63 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
63 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: Best Bug
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published: 2019-05-21
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---
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my pal and i accidentally introduced a bug in our code that sorta took up a personality of its own, heres the story.
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# the setting
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at university comp sci, me and my buddy entered a programming contest that was run by a health company. it was free, and we thought we might be able to get some of the prizes.
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the goal was to create an engine to play last card, and all the entries would be run against each other and ranked.
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this was in about two hours in one of the uni labs.
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> pretty boring stuff
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it had that yellow glow of the lights as well, because it was getting dark outside.
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# the fun
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we started implementing a pretty basic card counting thing, and to pass the time a bit were talking about our 'ai'
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> its super good at card games, even the basic ones
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> its like outta yugioh, its kaiba or something
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> yeah jojos poses every turn, better than the rest
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*etc etc*
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so we finished up after...
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***having to deal with whatever maven is***
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i still dont understand the hundred different package management things, why do they have to keep changing? `/rant over`
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# uh oh
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we ended up placing second, losing to the guy that already worked for the company running the event.
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we lost points because we didnt understand the state format correctly, but i believe we understand it right.
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what theyd done is ~~super gross~~ ~~logically wrong~~ had any collection of cards as the java version of `Maybe Cards` such that rather than an empty list being `[]`, the whole thing was a `Nothing`.
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a collection of cards that has zero cards in it is still a set, and therefore should be represented by `[]` or equivilent. `/rant over`
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the affect of this on ol` kaiba boi (aka kAIba which added to the charm) was that if it was the first player of a game, it would crash, timeout and the game manager would default to a pass.
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# neato bug
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this cemented the persona of this bug to be a kaiba-esque dramatic dickhead, threatening to fall off buildings if he loses, but saying:
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> huh! first player advantage? thats for **noobs**, you take it
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and yeeting the other player first turn.
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# fin
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memorable bugs are the best kind of bugs, and have a life all of their own. part of the magic of programmation is finding these so you gotta pay attention.
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`:wq`
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