The Whiteboard

user20683

12:58 AM

ahoy

user20683

I see the elections have started

user20683

I have voted, I shall not tell how I voted but I did

tylerrrr07

TELL NOW

I can't vote

I feel like there aren't enough questions that crop up on programmers for me to get good rep. Perhaps I'll have to think of questions instead...

user20683

@tylerrrr07 I will tell you a secret, not how I voted through. use Google.

user20683

A good chunk of my answers come from knowing what and how to Google well

tylerrrr07

1:06 AM

@WorldEngineer I do that! It just seems like every time I check the recent questions pretty much everything is answered.

For example I'm on the "newest" page right now which I think shows 50 newest questions. I think 6 or 7 of those are unanswered all of which are closed except for one

user20683

@tylerrrr07 another secret, answer anyway

user20683

I've done that, gotten points, sometimes huge ones

tylerrrr07

I suppose I could try resurrecting really old posts and hope someone +1s it or that the author is actually around / cares enough to close it

user20683

accepting only nets you 2 points

Yannis Rizos

@tylerrrr07 If you have a good answer, go for it, even if the questions has an accepted answer...

user20683

1:07 AM

upvotes are where the money is

tylerrrr07

I thought I've been getting 15 points for answers on other sites...

user20683

wait, being accepted does that

user20683

sorry

user20683

it's been a long day

Yannis Rizos

You are when your answer is accepted, but OP accepting an answer only gets 2 rep, so there isn't some great incentive for OPs to accept answers.

user20683

1:09 AM

@YannisRizos that's what I meant

tylerrrr07

I don't understand?

Who's accepting the answer if the OP isn't?

Yannis Rizos

@tylerrrr07 If you have a good answer, don't think about anything else

user20683

if you have a bad answer, totally keep it to yourself though :P

Yannis Rizos

@tylerrrr07 The OP accepts, but it doesn't matter. We love good answers, don't waste a second thinking about the OP if you have a good answer... Most rep comes from good and great answers...

And quite recently I gave an answer to a question that had an accepted answer. Result? +7 and OP unaccepted the other answer and accepted mine...

tylerrrr07

@YannisRizos nice...

Yannis Rizos

1:14 AM

@tylerrrr07 +8 actually, got another up vote today...

user20683

Ramen, so bad yet so good

user20683

time to go full Japanese get a Sapporo

user20683

@tylerrrr07 if it makes you feel better, on SO I have like 175 rep

user20683

and Gaming which I know tons about, I've got 650ish

user20683

well I know tons about old/non-mainstream stuff

user20683

1:18 AM

I've have a fairly narrow range of mainstream stuff that I go after

tylerrrr07

I don't feel bad. Don't worry about me! :D

user20683

@tylerrrr07 you're not whiny. I like you already for that reason alone

tylerrrr07

They tell me I'm a pretty likable guy.

user20683

they tell me I'm utterly insane

tylerrrr07

the voices?

user20683

1:22 AM

but I program in Haskell enough to be considered functionally insane

user20683

no, the modems, they whirr and scream and I listen

tylerrrr07

lol

tylerrrr07

1:37 AM

oooo Commentator badge on SO... heh

tylerrrr07

2:10 AM

I can vote down now on SO! Oh the power!

Yannis Rizos

2:23 AM

@tylerrrr07 With great power, comes great responsibility...

tylerrrr07

I don't see myself voting down much unless I'm really bored and off topic discussions are annoying me

user20683

@YannisRizos unless you're using Haskell, then with great power comes great insanity

tylerrrr07

2:38 AM

how do I change my avatar?

user2334

@tylerrrr07 You change it on gravatar.com. SE will use whatever gravatar is attached to your email address there

tylerrrr07

That's what I thought. I guess it just takes a while... or perhaps I should try relogging...

user2334

Just refresh the chat window: it's there

tylerrrr07

oh look at that

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer And just when I was about convinced to give it a try...

tylerrrr07

2:51 AM

Should I be concerned that I got a notification saying I can now set bounties, but the privileges says I'm 94% of the way there and truly only have 71 of the 75 reputation?

user20683

not necessarily

user20683

if you feel weird about it I can find that recalc page

tylerrrr07

don't really care... just making sure I don't need to report it or anything

tylerrrr07

3:06 AM

First question on gamedev... might have to wait until tomorrow for an answer :(

Ubermensch

4:12 AM

@MarkTrapp @YannisRizos 10 users deleted - looks like a conspiracy by the Republicans to get back to power

