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Today I Learned

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2023/05/09

About the precedent for deriving serde from serialize/deserialize:

A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. Codec is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or data stream, and hence is a type of codec. Endec is a portmanteau of encoder/decoder. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec


2023/12/24

Bayer and McCreight never explained what, if anything, the B stands for: Boeing, balanced, between, broad, bushy, and Bayer have been suggested. McCreight has said that “the more you think about what the B in B-trees means, the better you understand B-trees.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tree#History


2024/01/03

bit bucket n.

(very common) 1. The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have “gone to the bit bucket”. On Unix, often used for /dev/null. Sometimes amplified as “the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky”.

  1. The place where all lost mail and news messages eventually go. […]
  2. The ideal location for all unwanted mail responses.

Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the “parity preservation law”, the number of 1 bits that go to the bit bucket must equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3008/3008-h/3008-h.htm#bitbucket