Was... hard to describe that feeling staring at it. IT WORKED. IT RAN AND COMPILED. So... as a program, it did what it was supposed to. But... it just boggled my mind to study it.
Instead of a simple bubble sort:
Code: (Select All)
FOR i = 1 TO 10
FOR j = i to 10
IF A(i) < a(j) THEN SWAP A(i), A(j)
NEXT j, i
He'd unraveled the logic himself:
IF A1 < A1 THEN SWAP A1, A1
IF A1 < A2 THEN SWAP A1, A2
IF A1 < A3 THEN SWAP A1, A3
IF A1 < A4 THEN SWAP A1, A4
IF A1 < A5 THEN SWAP A1, A5
IF A1 < A6 THEN SWAP A1, A6
IF A1 < A7 THEN SWAP A1, A7
IF A1 < A8 THEN SWAP A1, A8
IF A1 < A9 THEN SWAP A1, A9
IF A1 < A10 THEN SWAP A1, A10
IF A2 < A1 THEN SWAP A2, A1
.... and so on.
So imagine that style code to swap out 44 variables to sort them. Then imagine doing number comparisons to check on matching values. The entire program... array free... unraveled to its base logic... segment after segment of blocks of code...
It was damn impressive. And it worked. And it was utterly impractical. And it worked. And WTF has ever seen such code ever before? And it worked. And a train wreck is something you just can't stop staring at, and the messier it is, the more you have to stare. And it worked.
And.. I was both awestruck and utterly mind blown. I don't think anyone has ever wrote code that's blown my poor brain as much as that program did. It was such a simple program, but was expanded to oodles and oodles of lines of code. No array involved, just mass code copy/pasted and edited with every variable tracked independently.
So... for WHO'S made Steve's brain smoke the most?
#1 -- Steve himself. I can produce errors and glitches that just seem impossible by all standards and sometimes it's just simple things that my brain just refuses to sort out and recognize. A lot of times it's code working 100% perfectly, just 0% as intended.
IF X < Y THEN PRINT X ELSE PRINT Y <--- perfectly valid code.... that is impossible to debug when it's inside a 100,000 line program and you're wanting to print the opposite X > Y condition and you're checking every frigging sub/routine/function and everything *LOOKS* right... but it's not working... and ARRRRGGHHHH!!! You post the code online in 3 seconds later someone comes along and says, "DUH! YOUR SYMBOL IS BACKWARDS."
ARRRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!
#2 -- Chris/ARB
#3 -- ARB/Chris
Anyone beyond that comes in a distant place afterwards as I can't recall any other instances that have stuck with me beyond a day or two of scratching my head beyond those few peoples' masterful brain burning.
EDIT:
#4 Would be Pete with his minimalist code school coding style. Variable names 2 letters long, all compacted together, no comments, just a blur of WTF jumbled together and then he goes: Here, this works! And usually without SUB or FUNCTION and all just tossed into one main program where you have to sort out where the relevant process even starts and ends at. Pete's a damn good coder and he gets the job done, but he too is one who makes the brainpan smolder on a regular basis.
