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Source.

This isn't a "tech article", it's an article about tech. This is a normie article from a normie news outlet for normie readers.

Also from the article:

A previous version of this article said it was "not clear why WhatsApp settled on the oddly specific number." A number of readers have since noted that 256 is one of the most important numbers in computing, since it refers to the number of variations that can be represented by eight switches that have two positions - eight bits, or a byte. This has now been changed. Thanks for the tweets. DB

Numbers guy here, I can confirm 256 is an evenly specific number, and not an oddly specific number.

If it's engagement bait, it's working.

You know you're a tech nerd when 256 sounds more even than 250 or 300. 😅

A previous version of this article said it was "not clear why WhatsApp settled on the oddly specific number." A number of readers have since noted that 256 is one of the most important numbers in computing, since it refers to the number of variations that can be represented by eight switches that have two positions - eight bits, or a byte.

Lol, weird way to say that 256 is a power of two, and computers operate in base two.

In this case the limit was entirely arbitrary.

The programmers were told to pick a limit and they liked 256. There are issues with having a large number of people in a group, but it wasn't a hardware limit for this particular case.

So, I get that 256 is a base 2 number. But we're not running 8-bit servers or whatever here (and yes, I understand that's not what 8-bit generally refers to). Is there some kind of technical limitation I'm not thinking of where 257 would be any more difficult to implement, or really is it just that 256 has a special place in someone's heart because it's a base 2 number?

ITT: People who have never done low level networking.

Edit: Without some absolutely crazy hacks, the smallest amount of data you can really transfer or compute on is one byte. 256 requires one byte, 257 requires you to DOUBLE the data used to 2 bytes. Multiply this by whatever data they send and the problem remains the same.

This is the kind of thing that comes up a lot designing custom protocols.

I remember being puzzled by this and many other numbers that kept cropping up. 32, 64, 128, 256, 1024, 2048... Why do programmers and electronic engineers hate round numbers? The other set of numbers that was mysterious was timber and sheet materials. They cut them to 1220 x 2440mm and thicknesses of 18 and 25mm. Are programmers and the timber merchants part of some diabolical conspiracy?

Still odd, I very much doubt they use a 8bit variable to set this limit. What would this bring ?

Because 257's a crowd

Wouldn't max value for 8 bit (unsigned) integer be 255? Like the number has 256 distinct values, but that includes 0.

That's a super old article as well.

They got rightfully roasted in the comments for not knowing even the most basic things about computing.