The Whiteboard - 2013-10-10 (page 1 of 3)

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12:20 AM

@MichaelT (25-6)*50+((75*3)/100)=952.25 So close.

user55340

@psr fractional parts aren't allowed in that game.

((25-6)*50)+3=953. As close as possible, then, without hitting it. Which I can't see how to do.

Does everyone routinely start by factoring the target number?

user55340

The solution in the video was (((100 + 6) * 3 * 75) - 50)/25

user55340

There was some great amounts of confusion when he did the *75 to get 23850

Nice. Does he have to multiply it out before dividing by 25? Sort of pointless.

user55340

12:29 AM

Well, he's describing it to the Vanna equivalent. Who is writing it on the whitepad at under the numbers.

user55340

And she and the host are indeed having a "what? are you sure you're right? these are some large numbers you're tossing around" look on their faces.

@MichaelT A programming equivalent would be awesome - do code golf but you have to get Vanna to write it on a white board.

user55340

Btw, did you glance at those japanese ones?

I don't run video here if I can avoid it.

user55340

Ahh... well.. when you're at a place you can.

user55340

12:32 AM

That last one made me really wonder about their sanity.

user55340

SE related... if you haven't, could you put a non-migration vote on

user55340

-2

Q: I need to create a program that can average 10 random numbers in VB.NET I have a idea on what I need to do but dont know where to start

I know that I have to get the computer to read all the numbers, then add all numbers and divide by 10. I have no idea how to put that in code. I tried multiple ways too. My programming teacher doesn't give me answers either. so I would appreciate the help. ~Erika

user55340

So that it doesn't get migrated?

user55340

@psr thank you. There was one custom off topic, which while correct could have been better (unclear). Two unclears (mine and Glen's apparently) and then a migration one... if the 5th person voted migration, the tie breaker is the last one to vote... which would have been a poor experience for the questioner.

Maybe a good canned response to "I don't know where to start" would be helpful (in Meta or something, to cut and paste)? A nice way of saying "Although everyone has some trouble figuring out where to start when they are learning how to program, providing a useful response would require a lengthy interactive dialog that is outside the scope of a question and answer site like this one."

1:17 AM

Sometimes being a software engineer is pretty awesome. For instance when you have a computer that goes into a funked up state and all the tutorials to fix it you can find are by folks not as capable as you, so you stumble through arcane documentation made for developers etc to find a far simpler more effective solution than is available in any Toms Hardware or other such instructionals.

user55340

Start with writing a very simple thing - write a program that reads one number (however the assignment is specified) and prints it out. Then modify it to read two numbers, add them and print them out. At this point, you should be able to extend it to do the entire assignment. Breaking down a problem into simpler parts that are solvable step by step (one doesn't just write a large piece of software all at once) is key to being able to solve later problems. This is known as functional decomposition. — MichaelT 49 mins ago

user55340

@psr it was hidden under the fold.

@MichaelT I thought functional decomposition was when you modelled a maggot colony in Haskell or Erlang...

user55340

2:01 AM

Whee! Good answers on a migration to Security.SE

user55340

2

Q: Is iPhone's fingerprint signature a one-way hash?

I've been considering the security of the iPhone 5S fingerprint feature. My main concern is, not that someone could replicate my fingerprint in the physical world and bypass the phone, however that someone could reconstruct my fingerprint based on the digital signature that is stored in the phone...

iphone biometrics fingerprint

4:39 AM

This is a curious thought:
> but its case is also covered with a lot of accurate copies of the same fingerprints, simply because you hold the phone with your hands. If someone steals your phone, then he can have your fingerprints without even bothering to power up the phone.

