this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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[–] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

~~Unsigned integer means an integer that hasn't been cryptographically signed by the chain of blocks right?~~

The verdict quotes this exchange (page 163):

Q: Just out of curiosity, do you know what unsigned means in that?

A: I do. Basically it's unsigned variable, it's not an integer with--

Q: With what?

A: It's larger. I'm not sure how -- I mean, on the stand here, I'm not sure how I'd say it, but --

Q: Take a wild guess.

A: How I would describe it, I'm not quite sure. I know what it is.

Q: Okay.

A: I'm not terribly good when I'm trying to do things like this. Writing it down would be different.

Q: Well, do you recall you mentioned that you had a book by Professor Stroustrup?

A: I do.

Q: You haven't disclosed that book, but you have disclosed three other books about C++, so I want to take you to one of those. It's {L1/199/1}, and could we go to page 47. Do you see that it explains that "unsigned" means that it cannot be negative?

A: Yes, I do understand that. Would I have thought of saying it in such a simple way? No.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

one of the things that I really love about this is that, while there are indeed some nuances you can get into (platforms/archs, number theory, internal representations, ...), it's one of the rare computerwords in english that you could viably reason about on first principles without knowing much and get a sortacorrect answer

and yet

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Unsigned integers are larger because… Because the containing variables don’t have a signature that crypto-statically constrains it to the lower set! (Yes that must be it)

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"my computer's so secure! it does mean I can only use 32-bit applications on this 64-bit cpu, but alas. all for security!"

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 4 points 6 months ago

(even typing that made me wince. I hope anyone who had to deal with 32->64 in any capacity some years ago doesn't get hurt reading this)