This is possibly one of the more cursed single sentences I've ever seen in a job posting

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud

- What's the solution to this polynomial equation? Trivial.
- Does this polynomial have an integer-valued solution? *cries in agony*
- Does this list of two-variable constraints have a solution? Trivial.
- Does this list of three-variable constraints have a solution? *cries in agony*
- Does this list of two-variable constraints have an approximate solution? *cries in agony*
- Is there a solution to this conda env file? *cries in agony*

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud Like it's just so fucking easy to take a problem in P and accidentally turn it into the halting problem!

Fucking grep did that! By adding a backreference feature that meant that a regex was no longer actually decidable in finite memory, but was undecidable in general!

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud "Is this string a valid e-mail address?" Depends on what you mean by "string," "valid," and "e-mail address," but it's probably either trivial or *cries in agony*.

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud (I'll stop now, I promise.)

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected]

Does this program include any infinite loops? Impossible

is this one of these "you can't create an algorithm to solve this for any and all loops but could do it for certain cases" type problems?

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected]

Is there a solution to this conda env file? cries in agony

lmao

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] This reminds me of how apparently quite a few job postings have a required LinkedIn profile field and so I've had to cheekily write in https://linkedin.com because apparently they do some string parsing so that lmao://nope.no doesn't work but.

[cptsuperlative@toot.cat]

@aud

Oh, I'm sure that'll be error-free!

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] who needs accuracy when you've got VC money?!

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud Basically, yeah. If you have a candidate for an algorithm that can solve the halting problem, you can turn that into an example that the algorithm can't solve.

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

sentences more appealing in a job description:

We're combining my foot and your crotch to translate kinetic energy into pain
We're combining pliers and your fingernails to ||redacted||
We're combining onions and belts to translate fashion into what was the style at the time
We're combining lotion and its skin to ensure customers don't get the hose again

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud Yeah, you can basically encode arbitrary computation in the package version constraints.... it almost never comes up in practice. Almost.

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] ha ha suck on that algorithm

(once you pointed it out it was super obvious it was the halting problem just... you didn't literally say "lo, it is the halting problem", but I have no idea why that didn't occur to me before that?! gonna blame the headache and the election)

[foolishowl@social.coop]

@aud @CptSuperlative Famously stability is a low priority for applications running in COBOL.

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] uhh

sorry, wait, what?

You can do what in a fucking conda

jesus

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] @[email protected] COBOL? co DEEZ ball. s. balls. in... your mainframe.

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@aud It's a 3SAT reduction... The fact that you can have non-overlapping ranges of versions allowed gives you a lot of expressive power.

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] The more I learn about computing, the more I understand why @[email protected] has so many strong feelings about packaging.

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] @[email protected] "COPILOT" but it's just a guy deeply into COBOL programming and aviation and he lives in a forested area and he hates programming but will happily call your code shit if you pay him enough to review it.

[aud@fire.asta.lgbt]

@[email protected] @[email protected] "COPILOT, please write a for loop in java with proper documentation"
"dipshit money boy, I made love to your mother who was a vastly superior programmer to you. We bonded over what a fucking disappointment you are."