Yannis Rizos

4:31 AM

@blunders It's broken on Stack Overflow too, so I moved the bug report to Meta Stack Overflow - Amazingly it works on Meta Stack Overflow itself.

user20683

4:46 AM

@MarkTrapp Is there a better place for asking about Comp Architecture jobs than EE.SE? it doesn't seem to be on/off topic explicitly so I told them to ask in chat first

Yannis Rizos

5:10 AM

@WorldEngineer It's a career related question, it's off topic on EE.SE (not listed in what the site's about). I think we can safely assume that career advice is off topic everywhere.

user2334

5:29 AM

@WorldEngineer What's the question?

Yannis Rizos

6:01 AM

@MarkTrapp The one I linked to...

DeadMG

7:59 AM

hi

user20683

3:58 PM

kentnguyen.com/ios/what-does-it-take-to-make-an-ios-app

user20683

This right here is a nice piece of sanity

Michael K

4:14 PM

@WorldEngineer So, in other words, app dev is just like any other development? People only see the front end and assume that's all there is.

user20683

@MichaelK yes and they assume that Apple == magic therefore even more of that impression

Michael K

@WorldEngineer Ha. Naturally an IPhone app "just works." Sometimes I really hate Apple for creating that impression, and other times I think they are a good example of what a finished product looks like.

user20683

4:36 PM

@MichaelK having done iOS work for a class, I can honestly say I'd rather do just about anything else short of M. I'd rather use APL than xCode

user20683

7:07 PM

@YannisRizos thick skulled this lot is

user20683

Tis a pity indeed

user20683

makes me all the more willing to get around to making the "What programming language should I learn?" flowchart

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer Idea for the next "what language I should learn": Answer convincingly that it should be Haskell, and then we all heavily upvote it and make the OP think it's the best language around. That would teach him a lesson... :P

@WorldEngineer Do that and I see it making it into the FAQ...

user20683

It should be Haskell on the grounds that you could conceivably write any other language in Haskell, including Haskell

user20683

remember what I said about great insanity?

user20683

7:16 PM

willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html

user20683

my favorite page to use

user20683

@YannisRizos someone just posted another one

user20683

I may have to do the Haskell thing

user2334

@WorldEngineer Step 1: Lisp. Step 2: There is no Step 2.

user20683

@MarkTrapp I like static languages by force of education

user20683

7:22 PM

but yeah lisp is fun too

user20683

plus I'm looking at .Net and wanting in and Java+Haskell=C#+F#

user20683

very approximately

user20683

@MarkTrapp what languages do you actually work with anyway?

user20683

Lisp or something less fun?

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer I know, and it's his second one "what language I should learn next" question today...

-2

Q: c, c++ or java?

If I have to choose between those three impossible to learn languages (for me) what is the easiest? and if there is an easier one and also as powerful and has nice and easy-to-understand documentation what would this language be?

user2334

7:26 PM

@WorldEngineer These days it's PHP and Objective-C, mostly. Know C/C++/Pascal/Lisp from my high school and college days

user20683

You should learn Haskell. If you learn Haskell then with enough practice you can write the entire Java, C or C++ language and run them. Haskell has lists that go to infinity (and possibly beyond, it will know whether they do later) but they are usable. You can define your own types to do virtually anything you want and there are so many ways to actually program in it you can actually do just about anything any way you want.

user20683

I shouldn't post this

user20683

and I'm not going to

user20683

mod candidates should be responsible people

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer Well that's why I suggested Haskell. My original thought was Whitespace... :P

user2334

7:31 PM

@WorldEngineer Don't generally see the benefit of learning a language that'll have zero real-world usage: I don't work with people who use Haskell, and I'm not really looking for a new job. Maybe if I had more free time and Skyrim didn't exist.

user20683

@MarkTrapp I just like it for some reason. I'm learning Python and soon C# for the employed in real world reason

user2334

Now Python is something I keep meaning to get into. Python code is ugly as sin though, so that makes me less than enthused.

user20683

@MarkTrapp yeah, I thought it was pretty clean until I actually looked at some real programs

Michael K

8:50 PM

@YannisRizos One of my teachers forced us to do a small project in Whitespace in school. It was fun...mostly.

