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The Bitwise XOR vs. Power Misunderstanding
CS Fundamentals Post #3533 · source on Telegram

The Bitwise XOR vs. Power Misunderstanding

Description

This meme uses the four-panel 'Anakin and Padmé' format from Star Wars: Episode II. In the first panel, Anakin asks, 'What's 5 ^ 1'. In the second panel, a smiling Padmé confidently answers, '5 right?'. In the third panel, Anakin gives a silent, knowing stare. In the final panel, Padmé's smile fades into a look of concerned confusion, and she repeats, '5 right?'. The joke hinges on the dual meaning of the caret symbol '^'. In common mathematics, it represents exponentiation (5 to the power of 1 is indeed 5). However, in many programming languages, including C++, Java, and Python, '^' is the bitwise XOR operator. The bitwise XOR of 5 (binary 101) and 1 (binary 001) is 4 (binary 100). This meme humorously captures a classic 'gotcha' moment that distinguishes between general mathematical notation and the specific syntax of programming, a common point of confusion for beginners

Categories

CS Fundamentals Languages Mathematics Juniors

Common Tags

XOROperations LanguageQuirks Syntax CodingHumor DeveloperHumor CSFundamentals

Comments

36
Anonymous ★ Top Pick That's a classic interview question to filter for people who have actually written code versus people who just say they have
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    That's a classic interview question to filter for people who have actually written code versus people who just say they have

  2. Anonymous

    Polyglot microservices are great - Python insists 5 ^ 1 is 4, the legacy VB6 billing service caches 5, and the reconciliation job files a ticket titled “Schrödinger’s caret.”

  3. Anonymous

    After 20 years in the industry, you'd think we'd all remember that ^ is XOR, not exponentiation... but then you're debugging production at 3 AM and realize someone's financial calculations are off by exactly the difference between Math.pow() and bitwise operations. At least it's not as bad as that time the junior tried to use ** in IE11

  4. Anonymous

    This meme perfectly captures that moment when you realize your junior dev has been using ^ for exponentiation in production code for six months, and now you understand why the encryption module has been returning suspiciously small numbers. The bitwise XOR operator strikes again - because nothing says 'fun debugging session' quite like explaining why 5^1 equals 4, not 5, and watching the existential crisis unfold as they realize their entire mathematical worldview was built on Python's ** operator

  5. Anonymous

    “What’s 5 ^ 1?” - the quickest way to know if you’re looking at JavaScript (4), an Excel spec (5), or a regex commit that’s about to page on-call

  6. Anonymous

    PMs discovering story points: '5 < 1 day sprint? 5 right!'

  7. Anonymous

    Ask 'What’s 5 ^ 1?' in a code review and you’ve mapped the org: data folks say 5 (R/Excel), backend says 4 (C/JS/Python), and a staff engineer files a lint rule banning '^' outside regex so you can ship again

  8. @pyproman 5y

    Nope, it's 4

    1. @sylfn 5y

      it depends on operator^

      1. @aytomik 5y

        Hello Goryunov Grigory)

        1. Deleted Account 5y

          you krnow katakana too

          1. @sylfn 5y

            many translators give right answer

          2. @Artemus_2 5y

            Wow, ur avatar looks so familiar.

            1. @kvassilisk 5y

              It's from k-on

              1. @Artemus_2 5y

                Thanks brother.

  9. @sylfn 5y

    In some languages operator^ is xor (this is English-only chat, but it is not illegal to talk in other languages while you are providing the translation)

  10. @UQuark 5y

    Fuck it, you are programmers, create a bot which will translate russian comments to english if you're so obsessed with it

    1. @sylfn 5y

      autotranslate is shit

      1. @UQuark 5y

        everyone just puts their russian text into google translate and posts there

        1. @sylfn 5y

          i do not, but my native lang is Russian

          1. @UQuark 5y

            I'm very proud of you

    2. Deleted Account 5y

      maybe later

      1. Deleted Account 5y

        can someone create bot in botfather for that?

    3. @batuto 5y

      🗳 +1

  11. @UQuark 5y

    Me too

  12. Deleted Account 5y

    token?

    1. @mvolfik 5y

      I didn't get this - Why don't you create it yourself?

  13. @yimgzz 5y

    just make a bot called "language police" that will ban or issue a warning for cyrillic 😄

    1. @sylfn 5y

      зачем なぜ why? btw ya mogu iapol'zovat' transleet (i can use translit)

      1. @yimgzz 5y

        also auto-translate bot will not be able to translate russian translit to english, so thats distinction without a difference

  14. @yimgzz 5y

    just for fun ofc

  15. @Araalith 5y

    Also it can be a power operator.

  16. @sylfn 5y

    We won't.

  17. Deleted Account 5y

    @RiedleroD

    1. @RiedleroD 5y

      thanks

      1. Deleted Account 5y

        np

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