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TwIP - An IP Stack In a Tweet

Adam Dunkels writes "Inspired by the Twitter-sized program that crashes Mac OS X, I just wrote a really, really rudimentary IP stack called twIP, small enough to fit in a Twitter tweet. Although twIP is very far away from a real IP stack, it can do the first task of any IP stack: respond to pings. The entire source code can be found in this 128-character-long tweet. For those who are interested in low-level network programming, a code walkthrough with instructions on how to run the code under FreeBSD is available here. The FAQ: Q: why? A: for fun."

13 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Article mod: -1 Overrated by Looce · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The underlying system must provide a way for user programs to receive and send IP packets.

    This is where I stopped reading. Just... no. This is just a program that echoes every single thing back to the originator.

    1. Re:Article mod: -1 Overrated by something_wicked_thi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, I've got a program for the author that fits in a tweet:

      #include
      int main() {
          puts("You're a moron and a braggart.");
      }

    2. Re:Article mod: -1 Overrated by BitZtream · · Score: 2, Insightful

      . This is just a program that echoes every single thing back to the originator.

      using the IP stack that already exists on the OS.

      Responding to IP requests using someone elses IP stack does not mean you actually created your own stack.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    3. Re:Article mod: -1 Overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Apparently, slashdot could use a -1, Don't be a dick moderation.

      Just give the story a - and move on.

  2. Relevance check please by flowerp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Shit doesn't smell like roses when it is made to fits into a tweet or is in any other way related to Twitter.

    --
    --- Eat my sig.
  3. At least 3 ways to make it smaller: by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here comes the lameness filter:

    unsigned short s[70];*l=s+6;t;main(){for(;;){read(0,s,140);s[10]&=65280;s[11]+=8;t=l[1];l[1]=*l;*l=t;write(1,s,140);}}

    And with those 9 chars perhaps you could make it better.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  4. Re:Novel, but pointless by parallel_prankster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He is talking about the IP Stack, not the computer science stack structure. Calling it an IP stack is an over-exaggeration. This is a cleverly written (no doubt) program using ICMP knowledge to ping back a response packet. Please dont call that a stack!!

  5. I hope this isn't a new trend. by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hope this isn't a new trend of 7337 |-|@(|0%$ to try to brag of their mad skill by seeing what code can fit in a Tweet.

    The less the code doesn't mean better performance.
    The less code can mean less functionality and error checking.
    The less code does mean less documentation
    The less code could mean harder readability.

    We need less people taking their time and effort making unreadable small code and more effort in making good and useful applications and libraries. Granted such exercises may be useful to allow you to think of problems differently but you can get the same effect by changing languages say from C to LISP. Also these examples seem to take in include headers which accounts for thousands of lines of code, which are often limited to either the OS or even just the Programming language.

    It is like me saying I can make a Web Browser using a shell script with 2 lines.

    #!/bin/bash
    apachectl start

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:I hope this isn't a new trend. by pathological+liar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you converted Apache into a web browser that might actually be worthy of a story...

  6. Very cool by bjourne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Very cool program! Taught me some things about IP. The program could be made one byte shorter by using for(;;) instead of while(1) and it is not strictly necessary to use "unsigned short" instead of "short" afaict. I wonder what other interesting programs that can be written in only 140 bytes.

  7. It's not an IP stack by k2dbk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not an IP stack at all (and requires one to function). It replies to a packet that is assumed to be a ping without any error checking. In other words, it's a very short, clever, but minimally functional ping function. The fact that it's short is nice, but that's about it.

  8. Re:A message to C haters by Idiomatick · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wrote my own compiler/language just now. What it does is it disregards your entire source code and then outputs that mac crashing bug. I fail to see your point...

    I'm a c/c++ fan but just because you can do something in less lines doesn't mean it is better. Maybe if you said that in your language the mac crash ap compiles to 80bytes and requires only 10 operations then i'd be impressed. Buuuut in that case then asm is the greatest language ever.

  9. Re:A message to C haters by FlyingBishop · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please. Emacs can crash a Mac and create an IP stack in one command.