I can't recall where, but I saw an article discussing how the fingerprint is the"username, not the password.

yeah. i thought that was a good byteline

4 hours later…

8:14 AM

@Bob What i find interesting is that its far too easy to get cuts, or scrapes or scars or burns on your finger tips, wonder how long it will be before someone can't unlock their own phone because of it

5 hours later…

1:44 PM

@MichaelT I hate all the media for this because it just shows how backwards people are regarding apple: My wife had a phone with a finger print reader over 2 years ago, big bloody deal, these things have been all over laptops for years. Oh but apple invented it in 2013 with a stunning move creating a technology nobody had ever thought of before again!

readers note: Turns out they're more than worthless on a phone because no one anywhere ever has patience enough inbetween grabbing there phone and wanting to do something on it to swipe some doodad for your finger print to be analyzed when you can just push a button and start doing stuff, but apple has one so I must be mistaken and they are actually really really useful...

1:58 PM

...uggghhh... Up too early yesterday meant passed out in the afternoon meant was up 'till 2am means this morning is the worst thing ever...

user55340

@JimmyHoffa The finger print reader is neat and convenient (and more importantly, a way of easily putting a trivial security system on the phone to discourage the trivial criminals - many people didin't lock their phones at all and thus enabled thieves... with the finger print it discourages crime because the passcode isn't a extra work for the owner anymore)... but if you dig into it more, it becomes really neat.

@MichaelT Seriously, my wife had one for 2 years, worked flawlessly, had it on for maybe the first week before deciding it just wasn't worth the annoyance

user55340

user image

user55340

Its not just a finger print scanner - its also a NFC system.

user55340

The finger print scanner matrix and the surrounding ring can be used for near field communication.

2:05 PM

NFC is all well and good I'm just saying, all the hype and hubbub about the finger print reader annoys me because the hype exists only because it's apple which makes people as a whole look stupid, the hype didn't exist for the atrix so the hype has nothing to do with the actual tech, it just has to do with the blatant fanboyism. Ok so that's not surprising and it's already well known, still annoying though.

user55340

(I really can't imagine I've gotten 21 rep for knowing the Navigable Map interface in java)

@MichaelT One of the "holy crap, people really don't know that?" questions to scare yourself with next time you interview someone: Ask them to describe how a hashtable works.

user55340

Whats the max int in... oh, I know that, 92...

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I had to implement a hash table (from scratch) twice back in college for different classes - data structures and then again in compilers.

user55340

Being a perl + java guy, the hash function and data structure is fairly close to the thought process for many things.

user55340

2:15 PM

You want to make a custom type in Java and stick it in a Map or Set? Well, you likely need to implement the HashCode() method to avoid breaking things.

@MichaelT I know, all the more reason you'd be surprised how often people just think hashtable is a synonym for an associative array

You're well aware how far you can get in creating software and this industry in general without ever even bumping into a situation where knowledge of a data structure is relevant (or knowing you are anyway), for instance: The entire community of people known as PHP developers

user55340

(Topic switch) - did you glance at those gameshows I linked above?

I read what you guys were saying and got a general idea that they were numbers games

user55340

Well, I linked 4 japanese ones for a contrast of cultures.

If it's all like your 1989 example that's pretty cool, strikes me as TSP

user55340

2:21 PM

15 hours ago, by MichaelT

Japanese ones... well...

Well, not TSP I guess, just pathfinding. Dijkstra's algorithm would probably work great on your 1989 problem

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Could do some pruning on, though not sure how useful it would be.

user55340

Actually, a fair bit of pruning - it doesn't allow for non-integer division.

user55340

You aren't allowed to do (8/3)*6 as such - the 8/3 isn't an integer. So that cuts out an entire section of the solution graph space.

@MichaelT I don't want to generalize but something I've heard said of Japanese culture regarding software / technology is that their culture drives for competence and certainty above all else and so due to quashing uncertainty/risk they have difficulty with creativity and their software folks innovate very little because of it. If that's so I wonder how it would play out in such numbers games. Note: I do not believe this or know anything about the japanese

user55340

2:25 PM

@JimmyHoffa I've herd similar statements.

user55340

I'd have to dig into it - it was a post I read... 4 years ago or so, and I don't remember how old it was then.

@MichaelT On the Ellen Show she has this and makes people compete in it (my wife's a fan)

15 hours ago, by MichaelT

pretty funny show

user55340

I bet she doesn't watch the first or fourth one.

