Theoretical cs Memes

Posts tagged with Theoretical cs

The Bogosort Dimension
Algorithms Math Programming
27 days ago 72.5K views 0 shares
The Bogosort Dimension
Ah, the mythical parallel universe where bogosort—the algorithm equivalent of throwing a deck of cards in the air and hoping they land in order—actually works reliably. In our dimension, this disaster of an O(n×n!) algorithm would take longer than the heat death of the universe to sort your Netflix queue. But somewhere out there, developers are using it in production and getting promotions while we're stuck optimizing quicksort like suckers.

Formal Languages: Where Logic Goes To Cry
Math Algorithms Programming
1 month ago 70.3K views 0 shares
Formal Languages: Where Logic Goes To Cry
Computer science theory professors be like: "It's so obvious, just follow along!" Then they hit you with formal language proofs that make calculus look like kindergarten arithmetic. The meme shows the classic "Gru's Plan" format but with formal language theory notation. Gru confidently sets up variables and constraints, then has that moment of confusion when he realizes he's just proven the language isn't regular - which is probably the opposite of what he was trying to prove. For the uninitiated: formal language theory is where computer scientists torture themselves by proving properties of languages using mathematical notation that looks like someone face-planted on a keyboard. Regular languages are the simplest type in the Chomsky hierarchy, and proving a language is not regular is a rite of passage that makes students question their life choices.

This Works In Theory
Algorithms Math Programming Debugging
2 months ago 93.6K views 2 shares
This Works In Theory
The eternal struggle between theory and reality, illustrated with the elegance of a napkin sketch. What we have here is a linked list implementation of a number classifier that would make computer science professors proud and working developers cry. Sure, in theory, you can determine if a number is odd or even by traversing a linked list where each node points to its opposite classification. Start at "isEven" with 0, follow the pointer once for 1 to get "isOdd", twice for 2 to get back to "isEven"... mathematically sound! Meanwhile, in the real world, the rest of us are just using n % 2 == 0 like normal people and going home at 5pm instead of debugging infinite loops when someone inputs 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.