Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Why do programmers confuse Halloween with Christmas? Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2025 14:28:05 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 32 Message-ID: <87wm494f4q.fsf@example.invalid> References: <10e40gr$10lb5$1@dont-email.me> <20251031212921.373@kylheku.com> <10e5ekk$1drt4$1@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2025 21:28:08 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="16acd51b0cd5c36f46c9713f3803752b"; logging-data="1687653"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX198YIq+exL5YV4FZjCVHLlm" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Cancel-Lock: sha1:BsxjdR0TCnfd3tL72sTrwA5x8Og= sha1:X8uKE7qVPADyfehnmufT0Jc3Xcg= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:395039 comp.lang.c++:122940 Bill Davy writes: > On 01/11/2025 17:05, Mike Terry wrote: >> On 01/11/2025 04:31, Kaz Kylheku wrote: >>> On 2025-11-01, Lynn McGuire wrote: >>>> Why do programmers confuse Halloween with Christmas? >>>> >>>> Because 31 OCT = 25 DEC >>> >>> It's not that programmer confuse them; rather, the above is the key to >>> the mystical link between the two. It's the underpinning for why Tim >>> Burton's _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ makes sense. >>> >>> I went trick-or-treating today with the kids; there was someone in >>> a Santa suit! >>> >> I bet you he had a long beard.  I knew it! - one of those "octal >> beardies", an old-time UNIX programmer for sure!  He probably >> started on a PDP-11.  :) >> Mike. > > Never understood PDP11 using octal. 16 bits / 3? Old habits die hard. A word on a PDP-11 is 16 bits, but it's often logically divided into 3-bit chunks. CPU instructions have 3-bit fields to denote one of the 8 registers, and 3-bit fields to denote a mode. > Now, the PDP9 (18 bits / 3). Fortran compiler "G 2 544237" (or > something like that). -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */