43FF's Law: You can measure software complexity by the number of nested for-loop... | Hacker News

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01HNNWZ0MV43FF 10 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on: 50th Anniversary of BitBLT

43FF's Law: You can measure software complexity by the number of nested for-loops.

The first for-loop appeared around in 1957 in FORTRAN.

In 1975, Smalltalk having two nested for-loops was a grand breakthrough.

Now in 2025, our most advanced AIs run on for-loops nested 6 or 7 deep. Who knows what the future may hold?

pklausler 10 months ago [–]

Fortran used to have DO loops. It still does, but it used to, too.

Algol's the one with FOR loops.

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