The h Bar

ACuriousMind

20:21

Annnd I broke the Rust compiler (nightly, but still). Great.

JMac

@ACuriousMind With a name like rust I would expect it to seize up all the time.

Novalium Company

@ACuriousMind why do u use that language?

ACuriousMind

@NovaliumCompany Because I'm a fan of powerful static types!

Novalium Company

@ACuriousMind okeeeeyyy

what are you programming?

ACuriousMind

Trying to make a crate for 2d hex grids that I may or may not use for a game (My history with hobby projects like these shows I'll get bored with it at some point :P)

Novalium Company

20:29

What's the main difference between Rust and any other language?

JMac

@ACuriousMind Have you actually made any games, or is it something that you just kinda mess around with aspects of making a game and then move on to something else?

ACuriousMind

@NovaliumCompany Ownership

It guarantees no use-after-free bugs and no reading from uninitialized memory, but it's a bit hard to wrap one's head around at first

Novalium Company

@ACuriousMind yeah

too much reading, not worth it

ACuriousMind

@JMac Nah, haven't made anything of that sort. I usually hit a point where I realize (or at least convince myself) that my design was fundamentally flawed and I should just bin it and start over :P

It's easy to fall into overblown perfectionism when there's no deadline!

JMac

@ACuriousMind Yeah, but just wait until the day you get that one element of the game worked out perfectly... then you can move on to the next piece you want to implement!

Novalium Company

20:42

@ACuriousMind What is Rust useful for? How is it better than other languages?

ACuriousMind

Ah, this is the problem I hit. Bummer, doesn't look like it'll be resolved soon.

@NovaliumCompany It aims to guarantee the programmer memory safety at compile time, while still being a "systems programming" language where you can manipulate stuff on the byte level if you need to. "Safe C(++)", essentially.

Novalium Company

@ACuriousMind What's dangerous about normal C++?

What does "memory safety" mean?

ACuriousMind

@NovaliumCompany That's a standard programming term, cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_safety (not as much to read as the Rust book I linked above, promise :P)

@NovaliumCompany Undefined behaviour like accessing null pointers, out-of-bounds array accesses, etc.

Novalium Company

Gotchya. Specific stuff I'm not very familiar with, but I guess the language has it's fans.

ACuriousMind

Rust also is different in that it doesn't have inheritance in the standard sense, so you avoid its typical pitfalls but also have to express common OO patterns in different ways

Novalium Company

20:48

oks

ACuriousMind

(or you can try to follow a functional paradigm, but it's also not purely functional)

enumaris

It means u don't get no segfaults - see here: xkcd.com/371

JMac

@ACuriousMind Oh hey, even I know enough C++ to have a vague idea about what the issue is. I remember some scraps about pointers and stuff in C++. So if I understand correctly, C++ basically doesn't have a way to check if you're actually allowed to be accessing or modifying a specific point in memory, while Rust allows you to have control over that?

enumaris

The OS will check for you and tell you at run time "yo, these bits are off limits" and then your program crashes

ACuriousMind

@JMac C++ has ways for you to check (at runtime), but it doesn't force you to use them, and if you don't, literally random stuff can happen (undefined behaviour famously allows a standard-compliant compiler to make demons fly out of your nose). The Rust compiler doesn't allow you to do anything that has even remote potential to lead to illegal accesses unless you explicitly tell it that you know what you're doing (and in almost all cases there's a way to do what you want without doing that).

@enumaris That's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, some "clever" compiler optimization executes your code in an unforseen (and unforeseeable, for normal humans) manner because compilers are allowed to assume UB doesn't happen

JMac

20:55

@ACuriousMind Do compilers often have built in ways to prevent that for C++?

enumaris

Yeah you could probably write code to brick your computer if you really wanted to...

