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Comment by KellyCriterion | Hacker News Reader

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KellyCriterion·

Why they made it that complex?

A simple rand/mod based on first character of username should be sufficient?

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because you don't know the number of images before running the code so no number to do the mod part

Why wouldn't you know that? It's a set of preloaded stock photos, it's always gonna be the same number.

On initial install, sure. But user accounts can also be created at arbitrary times. The user may have changed the set of photos in the intervening time and might even be editing the directory during profile creation.

I thought the same thing, and then wondered if this must be an enterprise problem, because what home user adds loads of icons - so many that IO becomes a concern - and also wants them to be randomly assigned to other family members?

But then it occurred to me that XP was of an era when you would absolutely spend an afternoon downloading some megapack of 10000 cool user icons.

> As a final safety check, the code stops after sampling 100 pictures. This avoids pathological behavior if somebody puts a million files in the Default Pictures directory

It’s a directory. You could add pictures to it, and we did in our image layout (mainly for fun, but they wanted the logo as one).

At compile time of when the pr department decided to change it?

So users Adam, Anne and Archie all have the same profile image?

OK - then use the first two characters :-D

So Adam, Adele, and Adrian all have the same profile image?

The the thing is:Most Adams/Adeles/Adrians wouldnt even notice

How is that simpler?

because its a built-in one-liner call then?

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