I am weak and friendly

Chapter 248 Why is the "useless" robo so popular? (3K)
When Tang Yiping woke up, it was already afternoon.

The entire 41st floor was bustling with activity once again.

Data mining of interconnected touchpoints continues, and a group of young people are busy at their respective workstations.

Aside from a few people who don't look like programmers at all, Zhongdeng was drinking tea and reading newspapers not far away. Perhaps some people would think that this is some kind of internet company.

Tang Yiping was a little dazed.

It seems like ever since I started my summer internship, I've gotten used to waking up and finding myself in the company.
"Pingzi, have something to eat." Seeing Tang Yiping, Shen Hong pointed to the boxed lunch not far from him, "I saved this for you."

"Where are the others?" Tang Yiping asked.

"This morning, the young men found some locations related to Touchpoint Connect in the data, such as warehouses, offices, and sites, and they went to investigate," Shen Hong said. After he finished speaking, he changed his posture and continued reading the newspaper on the sofa.

It seems that more information about Touchpoint Connectivity is still emerging.

Tang Yiping glanced back at the [Original Dust Mother Tree].

He always had a strong feeling that, just as the 41st floor was only the tip of the iceberg, the headquarters of Touchpoint Interconnect seemed to be only the tip of the iceberg as well.

The motivations behind Touchpoint Connect's founding, its founders, investors, and its relationship with "negative entropy monitoring" are all still unknown.

Building our own negative entropy monitoring network is still a long and arduous task.

When he turned around again, Shen Hong had already switched to crossing one leg over the other.

Looking at Shen Hong, who had gray hair and dressed like a middle-aged or elderly cadre, Tang Yiping inexplicably felt that this guy didn't seem like a cunning old man from a special department at all. Instead, he seemed more like a gatekeeper who always stayed behind in a mysterious organization in a novel.

If an enemy suddenly attacks, will he tear off his clothes to reveal his strongest fighting power?
Thinking this, Tang Yiping rubbed the sleep from the corner of his eye, yawned, and went to wash up.

After washing up, Tang Yiping took his lunchbox to his laptop, turned on the mouse, and then...

Tang Yiping: "???"

He rubbed his eyes, and rubbed them again.

I rubbed out a clump of eye boogers that I hadn't washed off properly when I washed my face.

Then I looked at the screen again and felt...

Doesn't this seem a little off?
Last night, he open-sourced a piece of software called ROBO-FU, and then went to sleep.

And now, Tang Yiping saw the following clearly displayed on it:

ROBO-FU: 760 stars, 80 watching, 180 forks
Tang Yiping: ? ? ?

Tang Yiping was a little confused. What was going on?
Compared to Tang Yiping's previous open-source projects, this project is really useless.

Its function is very simple. When you open it, there is a window with several light dots representing small robots acting according to their respective set logic.

Left-click to place a small robot, left-click and drag to draw an obstacle, right-click to drop a task object, right-click and hold to display the number "1", continue holding and the number will scroll and increase, which means you can drop many task objects.

If it's an obstacle, the little robot will try to find a route around it; if it's a task object, the little robot will move it.

It's such a simple little program that it doesn't seem very useful.

If it has any advantages, it's that it's very smooth.

After all, Tang Yiping used Rust as the development language, which is incredibly efficient. The joke about Rust developers losing their jobs immediately after completing a project is widely circulated. Even with a flurry of random clicking and adding hundreds or thousands of small robots, it wouldn't consume too many resources; Tang Yiping's old laptop could handle it.

He also used an open-source 2D graphics library called "ggez" (good game easy), which is a very lightweight and simple 2D open-source game graphics library that doesn't consume any resources for rendering.

But being lightweight and simple also means... the aesthetics are just so-so, not very attractive.

Tang Yiping never imagined that such a useless project would gain over seven hundred stars overnight!
Looking at the exaggerated, almost right-angled growth curve of the star indicator, Tang Yiping was speechless.

Compared to this, my own Foew and OIFU growth curves are utterly weak, okay?
Why do these people like this? Are they crazy?
As Tang Yiping was thinking this, his gaze suddenly drifted away.

19 PRs!

No, what kind of code do you all want to submit to me?
Even OIFU wasn't this enthusiastic!
Do you want me to die?
What's the matter?

"Awoo awoo awoo..." Tang Yiping was just about to go see what was going on when he heard Stoka whimpering pitifully behind him.

Tang Yiping glanced at the number of PageRanks displayed on his laptop, then looked at Stoka, and sighed, "Go on, go on!"

As he spoke, he handed over the notebook. Stokka's tail wagged like a windmill, and he hid behind the Mother Tree of the Dust of Silence, clutching the notebook in his mouth.

"Take it easy! You're only allowed to fix bugs, not to talk nonsense!" Tang Yiping shouted.

Stoka didn't even have time to wag his tail; he was almost suffocating last night.

