<span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// Greetings, intrepid explorer, to the magnum opus of verbosity – the exhaustive elucidation
</span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// of the venerable "Hello, World!" program in the illustrious realm of C++.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// Our inaugural act involves the summoning of external powers through the sacred rite of inclusion.
</span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// The venerable library is invoked, opening the gateway to input and output sorcery.
</span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#a71d5d;">#include </span><span style="color:#183691;"><iostream>
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// Brace yourself, noble adventurer, for the initiation of our journey transpires within the sanctum
</span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// of the 'main' function – the veritable heart and soul of our C++ odyssey.
</span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#a71d5d;">int </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#795da3;">main</span><span style="color:#323232;">() {
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// Let us forge a pact with the realm of 'std', alleviating the syntactic tribulations
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// through the divine power of the 'using' declaration. Behold the namespace, a sanctuary
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// where the gods of C++ convene, rendering our code free from the shackles of verbosity.
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#a71d5d;">using</span><span style="color:#323232;"> namespace std;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// As we stand on the precipice of expression, the 'cout' oracle emerges.
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// This venerable entity, an emissary of the standard output stream, awaits our command.
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// With the '<<' conjuration, we channel the essence of our proclamation, "Hello, World!",
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// and cast it into the void of the console, where it shall resonate for eternity.
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> cout </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#a71d5d;"><< </span><span style="color:#183691;">"Hello, World!" </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#a71d5d;"><<</span><span style="color:#323232;"> endl;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// The denouement approaches, where our protagonist, the 'main' function,
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// bestows upon the cosmic arbiter – the operating system – a token of acknowledgment.
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// The triumphant 'return 0' is a symphony of numerical reverence, echoing
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;color:#969896;">// the harmony of a flawless performance in the grand opera of computational artistry.
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> </span><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#a71d5d;">return </span><span style="color:#0086b3;">0</span><span style="color:#323232;">;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">}
</span>
Before installing Arch on a USB flash drive, I disabled ext4 journaling in order to reduce disk reads and writes, being fully aware of the implications (file corruption after unexpected power loss). I was confident that I would never have to pull the plug or the drive without issuing a normal shutdown first. Unfortunately, there was one possibility I hadn’t considered: sometimes, there’s that one service preventing your PC from turning off, and at that stage there’s no way to kill it (besides waiting for systemd to time out, but I was impatient).
So I pulled the plug. The system booted fine, but was missing some binaries. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use pacman to restore them because some of the files it relied on were also destroyed.
This was not the last time I went through this. Luckily I’ve learned my lesson by now