Plot twist: the publisher just looked into the future. I’m currently building an EBNF parser for my project, C³ (C cubed), which allows you to define arbitrary grammar at the very beginning of a file to seamlessly mix strings and syntax from Python, JS, or any custom DSL.<p>While C++ was just a simple iteration, C³ aims to be a paradigm shift. If you see JavaScript DOM manipulation code on a C++ book cover, it’s not a stock photo blunder anymore — it’s just a valid source file after a custom EBNF header. The project is currently in private development, but I'm considering launching it as an online service. Stay tuned!<p><a href="https://gitlab.com/9o1d/C3v3" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.com/9o1d/C3v3</a>
It reminds me of an incident involving an old colleague of mine at some kind of graduate recruitment fair thing. He walked past a stand which was trying to hire engineers which had some code on the wall when the following exchange happened:<p><pre><code> Recruiter: Hey there! <indicates the code> Do you know what this is?
Colleague: Err, <looks…thinks for a bit>… It *looks* like some sort of network protocol
Recruiter: <smug> No, it’s *COMPUTER CODE*</code></pre>
I like to pause movies when some code is shown and see what it is. Apparently you can break into pentagon by knowing basic sql and high-level employees have alternate life writing tcp implementations and graphics libraries.
Occasionally there are some real treats in those snippets. I remember being floored when Trinity exploited a real ssh v1 bug in Matrix Reloaded.
I always liked the code Easter egg in Ex Machina. A scene with Caleb has a Python script visible on screen that, when run, prints:<p><pre><code> ISBN = 9780199226559
</code></pre>
This is Murray Shanahan’s Embodiment and the inner life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds, quite relevant to the film.
There’s a Tumblr for that: <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/moviecode" rel="nofollow">https://www.tumblr.com/moviecode</a>
Do we actually think you couldn't though? Probably unintentionally accurate.
I felt like a movie hacker when doing literal<p>SELECT * FROM military_bases<p>On a public dataset :)
I paused the film to catch Lisbeth Salander, brilliant hacker and investigator, doing exactly this kind of complex query.<p>I guess the brilliant hacking was the bit you don’t see getting access to the super secure database in the first place?
Render your local file tree, win a free pentagon entry
I wish <smug></smug> was a real HTML tag
It's a semantic div tag, and it's spelled "<actually>".
This is tongue in cheek, but those who can't do, teach, and those who can teach, recruit.
Its crazy to me how little effort publishers put into the basic parts of their job sometimes. Its even funnier that raymond chen of all people is the one calling this out
On the matter of book back text, <i>The Profit</i> by Kehlog Albran has a rear blurb that likens the style of the author to that of a man with a much larger brain.
Also is this an official Microsoft dev blog?<p>Probably not a good look back at publishing hq
If you don't want to be called out for putting zero effort into the books that you publish, you probably shouldn't put zero effort into the books you publish!
It is, and it's a famous and popular blog too. Lots of older submissions have been highly upvoted here.
I wonder if the book itself is actually any good.<p>My understanding is that authors often have little or not control over the covers chosen by their publishers.<p>It's at least possible that the book itself is excellent, but I'm not going to spend $90+ on a hardcover copy to find out.
At least the JavaScript image is excusable since most implementations are made in C++.
A clear case of human slop.
This post discusses the topic and makes several key observations.
i so wanted it to be the cover of stroustrup book :P<p>fwiw, i stopped keepin up with c++ in 2003. saved my sanity!
[flagged]
auto get_xyz_position() -> std::unordered_map<std::string, double *> { ... }