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47 lines
1.3 KiB
47 lines
1.3 KiB
3 years ago
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title = "Understanding Stacktraces"
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date = 2021-11-29
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draft = true
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["programming", "stack traces"]
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+++
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I've seen some people confused when their application crashes, spewing a bunch
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of lines and they can't figure out what went wrong.
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<!-- more -->
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But let's start with something easier: What are stacktraces?
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## The Turing Machine
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To get what stacktraces are, let's start with the very beginning and talk about
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Turing Machines.
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Alan Turing, father of the computing, thought about having a long tape with
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commands[^1] and a pointer that would move forwards or backwards according to
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the command.
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For example, imagine that you have the following sequence of commands:
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- Take a piece of paper
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- Fold it in half
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- Unfold
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- Move the bottom right corner so it touches the fold mark
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... and so on (no, I'm not describing the whole process of making a paper
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plane). Even if the actions are pretty simple, you can use something to point
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which action you're taking so you know which one is the next one. Something
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like:
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- Take a piece of paper
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- Fold it in half
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- Unfold **<= I'm Here**
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- Move the bottom right corner so it touches the fold mark
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---
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[^1]: Actually, the Turing Machine would compose a group of 0s and 1s to figure
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out a command, but let me simplify things a little bit.
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