Stack Exchange

9:14 PM

Stack Overflow Blog: The Trouble With Popularity

Posted by Jeff Atwood on January 31st, 2012

Way back in 2008, we had Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the founders and co-creators of Reddit, on the Stack Overflow podcast. We chatted about a bunch of stuff, but one of the things they said that always stuck with me was that Reddit always took an explicitly hands-off, no moderation approach to their content from the very beginning.

I found that a bit shocking, since I’ve… never seen that work. Certainly on Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange we are very much pro-moderation — and more so with every passing year. We have literally hundreds of community moderators. We spend …

user20683

Well that blog is ridiculously well timed

user2334

Indeed :P

user20683

@MarkTrapp I toyed with the idea of some day doing Objective C for .Net just for the blasphemy of it

user2334

@WorldEngineer Objective-C is interesting, but that's a lot of work for the novelty of it all: too many weird changes to terminology to use it as a drop-in replacement for a general-purpose, non Mac-based project

user2334

Like seriously, what was wrong with the class metaphor? Implementation? Pshaw

user20683

9:26 PM

@MarkTrapp I used it for my embedded systems class

user20683

I will never develop for iOS again if I can possibly avoid it

user20683

@MarkTrapp incidentally what are your areas of interest in philosophy? you said you majored in that.

user2334

@WorldEngineer My concentrations were philosophy of language and the concept of friendship

user20683

@MarkTrapp I do love me some Nicholas Ostler

user2334

9:54 PM

@WorldEngineer Ah, haven't read him: I take it he's the bee's knees?

user20683

@MarkTrapp he's a chomsky advised professor of linguistics

user20683

writes on the history of language

user2334

Ah

user2334

My main focus was rigid designators; Kripke, Putnam, etc.

Yannis Rizos

11:24 PM

@MarkTrapp Where is the fun we were promised?

user2334

It's coming, don't you worry

psr

@YannisRizos We were promised fun?

Yannis Rizos

in Programmers Town Hall Chat, 17 mins ago, by Mark Trapp

If you guys are having fun here, I would be remiss not to tell you about the Programmers chat room, where the fun never ends! Void where prohibited. Offer not valid in Tennessee.

Andrew

@YannisRizos The fun can't end if it doesn't start.

psr

@YannisRizos - Oh, right. I thought there might be cupcakes.

Yannis Rizos

11:33 PM

Let's see how many off topic questions made it through while moderators and candidates where focused on the town hall chat... :P

0

Q: What's the best way to setup the distance and height of a triple monitor system

I am fortunate that my employer provides a triple monitor setup. However, I'm wondering if the greater degree of head turning and the closeness of the monitors is leading to some postural pain. Is there any advice or guidelines, specifically for triple monitors which might be of use?

ergonomics

there it is....

user20683

@YannisRizos At least he can spell and use big words

user20683

Always nice to be able read the post

Robert Harvey

11:47 PM

@YannisRizos Hmm... Well I don't think Programmers has to worry about the new mods being too lax.

Three close votes by three mod candidates. :o

user20683

@RobertHarvey it's clear cut cases like these that simply outside scope. It's a good question in my book

user20683

aside from being in the wrong place

Robert Harvey

Belongs on Ergonomics.SE

Yannis Rizos

@RobertHarvey :P That's what we do! ... And I have a tab open on this MSO question in case anyone suggests it would be a good fit for Programmers...

Robert Harvey

@YannisRizos I've seen much worse questions on SO... How is it that particular question gets a meta post before it's even closed? :/

Yannis Rizos

11:53 PM

@RobertHarvey Well I have seen way worse too... It just caught my attention because it's the latest MSO question, and I have no idea how it made it on MSO, the question is only 3 hours old... Maybe some chat whining?

Robert Harvey

Off-topic or not, it's going to gather enough close votes now, because it's been called out on Meta.

Full disclosure: I'm a mod on SO.

Yannis Rizos

@RobertHarvey I know...

Robert Harvey

Aaand... Closed.

Nice knowin' ya Ramin.

Yannis Rizos

@RobertHarvey Full disclosure: I've suggested revenge crap migration more than once

Robert Harvey

@YannisRizos Sometimes other chat rooms don't receive us well.