I think Ellen is where I've seen that before...

user55340

(same show, different contents within it)

2:27 PM

Either way I've seen that on american TV

user55340

There was an attempt at it on american TV for a season or so.

I think ellen does it

shit 10 crazy americans, I'm not sure I like crazy americans increasing at a rate significantly faster than naked coders, I'm not certain I like either but I believe I like crazy americans less..

@MichaelT It's a DAG where each node just alternates: number nodes have operator children, operator nodes have number children, I'm not certain the rules of your particular game? Did it have repeat numbers or operators allowed? Were the numbers ordered or unordered? Were endless repetitions allowed?

if repeat numbers then each operator node has the same set of children regardless of depth, and each number node had the same set of children regardless of depth, this would be a pretty expansive DAG, you really would want to do some pruning or maybe structure a different graph at that point

Dijkstra's algorithm could become a mess in something that expansive

Suppose you could keep track of visited aggregate values and just prune them as you go and that might solve for the expansion with Dijkstra's there

user55340

2:47 PM

I'm thinking a tree. starting node has 6 children (the 6 tiles). Each of those nodes has 4 children, and each of those have 5 children... and 4 children. If you have a non-integer result, that branch can be pruned. Also, run down the '*****' path to see if its possible to get close at all. If ***** is less than target, just say you can't do it and you're done.

user55340

One can also merge branches so that you don't need to do 1 + 2 and 2 + 1.

user55340

If they use the same numbers and result in the same value, all but one branch can be pruned.

@MichaelT That's the pruning I mention: You visit 2 + 1 and have a value of 3, from then on you avoid visiting any node that would result in a value of 3

or rather I guess that's merging because you want to explore the one 3 value

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Not quite... because 1 + 2 --> 3, but you've also got 6/2 --> 3. These are different because one leaves you with a 6 free the other with a 1 free.

@MichaelT Ahh so you can't have repeat numbers

That's what I was curious about

user55340

2:49 PM

Also 4/2 and 4-2 both merge.

user55340

Granted, thats a rather pointless one, because you could just use the 2 as is, and leave the 4.

then yeah pruning heuristically for commutative operations makes sense (division and subtraction are not commutative), but without repeat numbers the expansion of the DAG would put no stress on Dijkstra's even without pruning

@JimmyHoffa Being in Japan for the past decade, your comment makes me chuckle. (@enderland sent me)

user55340

Worst case, you've got 737280 possible expansions (if I did the math right)

@jmac Do share? I am curious, I've heard that sentiment a hand full of times but knowing zero about Japan I can't take it with any meaning

2:52 PM

Small companies are innovative (there are plenty of individuals doing fun stuff). Corporations are monolithic piles of incompetence with a solid revenue base of some form.

@jmac So it's exactly like the rest of the world.

But it's certainly not some mythical cultural aversion to ris

risk even.

@JimmyHoffa Bingo!

(but with cooler hardware)

@JimmyHoffa Errrr, no. The company I joined (large multi-national Japanese firm anyone has heard of) gave me a 5 year old computer when I joined.

user55340

On one hand, you've got Toyota with its "any worker can stop the assembly line"

2:53 PM

@JimmyHoffa It was running with 1 GB of RAM, and yet running software on boot-up requiring 1.3 GB. There were no plans for replacements for 2 years.

I am so tired right now.

@MichaelT That is a whole load of hooey too. I mean, yes, any worker probably can stop the assembly line. But in the meantime, the office workers are intentionally covering up mistakes because that is better for their promotion track.

user55340

@jmac thats the flip side of it.

Anyway, the general point here is that the country of Japan is given this mythical hip tech vibe.

It doesn't have a hip tech vibe. At all. At least not on any national scale.

user55340

Educational system is a bit odd too (my brother's wife (japanese) is having difficulty with this concept going back to school in the US). In Japan, if you get into a good college, you're good and its easy. Thats it.

2:55 PM

@JimmyHoffa sad but true. hahahhahaha.

You see the toilets and whatnot, and think, "Boy, they must be advanced!" while ignoring the slew of really backwards stuff there too.

user55340

@jmac Well, thats toilets in one place... the next one you squat.

