The fact that this can introduce OCR bugs into your C code is hilarious, and this is diabolical:
#define one ( 4 - 3 )
#define eleven ( 3 + 4 + 4 )
Especially if your fax machine uses JBIG2 compression. See: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-deep-dive-i...
¹: http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_...
Like, sure, maybe it's hard to tell apart a "1", "i", or "l" purely visually, but if you knew it was supposed to be code, I'd suspect one could significantly improve the recognition accuracy if the system just worked in the probability of each confusable option given the preceding (and following) text.
It's actually better for the compilation to fail than for the Clippy to make up something syntactically and compilation correct, but wrong.
edit: fixed link, copy paste fail dropped the ++
I'm curious why this requires a reply number in the program, rather than relying on something like Caller ID and sending the reply back to the number that sent the fax.
[1] https://github.com/lexbailey/compilerfax/blob/main/build_and...
[2] https://github.com/lexbailey/compilerfax/tree/main?tab=readm...
Could have a form that you fax in with, like a URL and session info (cookies and stuff), and then it faxes back the page, and you can circle stuff and fax the page back to interact and "click on" things.
Plus, since computers can ingest faxes, you wouldn't need to waste paper printing everything out, and could just do everything digitally. But you still had the option to use paper and a fax machine if you really need to.
^: Yes, I know faxes are unencrypted and phone lines can be tapped. But I've always found the idea intriguing. Plus having some emergency point-to-point communication to bootstrap things like key exchange could still be neat.
There was a time when web browsing was crazy slow and expensive, but there were e-mail services that were also crazy slow, but free.
There were mail to web gateways that you could e-mail a URL to, which would then reply with the contents of the web page. You'd then send another URL from that page, and get another reply, and so on. Free slow-motion web browsing.
I say "slow-motion" because this was back when getting a response to an e-mail took hours or days, not seconds. So you were lucky to get through three or four links in a day. But it was free, and we had other things to do than surf the web anyway.
https://lwn.net/Articles/262570/
I wonder if he still is today
It’s push rather than pull like the web. Email works too, but fax has more utility in an emergency situation. Beats having to download adobe acrobat on every computer….
I submitted my deck of cards to a person in the computer center at one of the times the PL/C compiler was scheduled to run (10 AM and 2 PM), I sat and waited, and then my output would be handed to me after it was compiled and run.
(progn . #1=((print 'foo) . #1#))https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5508110/why-is-this-prog...
Why is this program erroneously rejected by three C++ compilers? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798602 - April 2020 (1 comment)
Why is this program erroneously rejected by three C++ compilers? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6504442 - Oct 2013 (1 comment)
Why is this program erroneously rejected by three C++ compilers? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3727717 - March 2012 (7 comments)