The Cake is a Lie

Have you ever thought — How to explain programming to the one never faced it before? It could be a problem, as long a new one will not understand you.

So, let’s imagine — you have a friend, who is not soiled by computer science, never tried to automate something, never played factorio, never written a single line of code.

So, let’s imagine a normal human being.

And let’s call him Bill. He is not very good in Maths, just «not good», but he loves candies!

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Your task is to teach Bill some basic (or magic) IT things, you are doing every day. The simplest ones.
So what shall you do first? Basically — FEED HIM!

Long story short, but one day Andrey Alexandrescu asked Bill:


— Andrey: Hi Bill, do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yep, sure!

Then Bill got the candy, unwrapped it from Candy wrapper and ate the payload.
Simple? And we have used 2 magic words!


Just a few days later Wirth asked Bill:


— Wirth: Hi Bill, do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yep! SURE!
— Wirth: Hey, I’ve got another one, do you want it too?
— Bill: Yep! SURE!

This is a condition-controlled loop, or a cycle.


— Wirth: Hey, I’ve got another one, do you want it too?
— Bill: Yep! SURE!

But there was no candy, and Bill got a common null pointer exception.


Beware — if Alexandrescu will suddenly return and continue to feed Bill with candies — a buffer overflow will occur. As long as Bill will always accept a new candy.

buffer overflow


Next day Wirth was prepared. He has got a big bag of candies.


— Wirth: Ok, let me check the bag of mine….
— Wirth: I still have candy. Bill, do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yep! SURE!

In this case, Wirth will provide a candy only if he has one.
Here we got a cycle with precondition.


But one day Bill come to Wirth`s house, and house:


— Bill: GIVE ME A CANDY!
— Wirth: Nothing lasts forever! You have eaten everything!
— Bill: But I will take it IN ANY CASE!!!
— Bill: DO YOU HAVE A CANDY???

It was a cycle with postcondition. Sad story. Thank god police were nearby. Be careful next time, and do not feed wild birds (and Bill).

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Decades later Dan Abramov come to Bill and put all his candies on the table:


— Dan: speechless gazing at Bill.
— Bill: speechless gazing at a first candy
— Dan: Bill, do you want one on these candies?
— Bill: Yes, sure.
— Dan: Here you are.

It was a collection-controlled loop.


Just after it, Dan got another bag, put all candies on the table, count them, and put back to the bag.


— Dan: Bill, look like I still have candy. Do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yes, sure.
— Dan: Here you are.

It was a count-controlled loop.

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Sooner or later, but Bjarne Stroustrup comes to feed Bill.


— Bjarne: Bill, do you want a candy.
— Bill: Yep, sure.
— Bjarne: Here it is.
— Bjarne: Bill, do you want a candy.
— Bill: — — —

Bill was munching a candy. He was busy and nothing can disturb him. He have raised a mutex, the thread got locked and time stops…


thread lock

Bjarne was a very clever one, and he found a solution:


— Bjarne: Bill, do you want a candy.
— Bill: — — —
— Bjarne: Ok, I`ll wait until for finish munching…

Here we got a thread synchronization.


Ok, this time we will call for Peter_Norton.


— Peter: Bill, do you want a candy.
— Bill: Yep! Sure!
— Peter: I`ll provide a whole pack. Munch it by yourself.

Next Bill will get candies, one by one, from a bag, and eat them, one by one.
This is called LIFO — Last it, First out. As long the candy from the bottom of the pack will be eaten last.
At the same time, Bill`s digestion is a FIFO — first in, first out. You had to know it before.

FIFO


Donald_Knuth also joined the feeding team. But one day he got tired of buying new candies for Bill and he asks a catering company to do it.


— Donald: Hey, my friend, can you buy the best candies in the nearest shop and present them to Bill? Here are Bill`s address and money…
Since that time Bill always has new candies from Donald.
In this case, a catering company is a function, and address and money are arguments. And a candy is a return value.
If for the same address and the same amount of money Bill will always get the same candies — it will be called a pure function.
But only in case the company will only transfer candies from point A to point B, and a shop will always be a non-pure function, as long it loses candies.

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But Dennis_Ritchie was even clever!


— Dennis: Hi Bill, do you want a candy?
— Bill: You know it!
— Dennis: So here is an address. You will found your so desired candy there.

It was a pointer.

But, then Bill reached that address he found only a secret military object. Nobody saw him since then.
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A few months later, after escaping from jail, he tried to repeat, but yet again can’t reach «the target». This time something was stopping him at the distance — invisible, and indestructible walls of bounds checking.


But one day…. Even, to say the truth — night — Cyberdemon comes to Bill`s house and shout:


— Cyberdemon: DO YOU WANT A CANDY?
— Bill: YES! AT THE DAYTIME, AND THEN THE STARS SHINE! ALWAYS!

So, Bill has got his candies yet again. But this is a bit sad story, as long he forgets to check the type of payload or perform any other data validation. ️

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After that Bill woke up in a void, and hear:


— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yes!
— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yes!
— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yes!

This how ping works.


In the disturbed systems with non-zero latency this might look so:


— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yes!
— Bill: Yes!
— Bill: Yes!

But this case valid only for TCP/UDP. In the case of TCP/IP it might be


— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy? Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Cosmos: Bill! Do you want a candy?
— Bill: Yes! Yes! Yes!

As long sibling packets will be joined by time or size factor (aka MTU).

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I have a lot of untold stories, like a Bill and Gang-of-Four, or non-cross-browser candy.
But let me told the last one, about The Indivisible Candy:


Bill eats it hundreds of times, but it zaps back to his hand, unmunched and even still sweet!
So Indivisible candy may be a singleton or a memory leak, as long garbage collector can’t digest it.

So, can you describe something from IT in a candy style? To feed teach Bill, and get him in IT.

Bill

Bill is still very hungry, he is starving. You have to feed him. Here. In comments.


PS: This is a translation of 10 years old article — https://habr.com/en/post/109076/. Original article «The Val`s Candies» was released 8 years ago, and since that time it got a lot of new examples as user comments — recursion, delegation, interfaces, stack overflow, procedures vs functions, classes, B-trees, and so on. But… in another dimension.

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