I read this book recently which was fascinating

amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745/…

@jmac Weird the things you hear, perhaps the myths were more true in the 90s? It seems you always hear this stuff about them being so far ahead of everywhere else said by folks who were there during the 90s...

talking about how broken companies get as they get larger

2:56 PM

@MichaelT That one is (sort of) true. If you graduate from a top university, you can get a job at a big company, and so long as you are content to not question authority and do as you are told for the next 20 years ("hurry up and wait!"), you will never be wanting for a job.

@jmac this is true in the US too though

@jmac You just have to show up early and leave late every single day forever?

@MichaelT At the same time, lifetime employment is not the same now as it was in the 80's. There are far fewer new hires at companies, meaning there are fewer slots compared to the number of graduates.

@enderland Not to the same extent. Employees cannot, bar gross negligence, fraud, or willful misconduct (and probably even then) get fired.

user55340

As I understand it, its very hard now to find white collar entry level positions.

In my department of 400, there are a dozen people who have ever worked at any other company.

This is not abnormal in Japan.

2:58 PM

that it is as high as a dozen?

@enderland As an undegreed person I've found it much easier getting jobs at big company's than small ones because the big company's don't care about quality and therefore screen less. (Of course this varies, Google and Microsoft obviously do not follow this)

@JimmyHoffa In the late 70's, early 80's, Japanese manufacturing prowess and a favorable exchange rate made every Japanese company rich

Which is backwards from what everyone expects, everyone thinks big stable company's require degrees and small joints will hire anyone

user55340

@enderland I would contend that the classes at any university of a worthy name are difficult. Getting in is one challenge... and an MIT dropout can get further than a community college dropout on average.

@JimmyHoffa I guess it depends. I think lots of HR tends to basically do stuff which removes people like you (though you have work experience now which is probably easier)

2:59 PM

@JimmyHoffa The employees were paid $10,000 in cash as bonuses, that sort of thing.

@JimmyHoffa So you heard of how awesome Japan was, and how they had their stuff together, while nobody was able to realize that the value was being provided not by the incompetent office staff, but by the brilliant engineers in design and manufacturing

@JimmyHoffa Now the people who were selling the cheapest best quality product in the world are managing these companies. A monkey could sell these products back then (were they to have the ability to bring an estimate)

user55340

The prestige of american universities tends to be based on the quality of graduates - not difficulty of entry requirements.

@JimmyHoffa These managers believe in things like, "Golly gee, if you just made useless powerpoints, you would sell like I did when I was your age!" ignoring that the yen was 300 per USD then, and 100 now. Ignoring that the cost of the workforce has tripled while value produced per employee has not. And so forth.

@MichaelT Being a Japanese サラリーマン (salaryman) is all about 我慢 (endurance). So people who can cram for entrance exams and ace them end up getting hired because they can endure the 40 year grind which is their 'career'

@jmac Very interesting perspective. Stands up to show that strange fact about reality: So much is lost between generations and classes and other boundaries that can hardly be understood until you spend 10 years screwing things up

A new Japanese hire in Japan in my company will have to write a thesis his first year about something involving his work.

He is also forced to spend 2-3 weeks working in the factory (these are creative workers, sales, marketing, design engineers, HR, etc.)

After 3 years at one position (which they were assigned to not on the basis of their education, no distinction beyond engineer/non-engineer), they will be transferred to another department.

@jmac I guess MBAs in Japan as in America all lack the foresight to understand they don't actually generate value, it's the skilled producers that do, MBAs just monetize. But because they get all the money they convince themselves that they generated the value

3:04 PM

@jmac I actually agree with this

To give a good example of this, a new foreign employee in my company was assigned to domestic procurement. This employee did not speak Japanese.

user55340

@jmac for all its failings, my previous employer had all of IT go out to the retail store and work in it for a week as the 3rd or 4th week as a newhire. It was quite interesting to see how people were going to be using our software and tools and such.

After 3 years, we have had people move from one business division to another, from sales to education, from sales to HR, from accounting to sales, from accounting to marketing, etc.

They cannot choose to stay.

