A Competition for Unreadable Code?

[@OhhCrapGuy]

I'm a little sad she didn't mention the most coveted prize in the contest, "Best Abuse of the Rules", usually awarded when someone finds a way to so horrifically abuse the rules that they have to be changed going forward. In 1994, "smr" submitted the smallest self-reproducing program, a program that, when executed, outputs it's own source code. He achieved this by creating a source file, the only source file in the submission, which was 0 bytes long. Exactly 0 bytes. It was empty. However, due to clever abuse of the Makefile, the compiler still output an executable. An empty one. What did it do? Nothing. It just instantly exited. But it's output of absolutely nothing was technically all of his source code.

[@kxmode]

If Seinfeld was a programmer

[@OhhCrapGuy]

@@kxmode not entirely sure how this implicates smr in being weirdly into concerningly young teenager girls, but sure, alright.

[@girlswithgames]

do you have a link to this? would love to know what he did in the makefile lol

[@SDRicky]

Her voice is sweeter than honey 🍯.

[@kxmode]

@@OhhCrapGuy Seinfield was known for episodes about nothing.

[@ersetzbar.]

I had a coworker who did a novel way of sorting his code... he ordered them by string length, making his code look like a christmas tree... in production

[@mountainsmakemehorny]

Did it look pretty?

[@EpicNicks]

@@mountainsmakemehorny asking the important questions

[@liquidsonly]

I approve.

[@denilsonwerling1660]

This is so funny, definitely going to mention it to my coworkers. It seems coding that sort of program, is the right order to deliver the joke!

[@vizualyse]

One could say, your coworker did it in a "Noël" way...

[@soyasuki4531]

"Obfuscated Code" - Or as my predecessor called it "Production Code".

[@switchi8663]

this cracked me up man good job

[@n.-_]

the cobol experience

[@1Lll_llllllLLLLllllll_llL1]

😂

[@amigalemming]

job security

[@6infinity8]

@@amigalemming Exactly, if you master the art of obfuscating code you're guaranteed to never get fired (unless of course the company goes not-stonks).

[@TheKhalamar]

They have the opposite contest for Perl. The goal is to write code that people can actually understand.

[@everyhandletaken]

It's been running 30 years & still yet to have a winner? 😅

[@victotronics]

Oooo Burn!

[@Yeyeyatetete-sj2wz]

I remember someone once said that Perl is unique in that it's just as readable before and after encryption.

[@joshua43214]

In my previous job, we had a Pearl scrip to compiling data from a piece of lab equipment. I noticed one day that it was not always working as intended. It was nearly 800 lines of code. I rewrote it in Python in under 50 lines. Not only did it run about 10 times faster, it was actually comprehensible.

[@astropgn]

Oh, I didn't know I could submit all of my code to the IOCCC. My files look so bad, I am probably a great contender.

[@godnyx117]

Oh boy, you won't imagine! There is ALWAYS someone more crazy...

[@ABCABC-sw8mh]

😂

[@ABCABC-sw8mh]

My code: } ;0 nruter {)(niam tni

[@kyuuketsukikun420]

"my code is self obfuscating"

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

From now onward, I'll end of my main() functions as "piss out".

[@vicsar]

I dare you.

[@AlbatrossCommando]

change it to piss off instead.

[@oconsertador9021]

Could you put "fuck you", instead?

[@yascilisaowsyj8636]

piss be upon you

[@RemovedBrain]

My former colleague was obsessed to create code with "special" formatting rules. We fired him because 99 % bugs in his work came from this his deviance. I just sent him this video, so he can test his "skills" against other people. :)

[@ares395]

The aesthetic of this video reminds me of some 2000s computer gaming news etc. program that you randomly stumble upon while watching TV and never find it again.

[@tritoner1221]

The intro graphic is from Serial Experiments Lain. The general presentation of the video is also reminiscent of the show's unique style.

[@jnharton]

It's literally imitating the interface from Mac OS 8, 9.

