Original artwork, not a still
The caption of xkcd #1425, "Tasks" (2014)
In CS, it can be hard to explain the difference between the easy and the virtually impossible.
— xkcd · 2005
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Every developer has been handed a feature request that sounds like one sentence and is really a research programme. The caption gives them the shorthand for it, and the strip is still the quickest way to explain why one easy-sounding task takes an afternoon and its neighbour takes years.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for xkcdShow the scene
This is the caption under xkcd #1425, "Tasks", by Randall Munroe, published on 24 September 2014. A manager asks a programmer for an app that checks whether a photo was taken in a national park, which she calls an easy lookup of a few hours. He then adds that it should also check whether the photo is of a bird, and she says she will need a research team and five years. The hover text recalls that in the 1960s Marvin Minsky had undergrads spend a summer programming a computer to identify objects through a camera, expecting it to be done by autumn.
Sources (2)
- xkcd JSON feed, comic 1425transcript and alt fields; 2014-09-24Reference checked
- explain xkcd, 1425: TasksExplanation sectionReference checked
Context reviewed
