• 7 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: March 9th, 2024

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  • This is the decode function if anyone is interested:

    decoded_reference()
    decoded_reference()
    {
        local yr_msd=${1:0:1}
        local yr_lsd=${1:1:1}
        local seq_enc_msd=${1:3:1}
        local seq_enc_lsd=${1:4:1}
        local seq_msd=${lookup_table_reverse[$seq_enc_msd]}
        local seq_lsd=${lookup_table_reverse[$seq_enc_lsd]}
        local seq_msd_index=$(typeset -p symbolset | grep -oP '[0-9]+(?=]="'"$seq_msd"'")')
        local seq_lsd_index=$(typeset -p symbolset | grep -oP '[0-9]+(?=]="'"$seq_lsd"'")')
        local seq=$((seq_msd_index * ln_symbolset + seq_lsd_index))
        local yr_msd_index=$(typeset -p symbolset | grep -oP '[0-9]+(?=]="'"$yr_msd"'")')
        local yr_lsd_index=$(typeset -p symbolset | grep -oP '[0-9]+(?=]="'"$yr_lsd"'")')
        local yr=$((ln_symbolset * ln_symbolset * 2 + yr_msd_index * ln_symbolset + yr_lsd_index)); # warning: the “2” is a dangerous hard-coding! Hopefully that bug manifests after I am dead
    
        printf '%s\n' "${yr}-$seq"
    };#decoded_reference
    

  • I probably need a perfect hash function. This code seems to do the job:

    encoded_reference()
    {
        local -r yr=$1
        local -r seqno=$2
        
        local -ar symbolset=(a b c d e f g h   j k   m n   p q r s t u v w x y z     2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
        local -a seedset=("${symbolset[@]}")
        local -r ln_symbolset=${#symbolset[@]}; # 31
        local ln_seedset=${#seedset[@]}
        local -A lookup_table=()
    
        for sym in "${symbolset[@]}"
        do
            pos=$((50 % ln_seedset)); # 50 is just an arbitrary static number
            lookup_table+=(["$sym"]=${seedset["$pos"]})
            seedset=(${seedset[@]/${seedset[$pos]}}); # remove used elements from the seedset
            ln_seedset=${#seedset[@]}
        done
        
        local yr_enc=${symbolset[$(((yr / ln_symbolset) % ln_symbolset))]}${symbolset[$(($yr % ln_symbolset))]}
        local most_sig_fig=$((seqno / ln_symbolset))
        local least_sig_fig=$((seqno % ln_symbolset))
        
        # caution: if the seqno exceeds ln_symbolset², this calculation is out of range
        local seq_enc=${lookup_table[${symbolset[$most_sig_fig]}]}${lookup_table[${symbolset[$least_sig_fig]}]}
        
        printf '%s\n' "answer → ${yr_enc}-$seq_enc"
    };#encoded_reference
    
    for yr in 2024 2025 2026
    do
        for seqno in {1..20}
        do
            encoded_reference "$yr" "$seqno"
        done
    done
    
    output

    answer → js-wy answer → js-w2 answer → js-w4 answer → js-w6 answer → js-w8 answer → js-wa answer → js-wd answer → js-wg answer → js-wk answer → js-wp answer → js-ws answer → js-wv answer → js-w3 answer → js-w9 answer → js-we answer → js-wm answer → js-wt answer → js-w5 answer → js-wf answer → js-wr answer → jt-wy answer → jt-w2 answer → jt-w4 answer → jt-w6 answer → jt-w8 answer → jt-wa answer → jt-wd answer → jt-wg answer → jt-wk answer → jt-wp answer → jt-ws answer → jt-wv answer → jt-w3 answer → jt-w9 answer → jt-we answer → jt-wm answer → jt-wt answer → jt-w5 answer → jt-wf answer → jt-wr answer → ju-wy answer → ju-w2 answer → ju-w4 answer → ju-w6 answer → ju-w8 answer → ju-wa answer → ju-wd answer → ju-wg answer → ju-wk answer → ju-wp answer → ju-ws answer → ju-wv answer → ju-w3 answer → ju-w9 answer → ju-we answer → ju-wm answer → ju-wt answer → ju-w5 answer → ju-wf answer → ju-wr

    This is close to ideal, but I just thought of another problem: what if a year-seq pair were to derive an encoded number like “fy-ou” or “us-uk” or “sh-it”? A bias that nearly ensures a digit is used would help avoid generating offending words. But I guess I’m getting well into over-engineering territory.