@JimmyHoffa Nobody has an MBA in Japan. Really. Nobody.

user55340

I worked in electrical, plumbing, millwork, hardware, yard, front end, inventory control, paint (wall coverings) and flooring...

@jmac I don't mean the degree, it's a generic term: Means person with a job in an office who thinks about the company's interests but doesn't actually do anything.

3:05 PM

@JimmyHoffa Graduate students are few and far between (they are generally technically-based studying in some research lab somewhere). The few who do get an MBA either studied overseas, or got the degree when they were 45 on the company's dime.

@enderland If done intelligently, sure. But it isn't done intelligently. It is done because it has always been done (and used to be done intelligently).

@MichaelT Yes, this is awesome stuff, and definitely should be encouraged, but knowing how to make a spacely sprocket does not make you any better at negotiating with a supplier of the raw material.

@jmac You're not doing a great job of selling them as being just as non-risk-averse as the rest of the world

@MichaelT Any sort of 'hands on' experience should have direct relevance to getting better at your job or better understanding the work you are doing. My previous company had all new hires work answering customer service calls for a year. That makes a lot more sense, because you actually hear customer complaints and see what makes the business money.

user55340

Ahh! found that blog post... kotaku.com/5484581/japan-its-not-funny-anymore

@MichaelT And this is all great experience. If you are developing employees though, you should encourage them to get good at something, not relearn their job every 3 years.

user55340

@jmac When I mentioned what I was doing to the hotel I was staying at the front desk there thought it was a good idea too - have corporate people work front desk, have front desk people stay in a room for a period of time (pseudo-vacation) at another hotel to get the experience as a guest.

3:09 PM

@JimmyHoffa The managers in Japanese corporations are more risk averse than an NFL head coach (they never ever go for 2, the idiots). But that is corporations -- MS is not exactly a risk-taking organization either.

@jmac Have you seen windows 8? They got rid of safe mode! SAFE MODE!

@JimmyHoffa If you look at a lot of the mobile game developers, for instance, they have young women leading projects and stuff (this is super progressive for Japan), and projects are given a shot and live or die by the judgment of the various project teams.

user55340

> Once, another foreign employee at another company suggested to the management that they try doing things like ordering pizza — or the Japanese equivalent — for the employees, every once in a while. You know, because these guys put in soul-crushing work hours and could probably use the encouragement from the company. He was immediately greeted with an automaton-like voice: "QUANTIFY: 'ENCOURAGEMENT'".

(as I found out yesterday, because I needed safe mode...)

user55340

> His explanation was that employees who are actually happy, or content, or who feel appreciated, generally do better work. The guys in this company were the type to sit at their desks with bowls of terrible convenience-store ramen through the night. Why not treat them to, you know, one higher class of a food?

3:11 PM

@MichaelT It would be great! That makes sense.

user55340

> The human resources department passed the idea around, and figured it couldn't hurt. So, one day, we got an email: "THIS FRIDAY AT SIX PM, EVERY EMPLOYEE IS REQUIRED TO REPORT TO THE CONFERENCE ROOM TO EAT PIZZA". Well, there you go.

@JimmyHoffa Yeah, I had an issue that Safe Mode solved, my friend was amazed that it actually had a use (they had given up and were looking for a different PC to abuse)

@MichaelT This guy is suffering from 'My Japan' syndrome

@MichaelT How unbelievably...grating...

@jmac I learned that no nvidia drivers from the past year in windows 8 do anything but give me a black screen immediately upon boot. Whatever happened to that old "Did this work? Press ok or I'll revert the driver in 15...14...13..." window?? Apparently they did away with that too because it installed the busted driver and happily went about it's way being a displayless computer.

To turn safe mode on you need to get to a command prompt and edit boot system values in windows 8 which apparently no tutorials online realized so it took me a while to figure this out

@JimmyHoffa You just spoke Greek there. I do not understand computers. Really. I am not a developer or anything approaching one. I am a mere "MBA"

@jmac So long as you treat the people who actually generate the value good I have no problem with you, in fact I appreciate you for your rarity in that case.

