Computational theory Memes

Posts tagged with Computational theory

The Halting Problem Doesn't Want Us To Know
Algorithms Math Programming Debugging
10 days ago 158.3K views 1 shares
The Halting Problem Doesn't Want Us To Know
The classic "chocolate gorilla melting in milk" meme perfectly encapsulates the frustration of dealing with the Halting Problem in computer science. Just as the gorilla dissolves before finishing his sentence, any algorithm attempting to determine if another program will terminate (halt) or run forever is doomed to fail. Alan Turing mathematically proved this is impossible in 1936. Yet here we are, still trying to debug infinite loops and recursion bugs like we're going to outsmart fundamental computational theory. Spoiler alert: we won't, but we'll keep trying anyway because deadlines.

The NP-Complete Packing Problem
Algorithms Math Programming
22 days ago 195.7K views 0 shares
The NP-Complete Packing Problem
That suitcase labeled "NP" isn't just luggage—it's a computer science joke on wheels. It represents NP problems (non-deterministic polynomial time), which are notoriously difficult to solve efficiently. Packing a suitcase optimally is literally an NP-complete problem! So yeah, it probably took her exponential time to pack that thing. The rest of us are still waiting at baggage claim while some algorithm is still running the calculations.

Just Had This On An Interview
Python Algorithms Programming Debugging
1 month ago 218.5K views 0 shares
Just Had This On An Interview
They really asked the candidate to solve the Halting Problem during an interview! That's like asking someone to divide by zero or find the last digit of pi. The interviewer might as well have said, "Please disprove this fundamental theorem of computer science before lunch." For the uninitiated: The Halting Problem was proven mathematically impossible to solve by Alan Turing in 1936. It's literally asking if you can write a program that can determine whether any arbitrary program will terminate or run forever. Computer scientists have known for decades this is impossible in the general case. The interviewer might as well have asked "Could you quickly build me a perpetual motion machine while you're at it?"

What I Actually Want To Know
Programming Hardware Gamedev Algorithms Math
4 months ago 153.4K views 0 shares
What I Actually Want To Know
Computer scientists: "Let's discuss if this system can solve any computable problem!" Me, a practical developer: "Cool theory bro, but can it run Doom?" The "Can it run Doom?" test has become the unofficial benchmark for computing devices since the 90s. Forget your fancy theoretical computer science - if your toaster, calculator, or pregnancy test can run a demon-slaying game from 1993, that's when you've truly made it in tech.

The Dictator's Guide To Efficient Sorting
Algorithms Math Programming
6 months ago 139.2K views 0 shares
The Dictator's Guide To Efficient Sorting
Oh, the brilliance of "StalinSort" - where elements that don't conform to the expected order simply... disappear . It's a historical algorithm joke that's both O(n) efficient and politically incorrect! The algorithm "eliminates" non-conforming elements rather than rearranging them, which is a dark reference to Stalin's purges where people who didn't fall in line were removed from society (and often from photos). Technically, it's not even a sorting algorithm - it's just filtering with dictatorial characteristics. The kind of code that would get flagged in a code review faster than you can say "comrade".