[@ares395]

@@jnharton Bold of you to assume I've ever seen Mac OS 8, 9.

[@zerron2156]

​@@ares395Quite bold indeed

[@MrBarberousse]

The creator of Perl, Larry Wall won 2 prizes in the IOCCC. His initials are LW just like Laurie Wired. Coincidence? Who knows!

[@Turalcar]

Did you ever see them in the same room?

[@filker0]

@@MrBarberousse I used to know Larry Wall when I worked at DEC in the early 1980s and he had a lisp interpreter which could be compiled with DECUS C. I was hanging out with Martin Minnow and Dave Conroy at the time, so had a lot of contact with some very impressive people.

[@kiwi84]

I’ve been falling out of computer science for a while now cause of college burnout but your videos have relit my computer science flame! Its crazy the difference that good presentation and teaching can make. Keep up the great work 😃

[@cloerenjackson3699]

I just discovered this channel minutes ago and, from this alone, I love it! I like the retro style and shots of CRTs in the background. I like the "classic Mac OS" windows. Very nice touch! I love how you present it too.

[@kadse417]

Just write it in C++ - obfuscation enough.

[@mjthebest7294]

L M A O

[@ThisShitWontWor]

Nah rust is way more unreadable than c++

[@literallynull]

more like rust

[@vanlepthien6768]

Objective C is even more fun!

[@ryanmccampbell7]

​@@literallynullrust is pretty easy to read, it's writing code that compiles that's the hard part

[@fios4528]

I'm genuinely floored by the production quality of these videos and your ability to communicate so effectively

[@ayonsamajder]

indeed programming is an art

[@illegalsmirf]

more like a fart

[@tjairicciardi9747]

this is awesome !! The production quality is unmatched

[@trevorkirby3781]

Glad to see the obfuscated c competition is still going. My favourite was always the love letter exchange.

[@victotronics]

Finally some respect for bad coding! No seriously, I've been following this for decades. It's mindblowing.

[@john.dough.]

I love the aesthetic of your videos, combined with your clear expertise and knowledge. Thanks for sharing! :]

[@vicsar]

Yeah, no doubt. Do what you enjoy, for sure. Respect!

[@fios4528]

I'm really curious how much time the set design took

[@Kammreiter]

She’s definitely a very talented teacher ❤

[@Ari-ez1vj]

I feel like I just dropped a tab of acid , expanded my brain, and watched an episode of serial experiments lain

[@MrStarTraveler]

The "peace out;" got me rolling on the floor! XD

[@mohammedgoder]

#include "cstdio" #define ever (;;) int main() { for ever printf("no. just no."); }

[@MrStarTraveler]

@@mohammedgoder Rofl 🤣

[@waiitwhaat]

The "peace out" has no business being that hilarious xD

[@filker0]

I used to enter the obfuscated C competition back in the 1980s. I never came close to winning, but I did my worst, which is all that can be reasonably expected. There are better tools for unubfusticating the contest entries. "indent", "astyle", and other source code reformatting utilities, "cpp" for doing macro expansion, "m4" and "awk" round out the toolkit. Around 1989-1990 I wrote a C code obfusticator and posted it to alt.sources. Unfortunately, it didn't handle ANSI C function prototypes and used semantic dirty tricks that are not portable across pre-ANSI compilers and in places conflict with ANSI additions to the C language grammar.

[@052Ryder]

I legit came across live game code that did the following: #define f*** return #define sh** ; It was a cpp file that contained many methods returning pointers to 'this'. Fun times. P.S. You are a gift to the engineering world Laurie

[@OldieBugger]

When I was doing programming as my job (in C), I sometimes had to fix the errors made by someone else. There were times I could do it faster by just rewriting all of the code, rather than deobfuscating the original code. Some people!

