The Three Hard Problems of Programming, with an Off-by-One Error
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from user Laurie (@laurieontech). The tweet presents a classic computer science joke with a clever twist. It reads, 'There are only two hard problems in programming: 1. Naming 3. Off by one errors 2. Race conditions'. The humor operates on multiple levels for developers. First, it plays on the well-known aphorism about the two hardest things being 'cache invalidation and naming things.' Second, it explicitly lists 'Off by one errors' as a hard problem while simultaneously demonstrating one by stating there are 'two' problems but listing three. The intentionally jumbled numbering (1, 3, 2) adds to the chaotic humor, making it a perfectly crafted meta-joke that resonates with anyone who has ever debugged these exact types of issues
Comments
21Comment deleted
The original list only had two problems, but the PR to add 'cache invalidation' had a merge conflict, and now we have this race condition
The list is accurate: 1 grabbed the naming mutex, 3 skipped the boundary check, and 2 lost the scheduler race - just another day in prod
The fourth hard problem is explaining to the PM why fixing the race condition that only happens in prod requires more than "just adding a mutex somewhere"
This joke perfectly encapsulates the irony of software engineering: we can build distributed systems that handle millions of requests per second, yet we still manage to number a list incorrectly while explaining why numbering things is hard. It's the programming equivalent of a linguist making a typo while discussing grammar - except in our case, the typo ships to production and takes down the payment processing system at 3 AM
Two hard problems: naming and race conditions - the third item is just the off‑by‑one you get when the list is enumerated with a non‑atomic counter under contention
When your loop index escapes the lock, even the bullet numbers become eventually consistent - so “two” hard problems deterministically evolves into three
Self-demonstrating proof: the list's off-by-one swap sneaks in a third hard problem while claiming only two
по русскому можно?? Comment deleted
В программировании есть только 2 сложные проблемы: 1. Именование 3. Ошибки в граничных условиях 2. Состояние гонки Comment deleted
фига 2ое сложное ! спасибо))) Comment deleted
можно обратно на английском)) Comment deleted
правильность перевода п.3 под сомнением Comment deleted
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B8 Comment deleted
Fk translation bots Comment deleted
Cache invalidation beats 2 and 3 imo Comment deleted
3 значит не работает без ошибки, а не то что вы там мелите Comment deleted
english please. Since the situation isn't getting better regarding this, I'm gonna introduce a warning system, and you're its first target. yaay warning 1/3 for @dengleo warning removed, see down below Comment deleted
Wtf??? I've translated this meme Comment deleted
if you're translating something into Russian, please mark it as a translation. I unfortunately can't translate every foreign text I see. Suffice to say, your warning is removed. Comment deleted
And what will it be with 3 warnings? Comment deleted
we'll see when that happens to someone. I hope it won't. Comment deleted