this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024

232 points (93.3% liked)

Science Memes

12399 readers

2060 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

!spiders@lemmy.world

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Sal@mander.xyz

fossilesque@mander.xyz

SciBot@mander.xyz

232

if statement == false (i.imgflip.com)

submitted 2 months ago by tatterdemalion@programming.dev to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 64 points 2 months ago (5 children)

what would be the alternative? to always execute if the condition is true, but sometimes execute it even when false, for funsies?

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 41 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Hey, I like a little chaos in my codebase 😆

const funsies = () => (Math.round(Math.random() * 1000) % 2 == 0)
if ( condition || funsies() ) {
    // do the thing
}

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Wait, why the the *1000 or mod 2? Won't that give a 50\50 chance or the same as Math.round(Math.random).

No shade, and I may be wrong myself I am very tired

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Probably to make the fractional random value between 0 and 1 to become an integer so that you can divisibility check for even with mod 2

[–] modality@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

is this AI?

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Nope. I'm staunchly against "AI". If the code sucks, it's because I wrote bad code.

Edit: Oh, or did you mean is that how "AI" works?

[+] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

In Javascript, Math.random() produces a float value between 0 and 1, so I multiply by 1000 and round it to get a larger integer. The value %2 == 0 is a non-library way of performing isEven() on the random integer (value % 2 is 0 if even, 1 if odd, and the ==0 makes it return a boolean). When used in the if statement, it's essentially a coin flip.

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

does javascript not allow you to interpret integers as booleans in a conditions directly? seems it'd be simpler to just do math.round(math.random()), which should still get you true (1) or false (0) in equal likelihood. or am i missing something?

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

It'll give you 1 ~= true or 0 ~= undefined, but I typically use Typescript which prefers actual booleans to boolean-ish

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

huh. interesting. i wonder what number it's actually storing for false then?

[–] bstix 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The "only" part implies exclusivity, which may be false, because other things might run the code anyway.

IF "I can see the sun" THEN "It's day."

Nothing wrong about that. However if we make it exclusive:

IF AND ONLY IF "I can see the sun" THEN "It's day."

That's obviously wrong. I can actually not keep the day away by sitting with closed eyes in my mothers basement with the curtains shut.

"Only if" might make sense in a legal contract, but there's no way a piece of code can stop other pieces of code from calling the same functions.

[–] adj16@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But that’s not how if statements in code work. So what you’ve said isn’t wrong, but the premise of this meme is completely off

[–] bstix 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yes sure. Code is logical stepwise. By including the "only if" it implies that other stuff is taken into account, which it isn't at that moment in code.

I mean, I don't need to extend the implications of an IF statement. It already does exactly what it says.

Anyway fuzzy logic does exist for people who want "sometimes if". It's useful in certain cases. I've only ever considered it in music production, where things very often get to the point of complexity where it makes a (sometimes) useful difference.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In normal parlance, "if and only if" rules out that something could also happen as a result of other circumstances. EG, if you fall out of a plane, you will lose your glasses. But there are other conditions that would lead to the same result.

In code, the alternative would be to have a different if statement that executes identical code. Or *cough* you could use a jump instruction to execute literally the same code.

[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Brb, making a truly "if" statement function in my products code base for funsies.