[@joseph-montanez]

"This makes C a great candidate for creating some really unreadable code" - Flashbacks of Coldfusion from Adobe

[@anon_y_mousse]

My favorite is still Banks' entry from 1998. Shaped like an airplane and it's a primitive flight sim. Although, not all of the entries will still compile on modern computers. Take for instance some of the older ones that did code injection on PDP's and the like.

[@OneEyedJack1970]

I almost lost my mind trying to decipher what in the hell temple of apshai was doing. This was back when I was 15 or 16 and trying to transfer my copy from cassette to disk. I got most of it to disk, but still had to load the fonts and levels from the tape drive.

[@the-pink-hacker]

Your channel has the vibes of Bill Nye but computer science themed instead. Very unique and love it!

[@zt9233]

OmG!!! You nailed it!!!

[@Mathsky4]

Hey Laurie.. it will be great if you can do "C programming" tutorial. I know there are tons of tutorials out there but your teaching capabilities are extremely good. If you have time plz consider.

[@merthyr1831]

The production quality you've got going on is insane. love watching your vids!

[@shanehebert396]

I worked with a guy who won in one of the IOCCC categories way back in the day.

[@danielpintard7382]

obsessed with the lain aesthetic, one of my favorite anime of all time and was a catalyst in developing my interest in computer science

[@agg5324]

I love the vibe of this channel

[@jawad9757]

I love [ab]using C macros as if they're C++ templates

[@Guidoev2]

I've only watched the first 30 secs of your video and I'm already convinced you deserve more views and subscribers than you already get!! Just love the aesthethics and the vibe!!

[@dIancaster]

Your videos are such a pleasure to watch.

[@andymitchell2146]

I've been training for this all my life without knowing!

[@demolazer]

When asked why you are coding something, 'Because I CAN' is an acceptable answer .

[@fredrikbergquist5734]

When I saw the title of this vid I immediately knew that it was C code, no language is better for this than C! But my favourite language for obfuscating as it is, is Prolog or maybe Lisp!

[@Mustachioed_Mollusk]

Im in love, seems like there are so many high quality channels lately!

[@internetplumber]

Hah, good to see this, I was thinking of the IOCCC whilst watching the Asuka Roasts video the other day...

[@mytechnotalent]

It is interesting how the macro looks so much more readable after you reformatted w/o \. Nice Job Laurie.

[@emmettdja]

that clock program was insane

[@MegaMech]

You can sort of skip all of this by printing the preprocessor output to the console. If you want to see really unreadable code check out mk64 decomp.

[@davidomar742]

don't wanna know what kind of hallucinogenic drugs you got to be on to do this type of programming lol

[@saikat93ify]

Wow, great video. I learnt something new. I participate in contests avidly and did not know about this.

[@patrick1020000]

The Underhanded C Competition is also interesting, though it looks like it is no longer held

[@PirateDion]

What a odd gem to find for a subject I know little about but I'm interested in learning. You made a video of code compelling enough to watch with a nice thematic style of old school computer interfacing. Looking forward to more. Subscribed :).

[@Gamegesis]

I loved one entry of an IOCCC that was a maze generator. It was written to depict a... maze! :D This was on the end of last millennia... or on the very beginning of this millennia! :)

[@MrHaggyy]

If you want a medal from your coworkers for best code ever just pack every function and data object in one giant void array and cast it in the program as needed. There is a time for this when you change hardware configs at runtime with full bandwidth read/writes but other than that ...

[@damianzielinski71]

After watching One short of yours I was pissed at you, but I wanted to give you a Chance and I watched this video. You've impressed me , and I love the way you speak your voice is calming and it makes enjoyable to watch your videos so now I just have to subscribe 😅❤❤ Greetings from Poland, Laurie 🎉❤

[@kensmith5694]

Single letter variables seems like a less than ideal thing to do. Compilers allow 32 characters. You can make the first name 32 upper case "O". The next one will have a zero in the right most place and so on like counting in binary. This will let you have a lot of names. #define can define a name to be just about any token so the operators etc can all be made into 32 character things too. The body of the program can then be neat columns of 32 characters to do something like make the US flag running down page.