ACuriousMind

@JMac No, because the freedom to allow them to just assume UB doesn't happen allows them to make aggressive optimizations they otherwise couldn't. There's a nice three-part blog series here on why detecting UB is generally not in the interest of an optimizing compiler

enumaris

I once messed up my laptop using a Diablo II "hacker" program that would actually change hex code to give my character more powers...

somehow it went outside of the game and messed up my actual machine lol

But of course, a 13 year old trying to "hack" Diablo 2 using programs downloaded from the internet is probably a recipe for disaster LOL

JMac

You only managed to cheat yourself.

enumaris

Well, I mean back in the day D2 on an unsecured server was really for "hackers" to play around

on the official server is where my real characters were...

So I wasn't trying to "cheat" anybody so to speak, we all knew everybody was "hacking"

but in the end I screwed myself over yes

ACuriousMind

21:02

::has flashbacks of millions of cloned Stones of Jordan::

enumaris

lol

Yep...

SOJs used to be valuable...and then it was Runes..and then it was charms...

ACuriousMind

Ah, good times

JMac

@enumaris Oh yeah for sure. I wasn't actually trying to accuse you of the "being a dick" type of cheating, though I see how it possibly came across like that.

enumaris

And then strong rare (non-unique) items

@JMac XD no worries

I put so much time into D2 as a kid...then I got it again as an adult and it did not grab my attention like it used to

ACuriousMind

If you liked D2, you should try Path of Exile

I come back to that one for a month or two about every year since it was released

enumaris

21:07

My Korean friend recommended it to me before..as a free alternative to D2

I should check it out at some point XD But these days I do very little gaming...maybe a few minutes of mindless CS:GO a day

Novalium Company

To make VR experience more realistic people have to build a machine that is capable of exerting force on all points of a person's body. What do you think about that?

enumaris

sounds kinky

JMac

@NovaliumCompany I probably wouldn't trust it. I don't want to be crushed by my VR setup.

Novalium Company

xDd

if anyone has ideas, shoot

JMac

I want them to make VR like how it was set up in the show Community. Very low friction surface to jog on with rails all around so that you don't run out of the play area. Extremely convoluted actions required to do simple computer tasks to keep users engaged. It works too well in the show.

skullpatrol

21:14

::shots fired::

enumaris

at whom?

JMac

@enumaris Into the air, duh. Yeehawww

skullpatrol

lol

:D

enumaris

sounds legit

Novalium Company

If you really want to experience a VR world, you'll have to be able to lean on stuff, move, rotate... A machine that is able to apply force on every point on the person's body will do. I imagine it like sticks from every direction or something like that XD

enumaris

21:21

like a porcupine?

Novalium Company

exactly

enumaris

sounds cool

Novalium Company

hmm, I'm trying to come up with a way to pull it off

enumaris

Always good to try

Novalium Company

I call it, the Porcubox

even tho its a sphere

enumaris

21:25

You can have a spherical box

Novalium Company

wut?

nvm i go sliip nao

skullpatrol

cya pal

enumaris

starting to get sleepy again...

jet lag...

skullpatrol

back from Germany?

enumaris

yarp

skullpatrol

21:33

coolio

in MathOverflow, Jan 30 at 20:09, by JohnnyApplesauce

Cultural question too banal for MO: What's the joke about French mathematicians? I've heard it from the mouth of a probability professor as well as a comment on MO, and whenever I hear something like that I think, "I must confirm if this is a subcultural meme."

any ideas? @Slereah^

vzn

22:24

@NovaliumCompany you might find this interesting, cohorts into VR have been buzzing about it. its slowly being commercialized, expect to see it in a few years maybe in VR arcades/ VR "rides," and think theres a lot of potential for VR exercise games in gyms someday. (instead of watching TV on a treadmill... actually already a large market!)

Omnidirectional treadmill

An omnidirectional treadmill (ODT) is a mechanical device, similar to a typical treadmill, that allows a person to perform locomotive motion in any direction, allowing for 360 degrees of movement. The ability to move in any direction is how these treadmills differ from their basic counterparts (that permit only unidirectional locomotion). Omnidirectional treadmills are employed in immersive virtual environment implementations to allow unencumbered movement within the virtual space.Advantages to pairing an ODT with an immersive virtual environment include: Natural navigational movement of the system...