  • That is certainly a winner from the standpoint of code simplicity. And it’s trivially reversible. But I’m also prioritizing simplicity for human recipients above code simplicity. Base64 output is case sensitive and someone writing back and referencing a ref number would not necessarily preserve case. It’s also intolerant of human errors like confusing a “1” for a “l”.

    (edit) I think base32 would avoid the case sensitivity problem. So here’s a sample:

    for seq in {1..60}; do printf '%s → ' 2024-"$seq"; printf '%s\n' 2024-"$seq" | base32 | awk '{print tolower($1)}' | sed 's/=//g'; done
    
    output:
    2024-1  giydenbngefa
    2024-2  giydenbngifa
    2024-3  giydenbngmfa
    2024-4  giydenbngqfa
    2024-5  giydenbngufa
    2024-6  giydenbngyfa
    2024-7  giydenbng4fa
    2024-8  giydenbnhafa
    2024-9  giydenbnhefa
    2024-10  giydenbngeyau
    2024-11  giydenbngeyqu
    2024-12  giydenbngezau
    2024-13  giydenbngezqu
    2024-14  giydenbnge2au
    2024-15  giydenbnge2qu
    2024-16  giydenbnge3au
    2024-17  giydenbnge3qu
    2024-18  giydenbnge4au
    2024-19  giydenbnge4qu
    2024-20  giydenbngiyau
    2024-21  giydenbngiyqu
    2024-22  giydenbngizau
    2024-23  giydenbngizqu
    2024-24  giydenbngi2au
    2024-25  giydenbngi2qu
    




  • If i build a shitty house and it collapses, I own it, I don’t write a manifesto about how it’s all lumber’s fault.

    If you sell the house in a high-pressure sales tactic way (“buy in the next 5 min or deal is off the table”) and deny inspection to the buyer before it collapses, that would be as close as this stupid analogy can get to the JS scenario.

    As does FOSS C

    Nonsense. As you were told, C is not dynamically fetched and spontaneously executed upon visiting a website.

    do you install linux from the source tree and build everything yourself? no, you download an .iso, so you are bound to the whims of the OS maintainer,

    Nonsense. Have a look at gentoo. You absolutely can build everything from source. You can inspect it and you can also benefit from the inspection of others. Also, look into “reproduceable builds”.

    Literally every JS package I’ve ever used does this.

    Nonsense. The web is unavoidably littered with unpublished JS that’s dynamically fetched every time you visit the page.




  • they attribute buggy sites to the company, not the underlying language (rightly so)

    Precisely my point. Recall what I wrote about conflict of interest. I’m not talking about a problem of the language syntax and semantics. I’m talking about JavaScript products (in the mathematical sense of a product not in the commercial sense; the code artifacts, iow).

    JS runs client side and you can see what scripts are downloaded and running

    That does nothing to remedy the conflict of interest. They can also push obfuscated JS but that’s beside the point. The problem is users are not going to review that code even the first time they visit a site, much less every single time due to the nature of dynamically re-fetching the code every single time you visit a page. Even if some OCD nutty user had that level of motivation, they do not benefit from the reviews of others because the code is not being reviewed from a static centralised space. Your idea that software freedom will somehow escape the conflict of interest problem is nonsense. A site admin can do whatever they want to the code to serve themselves and you end up with users running code that is designed to serve someone else.

    So open source projects written in C benefit the user, but open source projects written in JS do not?

    FOSS C projects hard and fast benefit the user because of the distribution of the code. We do not fetch a dynamically changing version of unreviewable unverified C code every time we visit a website. Distribution of C code is more controlled than that.

    FOSS JS depends on how it’s distributed. Someone can write JS in their basement with no public oversight, license it to pass the LibreJS plugin test, and technically it’s FOSS but because of how it’s reviewed and distributed the benefits are diminishing. If the FOSS JS is in a public repo and statically downloadable (e.g. electronmail), then the conflict of interest is removed and the code is static (not fetched on-the-fly upon every execution which escapes a QA process).

    Electronmail demonstrates FOSS JS that avoids the conflict of interest problem but that’s exceptional. That’s not how most JS is distributed. Most JS is distributed from a stakeholder, thus presents a conflict of interest.