[@brawldude2656]

I'm in love with this competition

[@hekero]

I LOOOOVE the channel graphics and branding. Awesome!

[@willitine]

Hi Laurie. Wow I love how you popped out from opening a app on the desktop! That’s pretty cool. For whatever reason the theme of you speaking like that in a pc window reminds me of Back to the Future The Ride when I was little. Awesome vibes! Anyhow interesting video. I’m gonna watch it now. Hope you are having a great day.

[@kilianlindberg]

11:35 a skilled move right-up-key sequence approx at ~25 ms delay

[@enidiagu8124]

the very begining while meeting this code: ctrl + A + K & ctrl + A + F

[@sheykenasababy]

This channel's became one of my favorites after 2 videos. I'd pay for this content.

[@unknown6656]

......you forgot to mention the following "tricks": - Digraphs / Trigraphs (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digraphs_and_trigraphs_(programming)#C) - Expressions such as " x = 10[m] " are equivalent to " x = m[10] " (assuming m is a pointer), as it gets translated to " x = *(m + 10) ".

[@toxidron2880]

Love the aesthetics of your videos 😎

[@tenv]

Great videos! It's so satifying to see you clean up and decipher stuff like this. You should consider ricing your desktop to go with the rest of your video aestetic, on Linux I'm sure there must be some DE that can recreate the kinds of faux-windows you have for your intro/webcam.

[@Vancer876]

Yeah I was wondering why she uses windows

[@Kammreiter]

🤔 as she works for Microsoft

[@tenv]

@@Kammreiter didnt know she works for Microsoft, but I'm guessing it wouldnt be a problem since this channel is a personal project

[@DavidLindes]

Ahh, chongo strikes again! (Landon Curt Noll, usual username chongo, one of the founders of this, is someone I used to work with. Fun guy to interact with. And he did good by creating this, IMHO.) Thanks for exploring it a bit and sharing it with new audiences!

[@maxmustermann5590]

How have I never found this channel before. Love the content!!

[@yanikb.1312]

Title: unreadable code competition Me: oh boy sounds like the IOCCC

[@henrycgs]

I remember having loads of fun with the preprocessor back in the day. I made a header file that turned C extremely verbose and told a friend that was just how it looked like

[@fallinginthed33p]

The demo scene back in the day produced insane graphics directly using assembly. Now code optimization is used for malware 😅

[@CyReVolt]

What you see in the real world: A header file defining a 20 KB block of bytes that is memcopied and then executed, taking a pointer to a block of configuration data. Such blobs are what some vendors provide for integrating their secret stuff into your custom firmware.

[@svenvandevelde1]

Thank you for sharing this interesting subject.

[@colley001]

I remember the International Collegiate Programming Contest when I was seven. FORTRAN I think, used it to drive a small robot. That was long before 1980. I thought they were the longest running?

[@GH-oi2jf]

I can't relate to this. Most programmers write code that is hard to follow. We ought to be encouraging code that is easy to follow. Long ago, someone told me my (assembly language) code "read like a book." I remember it as one of the best compliments I ever received.

[@plaidchuck]

Hey Laurie based on your LinkedIn you've only been out of school a few years yet have some insane comp sci knowledge. Aside from internships and your current role how much experience did you have with code/computers before going to college? Did you learn the bulk that you know from college. Just an old head looking to get into programming. Teach us young grasshopper!

[@kristenmgr]

That intro was the final straw !!! I'm subscribing !!!

[@BurstingVeins1]

I never realized that doing code in that way could be a thing, but then just looking at that code is driving my hyper efficient coding OCD insane.

[@vanlepthien6768]

I wound up supporting old C code (after programming in a slew of other languages). The number of "clever tricks" was horrifying - and were not commented. This was in production code. I was called in after the original programmers had been fired - I assume because they couldn't fix bugs in their own code.