That's how it is with cattle and horses; if you don't let them work, they'll still be dissatisfied.

Tang Yiping then randomly picked a computer and logged into his L-site forum account.

At first glance, I didn't see the words "ROBO-FU".

He was initially relieved, but then felt puzzled.

With so many stars, it's impossible for no one to be discussing it.

Moreover, even my own abstract live stream last night didn't get much discussion.

The screen is filled with discussions about "radishes".

"Brothers, you guys all put a few little radishes inside the radish, didn't you?"

"Why are radishes so stress-relieving? I didn't want to do anything all morning, I just looked at this."

"My boss is urging me to speed up my work, and now he's started playing with carrots."

"What's so magical about carrots? I'm due tonight, and I'm still playing with carrots!"

"I submitted a PR to turn the carrot into a screensaver, hoping it can be merged in! I want to be able to see my carrot 24 hours a day!"

"I know why I feel happy and relieved; it's like watching ants on a cyberpunk screen!"

Tang Yiping sensed something was wrong.

Wait, could this radish be the same as that ROBO?

He opened a few posts and found that it was indeed true!
Overnight, my ROBO-FU already has a nickname?

And the feedback was surprisingly positive.

How could such a useless program be so popular? Tang Yiping is a developer.

But what does he know about radishes?
He simply downloaded it himself on his new computer and opened it.

Then Tang Yiping realized that he had forgotten to clear the test data and had also forgotten to set up a function such as a reset. After the program was opened, there were already several small robots.

These were the same small robots I had used for testing before.

The program started working on its own as soon as I opened it.

Then you don't have to do anything else, just watch them wander around.

I watched it for a while and found it quite fun, but it was ultimately boring.

Tang Yiping clicked the left mouse button a few more times, adding a few small robots, and then randomly drew an obstacle with an irregular shape.

I added a few more "task objects" by right-clicking.

Then he watched as these little robots navigated around the obstacles.

"Tsk, these little things are really worrying."

They kept hitting walls. What was just a flat obstacle to someone from God's perspective was a huge obstacle to them. They couldn't see very far and could only keep trying.

After a very long time, the little robot finally found a path around the obstacles, located the objects it was tasked with, and moved them away.

He found that this thing did seem to be quite stress-relieving.

He also somewhat understood why netizens said it looked like a cybernetic field observing ants.

The task object is food, and the little robots are ants; they were originally just moving randomly.

After thinking for a while, I drew a new obstacle and then added a few more small robots.

The map, which had been figured out, suddenly changed again, and they could only continue to search for a path. The extra robots would also collide and interfere with each other.

Moreover, Tang Yiping did not give them overly complex intelligence. They would have to bump into obstacles many times before finding the correct route, and they might not even remember it. They might still bump into obstacles next time. If the obstacles were too complex, the little robots might get stuck inside for a long time.

Their probing behavior has made the entire system almost unpredictable.

Tang Yiping had only set a few very simple parameters, but he never expected that it would produce such a complex effect.

Then, before you know it, a long time has passed.

When he finally realized what had happened, an hour had passed.

I don't know why, but it has such a magical power.

Perhaps it's because it can't do anything.

Every program in this world seems to have various functions. Downloading them to your computer seems to be for some kind of "purpose" or with some kind of "task," but this program does not.

It's not even a screensaver; screensavers have a task: to make the desktop look better.

It seems to be something only for looking at, something only for placing.

You can do whatever you want with it, or you can do nothing with it.

Tang Yiping felt...

Sigh, humans are so abstract!

Why would I like this kind of thing?

With that in mind, he drew a new obstacle on the screen.

I'll only play it once, just to see what they do.

Tang Yiping thought.

……

While Tang Yiping was having a great time playing with radishes, Gao Ming and the others had already arrived in a small alley.

This is a somewhat desolate alley, with half of the shops closed and the other half having dilapidated signs.

Gao Ming sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window.

I found a lot of information about Touchpoint Interconnect in the materials.

There should be a Touchpoint Interconnect warehouse here.

According to the information, this warehouse occupies a large area and stores tens or even hundreds of tons of various materials.

Its entrance should be located between "Shunxin Life Supermarket" and "Lao Liu's Soup Dumplings".

but.

"Everyone, spread out and search for any suspicious clues. Ask around among the people nearby," he ordered his companions.

"Yes!"

A group of young men got off the bus.

They began entering nearby shops and residences, searching and inquiring one by one...

Gao Ming placed a drone next to the car.

The drone takes off and looks down.

The slowly zooming-out shot outlines the contours of the alleyway.

He discovered that the alley, which appeared to be straight from the outside, was actually curved.

In the overhead view, his subordinates are seen moving in and out of the alleyways.

However, no matter what, the task object that should exist could not be found.

He raised his head and looked at the sky.

The drone hovered silently in the sky, looking down at the ground.

(End of this chapter)