multiStringing

[u/Kadabrium]

[u/alficles]

You jest, but I received this exact answer in an interview. It was a early-career programming position and we were starting with simple stuff to level set the interview.

Me: What is a thread and how would you use it?
Them, with complete confidence: A thread is a lightweight string.
Me: Elaborate.
Them: If you have a string that's really short and you don't want to do very much with it, you can just use a thread.
Me: What if I want to do a lot with it?
Them: Use a rope.
Me: Interesting. What sorts of tools would you use for managing concurrency?
Them: You need to make sure the desk is big enough for two computers for that. And you need enough power to run both.

He did not ultimately get the job, but I'm assuming he's making bank as a mod of /r/confidentlyincorrect. His answers were always instantaneous, with no hesitation at all.

I'd've been more impressed with the correct rope answer if it weren't completely clear that he was right completely by accident. :D

[u/DrShocker → u/alficles]

I've never thought about it, but does every major programming language call a group of characters a string? I know there's some debate around string view/builder/slice/etc terminology but the core concept always seems to be a string in the ones I know.

[u/ubergeek801 → u/DrShocker]

Java has String of course, but it's but one implementation of the CharSequence interface. So a "group of characters" is not necessarily called a "string" depending on the context.

[u/GumboSamson → u/ubergeek801]

Sure.

A string usually implies contiguous memory. Like in C, there’s no string type—just a char type, which you can put into an array.

Unfortunately, contiguous memory strings aren’t considered very secure. If something is able to read your memory, it can read your string pretty easily.

So some SecureString implementations use non-contiguous memory to store text. That is, each character is sprinkled around different places in memory, which makes them hard for a memory reader to discover and interpret.

Both of them are character sequences but only one of them is a string (in the typical sense).

[u/Loading_M_ → u/DrShocker]

Well, this gets complicated. A "group of characters" is ill defined.

For example, in Rust, you could be referring to:

• String: an owned, mutable group of Unicode code points encoded in UTF-8

• &str: similar to above, but an immutable borrow of the same

• impl Iterator<type = char>: an iterator that produces Unicode scalar values (for a real example, the to_lowercase method on char returns an iterator, since some Unicode code points expand into multiple code points when lowercased)

• HashSet<char>: a group of Unicode scalar values, without an order or duplicates

[u/rosuav → u/Loading_M_]

Yeah, but broadly speaking, if someone says "string", you can debate the details while still agreeing that you're talking about a sequence of characters. In Python, you can have byte strings and text strings, in Pike you can have a variety of subtypes of string (most commonly 8-bit and 21-bit strings which correspond to byte and text, but you can also declare a 7-bit string that (since it's ASCII-only) is compatible with bytes and text if you use UTF-8, or a 32-bit string, which is useful for vectorized operations). None of these is anything like a "thread".

[u/ryuzaki49 → u/DrShocker]

I assume that array of chars used to be the default before the String name. 

[u/mtmttuan → u/DrShocker]

"a group of characters" is a list or a set of characters. String can be converted to that but they're not exactly the same.

[u/Not_a_penguin15 → u/alficles]

This is so insane it almost feels fake (but also totally believable)

[u/alficles → u/Not_a_penguin15]

I was there, and "so insane it has to be fake" is precisely what we were feeling. :D

[u/Moekki_ → u/alficles]

Love that you added that he didn't get the job

[u/the_horse_gamer → u/alficles]

correctly answering rope is insane. this is like a comedy skit.

[u/fcman256]

Christ it took me way too long to figure out how someone could think string and thread are the same thing. What’s the reverse of op’s meme? Cause that’s me right now

My wife is addicted to all things thread related too, needlepoint, crochet, etc.

[u/UndocumentedMartian → u/fcman256]

Crocheted programming.

[u/dudes_indian → u/UndocumentedMartian]

Programming has its origins in textile looms for real.

[u/National-Explorer755 → u/UndocumentedMartian]

Multi threaded crocheting

[u/azfang]

Some time ago, I was reading something that led with a caveat they would try to avoid technical terms, with the example of using “text” rather than “string.”

I spent several moments trying to parse what the difference was before realizing that I have fully adapted to life in a cave and am too far gone to survive daylight.

[u/Boris-Lip]

Is it string-safe?

[u/invaderdan]

I don't think I get this joke. Am I too good of a programmer to understand why this confusion would exist? I have no idea why these two things would ever be confused.

But wait though I'm an absolute shit programmer. Like super shit.

But stings and threads are obviously different. Is this a clothing joke?

Edit: FUCK I read it again. I get it. Threads and strings are absolutely the same.

[u/DependentPipe9226 → u/invaderdan]

Non programmers would think thread and string are the same thing because they don't know what it means in coding. All they see it as in knitting where thread and string are basically the same thing

[u/Mad-chuska]

It’s all ones and zeros my dear. Ones and zeros.

[u/AkrinorNoname]

Okay,but even from a textile perspective, isn't string much thicker and used for binding things, while thread is for sewing? (There's also twine, which is made from two threads twisted together for extra strong seams)

[u/mamebb2023]

they are the same

[u/Jatinchd → u/mamebb2023]

you're not a programmer vro.