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A previous version of this article said it was “not clear why WhatsApp settled on the oddly specific number.” A number of readers have since noted that 256 is one of the most important numbers in computing, since it refers to the number of variations that can be represented by eight switches that have two positions - eight bits, or a byte.
Lol, weird way to say that 256 is a power of two, and computers operate in base two.
It’s a pretty succinct explanation that links what it is to something most people have heard of (a byte).
Still odd, I very much doubt they use a 8bit variable to set this limit. What would this bring ?
This isn’t a “tech article”, it’s an article about tech. This is a normie article from a normie news outlet for normie readers.
Also from the article:
A previous version of this article said it was “not clear why WhatsApp settled on the oddly specific number.” A number of readers have since noted that 256 is one of the most important numbers in computing, since it refers to the number of variations that can be represented by eight switches that have two positions - eight bits, or a byte. This has now been changed. Thanks for the tweets. DB
It doesn’t really matter that it’s a “normie article for normie readers”. Writing articles is journalism. Not knowing 256 offhand? Permissible. Being a journalist who wrote an article and didn’t even do the bare bones of research? You’re still a bad journalist, and as callous as it is, you should lose your job and livelihood. Bad journalism is too dangerous to just let it fester like this.
The newspaper he was writing for is a major publication he absolutely could have asked someone.
The problem here is the newspaper didn’t care enough about the article to put anyone on it who is even remotely familiar with technology. They probably thought of it as just some throwaway piece to fill out a bit of space. Which to be fair it would have been had it not been for that comment.
That weird ass explanation with switches and “one of the most important numbers” still sounds absolutely clueless.
I liked the switches analogy! Generally about binary though; I agree it doesn’t connect back to the number of users application.
And yeah most important number…sounds like they were quoting an LLM.
“Quoting” is generous.
That quote really is the problematic part. The part about switches is fine - it’s an attempt to explain tech to a “normie.” But for a tech writer to ever say it’s not clear why they settled on 256 is worse than embarrassing. They had to be corrected by tweets.
Anyone whose ever had an intro to computers class has had a computing professional explain computers using simple language and analogies. That’s the way this kind of thing should work. It sounds like this author has no more clue about computing than the target audience, which isn’t going to work out well for the reader.
It used to be common for uh, writers, journalists, to have at least basic familiarity with what they’re writing or reporting on.
Its not like this is journalistic malpractice, spreading lies, fabricating a quote, supporting a bs narrative by being very selective with context and such…
… but it is pretty embarrassing.
People seem to constantly confuse ‘i use computer technology’ with ‘i understand how computer technology works’.
Like uh, Gen Z and A are the most digital, online generations yet… but many of them can’t type on a keyboard, have no idea what a file/folder structure is.
Numbers guy here, I can confirm 256 is an evenly specific number, and not an oddly specific number.
nerd
Oh you are the numbers guy ? Name every number
I’m going for the boring but practical answer: x and x . Obviously the second set is doing the heavy lifting.
You should know your limits
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
So, I get that 256 is a base 2 number. But we’re not running 8-bit servers or whatever here (and yes, I understand that’s not what 8-bit generally refers to). Is there some kind of technical limitation I’m not thinking of where 257 would be any more difficult to implement, or really is it just that 256 has a special place in someone’s heart because it’s a base 2 number?
Because 256 is exactly one byte. If you want to add a 257th member, you need a whole second byte just for that one person. That’s a waste of memory, unless you want to go to the 64k barrier of users per chat.
Except that they’re almost certainly just using
int, which is almost certainly at least 32 bits.256 is chosen because the people writing the code are programmers. And just like regular people like multiples of 10, programmers like powers of 2. They feel like nice round numbers.
Shout out to Castlevania II, where you can hold anywhere from 0 to 256 laurels. Yes, you read that right – 256, not 255. I inspected RAM to double check. It’s a 16-bit word on an 8-bit system with a maximum value of
0x100. They could have used 8 bits instead of 16. But no, they really did choose this arbitrary number.how can you hold 0 laurels? that’s different from not having laurels?
the number of laurels in your inventory is stored as an integer from 0 to 256.
“I inspected RAM to double check.”
That’s an unhinged level of commitment. Respect — I dig it
Yep very weird, should have been 255.
You know you’re a tech nerd when 256 sounds more even than 250 or 300. 😅
It kind of is “more even”.
256 is just 2⁸
250 is 2x5³
300 is 2²x3¹x5²Any division of 256 with an integer and integer result will be even. Most divisions of 250 and 300 with an integer and integer result will be odd.
256/256 is not even
Disregarding the trivial exceptions… waves hands
Wouldn’t max value for 8 bit (unsigned) integer be 255? Like the number has 256 distinct values, but that includes 0.
Right but having a group chat of size 0 isn’t very useful.
Not to be snarky, in programming there’s rarely (in situations like this) a reason to keep count. Computers are exceptionally good at counting integers so they’d just count individual client id’s (however they’ve implemented that system), not keeping toll on how many clients are in a group chat.
So one client, be it at position zero is a one client group. Add another client at position one and you have two clients and a two person group.
What would 0 represent then?
The first index
And programmers usually start counting at 0.
You’re thinking indexing, 0 is still 0 when counting.
Computers start counting at zero, (unless it’s python) so the first person in the group would be ID 0, the second person would be ID 1
