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cleaning-algorithms

Original: cleaning-algorithms on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Transcript

Panel 1 (top-left, title + code):
MY WIFE'S CLEANING ALGORITHM:

things = get_things_to_clean()
for thing in things
clean(thing)

Panel 2 (top-right):
Woman with glasses and short brown hair, green shirt: SEE, IT'S EASY!
(A man with long red hair and beard, dark shirt, stands beside her looking unimpressed.)

Panel 3 (bottom-left, title + code):
MY CLEANING ALGORITHM:

while True:
try:
clean_something
except NothingToCleanException:
break

Panel 4 (bottom-right):
Woman with glasses (in the background): YOU TAKE FOREVER.
Man with long red hair and beard (foreground, relaxed expression): BUT MY CPU IS SO RELAXED.

smbc-comics.com

Votey:
Any code errors are the fault of Marty Weiner, who failed to not help.

Alt text

A four-panel SMBC comic comparing two cleaning approaches as code. Top-left panel, titled "MY WIFE'S CLEANING ALGORITHM," shows tidy pseudocode: things = get_things_to_clean(); for thing in things: clean(thing). Top-right panel: a woman with glasses, short brown hair, and a green shirt smiles and says "SEE, IT'S EASY!" beside a man with long red hair and a beard who looks unconvinced. Bottom-left panel, titled "MY CLEANING ALGORITHM," shows messier code: while True: try: clean_something except NothingToCleanException: break. Bottom-right panel: the woman in the background says "YOU TAKE FOREVER," while the red-haired man in the foreground replies with a relaxed grin, "BUT MY CPU IS SO RELAXED." The joke contrasts the wife's efficient finite loop against his lazy infinite-loop-until-exception approach. Votey (a single hand-lettered panel): "Any code errors are the fault of Marty Weiner, who failed to not help."

Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.