Eli5-What does a “stack overflow” mean?
In: 847
Imagine you’re telling someone a story like my grandmother.
“The other day I went to the super market and you’ll never believe who I saw! I saw Gertrude! She was near the tomatoes. And she…”
Before you can continue, you want to mention a side-story
“… she — well, first I saw the price of the tomatoes. 50 cents each!! I can’t believe how bad the economy is doing. Did you see the price of…”
And once again you get side-railed.
“… of — well, let me just tell you, if your grandfather were still alive he would have had some CHOICE WORDS to say to our politicians, I’ll tell you that!”
… And in the same way you just keep getting sidetracked with the side-stories. Now, in a perfect world, this is how your entire discussion is structured:
a. Start talk about supermarket
-b. Start talk about Gertrude
–c. Start talk about tomatoes
—d. Start talk about economy
—-e. Start talk about politicians
—–f. Start talk about grandfather
—–g. End talk about grandfather
—-h. End talk about politicians
—i. End talk about economy
–j. End talk about tomatoes
-k. End talk about Gertrude
l. End talk about supermarket
Since we are ending stories _in reverse order_ from the order we started them, this is a “Stack” (Last In First Out structure).
Now imagine once you reach the story about the grandfather, you, like my grandmother, lose track of why the FUCK you’re saying any of this, so you’re just like “Your grandfather — he uh — yeah, he was a good guy.”
ALL of the stories get wrecked. You aren’t finishing ANY of them now.
That’s basically the “Overflow” — too many individual stories added (the “stack” of stories is bigger than you can remember the order of, more stories than 1 person could keep track of, and so the entire thing derails).
This is why, if I start telling someone a story and I’m 2-3 stories deep and someone interrupts me and makes me lose my place, I tell them they “stack smashed” me.
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