Title text:
It has been −2,147,483,648 days since our last integer overflow.
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Source: https://xkcd.com/3228/
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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This one hits deep. One of my first more complicated projects was a driver for a device that counted a lot of values. Imagine an energy meter.
At the beginning I thought about writing code to create my own type since I was limited to uint32 as the biggest on board type. To spare some work I quickly decided to use a float type for the first time without thinking much about it (I usually use fixed point integers for everyday work)
Way into the project I thought about what happens, when the actual value is gigantic and I try to add a very small number. After thinking about it I realized that nothing happens. So my counter would stop working. I changed everything and never used a floating point number again in my life I 🤣