this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Programmer Humor

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 1 month ago (3 children)

"Oh, dude, you gotta stop using TJ's Action Rune of Changed Files. That runebook has a backdoor to one of the hells now. Didn't you see the patch notes?"

[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I never update my spell book and nothing bad has ever happened.

Help. Infernal imps somehow got inside my sanctum and used my scrying orb to send rude messages to the rest of the Circle.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

You got lucky. Somebody snuck a wyrm into my codex that got all of my thralls mining for coin bits.

[–] JackbyDev 9 points 1 month ago

Ugh, look, I get it. I know TJ's Lesser Action Rune of Changed Files that the Greater version does now, but TJ's price structure is bullshit and I'm not paying for Greater just because he refuses to "support" us users of Lesser. I don't even have a damn Portal, much less a Summoning Circle! Why are you so worried about a backdoor to the hells? Unless I connect this sigil to the weave nothing is going to come in or out. This sigil is only for monitoring the moisture content of my garden by way of a spell scroll attached. As we both know, scrolls and sigils use two different elements to communicate. One is gold ink and the other is silver ink. I have to use TJ's Action Rune of Changed Files to see if the document has changed due to moisture. The scroll cannot directly talk to my watering golem's receiving crystal.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 month ago (9 children)

shout out to the trickster mod which is basically "what if magic is a lisp"

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My brother in Christ, why must you inform us of cool things and leave us with less free time? 🫠

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Interesting. Does this provide any game balance whatsoever?

I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to design magic systems when I was a teenager, but they always ended up being either way too powerful or not "rich" enough to be interesting. It's just really hard to design a simple mechanical system that stays within arbitrary human boundaries.

Hmm, I feel myself getting drawn back in. That's almost like a zero-knowledge proof, and there's lots of weird ways to implement cryptographic primitives.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

no, it does not. there is a rune that consumes amethyst but it's just for flavour, so you can give your spell a cost if you want.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Well, ir's obviously not balanced for vanilla. But I had talked to the quite a while ago now. And they did try to walk a fine balance of being useful and fun, but not too over the top. They apply limitations where it makes sense for them.
Especially since there is PvP.

If you liked Hex Casting, or even Psi. This should be right up your alley. It's also less tedious than either of them I would say.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

That is really fucking cool!

How long until someone hopks this up to a QR code style image scanner and unleashed horrors and incredible things upon the world?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah that mod is really cool. The magic writing system is fucking awesome.

Even cooler than Hex Casting in my opinion (which is already super cool).

And It's quite a bit easier to work with since it's not stack-based and that you can edit different parts of you spell/program at any point.

[–] JackbyDev 2 points 1 month ago

Omfg I read all of this for far to long thinking you meant casting spells with a lithp lisp. Like you might cast similarly named spells randomly. "Must be Skyrim, cool. Click! Minecraft doesn't have spells, what?"

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[–] JackbyDev 48 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This symbol isn't needed for spells this long, but it's considered best practice and other wizards will make fun of me for not including it, even though it isn't needed.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Syntax error: Mismatched △
FATAL ERROR! DRAIN ARCANE ENTRY IMMEDIATELY!
ARCANE ENERGY COULD NOT BE DRAINED AND WILL BE DISPERSED WHEN PROCESS IS TERMINATED.
Kernel panic: Syntax error in interpreted kernel code. Spell OS 0.2.437 will now terminate.

*Firery explosion

“And that’s the most efficient way we’ve found of casting fireball. We’re still working on getting round to finding a more elegant solution.”

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

"Thank you for playing Wing Commander"

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I've often wondered about who discovered arcane symbols/rituals.

Like, did some prehistoric guy just sit there drawing in the dirt until something happened?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

My head canon is that creatures such as ghosts, demons, djinns, ... enter our mortal realm willingly from time to time and sometimes form a connection with a person, who they then teach how to summon them in times of need. This knowledge is then passed down.

So effectively otherworldly creatures are tourists who gave a local their number and now they get bothered by their greatgreatgreatgreatgrandkids.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The Book of Enoch says that fallen angels named Uzza, Azza and Azael taught humans originally.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

So it's the original developers that answer the questions in Stack Overflow? Good to know.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I like the idea that they're not just symbols, but shapes. Get anything to be shaped like a rune, and it'll touch magic. So two rocks leaned against each other just right might create a trickle of water, or a tree that grows a twisted enough web of branches could, by chance, summon a flame. Then, like with all natural phenomenon, people figured it out! It fits well with the trope that wizards are arcane researchers and scientists, you find in settings like D&D's

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

Who is the artist?

[–] firelizzard 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

If you’re adding code you don’t understand to a production system you should be fired

Edit: I assumed it was obvious from context that I’m referring to copy-pasting code from stack overflow or an LLM or whatever without knowing what it does but apparently that needs to be said explicitly.

[–] JackbyDev 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Many times the code we work on is built in abstractions we don't know about from top to bottom.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (6 children)

So you code everything in Assembly from scratch?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No I just read the stack overflow guy's explanation and the other small comments around and they explain it.

[–] JackbyDev 4 points 1 month ago

Closed as duplicate

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I don't understand Assembly. Straight up binary only for me.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I really like to build from zero, but some things are better copied, no matter if you fully understand them or fall short. :)

For example, I'm not qualified to check if Hamilton and Euler were correct - I only do as they explained, and later double-check the output against input.

[–] firelizzard 4 points 1 month ago

I didn't say never copy and paste. I'm saying when you push a commit you should understand what all the LOC in that commit do (not counting vendored dependencies). If you don't understand how something works, like crypto (not sure what Hamilton or Euler refers to in this context), ideally you would use a library. If you can't, you should still understand the code sufficiently well to be able to explain how it implements the underlying algorithm. For example if you're writing a CRC function you should be able to explain how your function implements the CRC operations, even if you don't have a clue why those operations work.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Never use libraries you don’t contribute to in Production

[–] firelizzard 5 points 1 month ago

There's a huge difference between copy-pasting code you don't understand and using a library with the assumption that the library does what it says on the tin. At the very least there's a clear boundary between your code and not-your-code.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The manga (soon to be anime) Witch Hat Atelier's magic is kinda like this. Also it rocks so I definitely recommend it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So happy its getting an anime, such a gorgeous manga

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I really hope it does the manga justice. It would be a tragedy if people ended up dismissing this series because of a subpar anime adaptation.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Normally I could do this ritual with a single symbol but there is no support for primordial glyphs in this arcane framework unless you rewrite the whole thing in Elder Speech.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

🎵 Kier, chosen one, Kier.

Kier, brilliant one, Kier.

Brings the bounty to the plain through the torment, through the rains,

Progress, knowledge show no fear,

Kier, chosen one, Kier. 🎵

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Was looking for that comment

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Pretty much most chem students doing labs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Man this is just another great example of why I think software is essentially magic.

At the root of it, the hardware, it's magic smoke. It's all based on magic from that point up - because the layer below the one you are using "works because it does."

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If writing software makes you some sort of magician then writing in assembly should surely mean you are a cleric or warlock.

[–] vivendi 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I designed microcontrollers and wrote assembly for them

Now I'm just a regular software dudebro

What class do I get?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I havent worked with assembly or any firmware in 10+ years, but from memory, I think it's more like being a Witch Doctor. You got primitive things and no idea what they do, but the specific patterns and dances make things happen.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

My first good chuckle of the day. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It was an autocomplete from co-warlock.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Vibe coders == warlocks with their patron LLM. Great idea!

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