Programmer Humor @programming.dev Jeena @jemmy.jeena.net 6mo ago

Not a Number

Good price.

52 comments

You ever have one of those moments when you just put 2 and 2 together, and also that you should have had that realization many years ago?

I just realized what NaN stands for...

This must be what people who get told "you can just wait for the shower water to warm up before hopping in" feel like.
- The elephant and rope parable rings its bell of sound morals!
  
  Not so much the realizing what NaN means; that's more relevant to that XKCD which I probably don't need to describe here.
"That makes it free, right?"
- Not only that, it makes your entire purchase free due to NaN arithmetic.
  
  But as you mention, NaN propagates.
  So at checkout, your wallet will become NaN, as the shops money balance. Then it will spread to your bank account and before you realize what happens the whole banking-district is in flames.
  
  no, it costs NaN, now remove NaN from your account...
  
  ...oh no
- Technically it has a pricetag, so...
0*(NaN)... So does that mean the price IS a number?
- Isn't any math operation involving NaNs also a NaN? At least that's my gut feeling.
  
  Based on my frequent exploding and vanishing gradients, that would be a yes.
  
  Good point.
- I suppressed most of my former js knowledge but I guess it's a string now.
- In JS, it's just NaN if my browser's console is to be believed. I suspected it would probably be {object} for no clear reason
  
  for no clear reason
  
  JS That's the reason. The language has an awful type system.
- 0*NaN = NaN
dirty onanists spilling their seed
- Lennin died, with him died lenninism. Stalin died, with him died stalinism. Grandpa Onan, don't die!
  
  What is spilled cannot die
ONaN
- In my language, onanování is masturbating. And onan is a mild insult insinuating that someone wanks a lot.
  
  It's onanism in English. And it's rather stupid to call it that because Onan didn't masturbate, he used the pull out method to avoid getting his sister-in-law pregnant with his brother's kid. (yes, I know that sounds weird but that's the story)
  
  Onanieren in German
  
  Onani in Swedish, which this image is from.
- related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Thoughts_on_the_Science_of_Onanism
  
  by Mark Twain, btw. short read, and hilarious
- ...spilled his arithmetic overflow on the ground.
I like how the code adds a 0 at the start.
- The code probably checks if the following number is greater than 10 (which fails for NaN) and otherwise adds a 0 in front.
It's priceless
Onani!
cost = "arm" + "leg";
lidl quality
Ooo na na...

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