<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: burfle</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=burfle</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2026 18:45:25 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=burfle" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by burfle in "When the Simplest Concurrent Program Goes Against All Intuition"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't think this an unreasonable puzzle for a role that involves problem-solving or security.<p>You can read the code, figure out what primitives you have, translate the problem  into something simple (I like card and board games), then map it back.<p>Problem: two processes each do this ten times:
- read the counter
- do any number of other things in other processes
- write back what you read, plus one.<p>Game: You have two piles of cards. Each card costs 1 move to play, but lets you discard any number of cards from other piles at the same time.<p>Solution: play one red card, discarding everything but one blue card. Play the single remaining blue card, discarding the leftover red cards.<p>Back: process 1 reads, process 2 runs 9 steps, process 1 writes, process 2 reads, process 1 finishes, process 2 writes.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 Jan 2025 17:49:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42749984</link><dc:creator>burfle</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42749984</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42749984</guid></item></channel></rss>