I’m a programmer by trade (and I like to think I’m pretty competent), but self-trained. Algorithms have always been a weakness of mine as a result of a lack of formal training.
While I use XOR for some simple Boolean comparisons out of convenience, the kind of XOR use I see —- especially in crypto libraries has always been very mysterious to me. This article cleared up a lot of that for me.
That being said, I often prefer readability over fancy so I don’t imagine using these tricks regularly but it’s nice to better understand how they work. This article did a great job demistifying this practice.
While I use XOR for some simple Boolean comparisons out of convenience, the kind of XOR use I see —- especially in crypto libraries has always been very mysterious to me. This article cleared up a lot of that for me.
That being said, I often prefer readability over fancy so I don’t imagine using these tricks regularly but it’s nice to better understand how they work. This article did a great job demistifying this practice.