[@stacksmasherninja7266]

these were great examples! if you wish to continue this series and want to take a look at more submissions, I highly recommend Nicholas Carlni's submission for tic tac toe! a video on obfuscating your code to look cool would also be great :) super happy to see ioccc here

[@CheffScott]

Hey Laurie, your exploration of unreadable code is fascinating! Keep inspiring us with your insights and discoveries. 🚀

[@BlueIsLeet]

6:10 idk if that's a 'fix', looks like it's a directive only meant to run on Win32 devices (from the ifdef), and it patches main to work on windows properly

[@KarlaKloppstock]

This is awesome, thanks Laurie! Good thing that one can make C code unreadable, while for few other languages that's the default.

[@ammdres]

I love so much the style of your videoss and also your setup

[@jeffandonuts3945]

F-ing wonderful find this channel has been - G bless you Laurie

[@c0p0n]

There are no perl obfuscated code competitions because that'd be stating the obvious

[@nunnukanunnukalailailai1767]

In the industry thats called job security smh

[@stighemmer]

Actually there was an obfuscated perl contest.

[@c0p0n]

@@stighemmer but nobody could find it

[@ing32]

love the quality!

[@soliez0xff]

This snippet from Beej’s Guide to C references a submission to ioccc: “No point in wasting words here, folks, let’s jump straight into the C code: E((ck?main((z?(stat(M,&t)?P+=a+'{'?0:3: execv(M,k),a=G,i=P,y=G&255, sprintf(Q,y/'@'-3?A(*L(V(%d+%d)+%d,0) And they lived happily ever after. The End. What’s this? You say something’s still not clear about this whole C programming language thing?”

[@benridesbikes6975]

"This makes C a great candidate language for creating some really unreadable code" that made me laugh out loud. Don't we know it

[@Yupppi]

Very cool. Reminds me of figuring out what malware does, saw Low Level Learning do some of that cybersecurity challenge stuff. Also the circle code was quite aesthetic. I'd guess nvim to be one of the easier text editors to start fixing the visual look of the code and the #defines, otherwise it'd feel like a bit of a mess. The nvim plugins that follow common style for the language also helping out. These are probably the best ways to make your coworkers mad or get fired.

[@hogoromootsutsuki4079]

I started coding in Java, then moved to c#, I never worked with C, but some things are the same, looping seems the same.(I have been programming for years, and am still a noob)

[@Kris-qn4bn]

Amazing video idea, with amazing video quality! Thank you for your work!

[@omd_0]

you make me love C, that's impossible 😂😂

[@Nekro9000]

this has to be the most insane glow up i've ever seen

[@heisthazey7311]

good work on the editing as of late - the transitions between content and animation have gotten much faster and it feels very tight. I really enjoy the production value of your channel ty!

[@Zach-p4e6p]

I love SkiFree, and Chip's Challenge. all of the Microsoft games pack games were great

[@oyasumigabriel]

I really need a tutorial on how to make windows look like that again

[@Ayelis]

Enjoying the Lain imagery in the intro! :3

[@delibellus]

Awesome content as always!

[@MinecraftMasterNo1]

Is that her real voice? I'd pay good money to see if she still has the squeak when she's angry lol. On a sidenote, this has way more production quality than the sub count would suggest.

[@1fareast14]

She talks like that at conferences, too, I don't see an issue

[@yayz_]

As someone new to C "This is starting to look like a real C program" made me laugh and then cry.

[@owlmanac]

I did not expect to get flashbanged with lain references in my 2024

[@geralde.5724]

But what if you debugged it 🤔 would it get confused what line to highlight?

[@AccurateBurn]

great video laurie, super interesting topic

[@kanjiNaem]

competition for unreadable code? id win

[@MrBoko1234]

the gameplay at the end caught me off guard lmao, great vid

[@Slycooper2456]

She streamed Burnout Paradise last Saturday it has so many hilarious moments, its on her Twitch channel.