3:15 PM

@JimmyHoffa ...value? Nobody generates value in the office. Haven't you heard what I've said? ;)

@JimmyHoffa no we need more pointless processes, regulations, and restrictions

they are how we make our employees do work!

@jmac Then you more than most should appreciate it when someone spends their days generating value

This kotaku article is so obviously an American to whom the words 'cultural adjustment' do not apply

@enderland Oh yeah, processes are what generate value, therefore if you make the process you are the real value generator...riiiight, because the process is what we sell to put money in everyone's pocket on a biweekly basis...right?

"Why do people smoke?" "Why don't people accommodate my odd dietary needs?"

3:17 PM

@JimmyHoffa this is my biggest pet peeve about bad management - when processes are designed for managers, not for individual contributors. Drives me NUTS when HCI isn't applied to internal processes or tools

comparing samurai to salarymen, that's rich.

user55340

@jmac fair 'nuff. Certainly a highly opinionated take on the culture and his work environment.

@jmac He does at least early on admit that he's just an unpleasant unhappy git

> Believe it or not, though, I am the kind of person who focuses on the positive things until, one at a time, I manage to wear them out. In short — and maybe this is just a theory — if I move someplace new, I like it for a while, until finally I can't stand it. This can't possibly be unique to me. Probably millions of people come to not like anyplace they can call "here."

The last resort of the scoundrel!

I get that things are different from what you are used to, but traveling overseas requires adjustments.

My mother is vegetarian in principle, but says "screw it, I'll eat whatever" when she visits Japan because she realizes that it is a practical decision.

And while I don't blame people for having principles about drinking, or smoking, or eating meat, blaming a society that doesn't have those principles for not accommodating yours is not a great sign either.

@jmac To be fair that's a bit rough, I've never heard of a real vegetarian who can just "eat whatever" unless you suffix that with "and get sick as a fucking dog for the rest of the day"

user55340

3:20 PM

(wrong finger on keyboard). I'll also point out he's in the game industry which is... well... lets say special.

I've known plenty of not-real-vegetarians who can eat whatever though. "I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat pork!"

'eat whatever' is obviously not 'down steak every meal', it is 'do my best to get vegetarian, but if there is lard in my bread, so be it' sort of thing

And really, you can't remove bacon from a salad without getting ill? Give me a break.

user55340

After awhile of eating not-meat though, your body stops producing the enzymes to digest what you don't eat... and you will get sick if you eat meat.

user55340

Furthermore, there's the "you don't want to eat meat because you object to the treatment/killing of animals" - picking the bacon out means its already dead and killed for you can't be used by someone else.

Yes yes, if you eat the bacon, you may have gastrointestinal distress. But if you remove the bacon from the salad and eat the veggies, the small amount of bacon-juice will not kill you.

And chances are if you have a bit of fish stock in your ramen, you will be a-okay. If you are coming to Japan, the rice is probably going to screw up your system more than anything else anyway.

user55340

3:24 PM

But in doing that, you've wasted {animal product}.

Yes, and I believe people like that should not travel, or do some research first.

@jmac The rice? Do explain

Japan is notoriously not vegetarian friendly.

@jmac That's interesting, counter to what many would think I'd figure

Coming here and refusing to compromise on stringent dietary beliefs, or cope with the struggle, is mind-boggling.

user55340

3:26 PM

@jmac (For awhile, my brother (switches between vegetarian and vegan) had to live in Japan to get the appropriate vias / legal stuff to have a japanese wife... not exactly an option to not live there)

@JimmyHoffa Rice is not like the carbs in bread. It doesn't flow through the system the same way. Most people when they come here and eat rice each day experience a lack of gastrointestinal coorperation for a while.

@MichaelT And if it is 2 weeks, I'm sure he can find a way to work around it (or his wife can). And I sympathize, really, for people on short stays. But we're talking about living here.

user55340

@jmac IIRC, it was 6 months.

@MichaelT The idea that people should accommodate your needs no matter how extreme is definitely in direct contrast with Japanese culture. And I'm not saying they have it right here, but telling them they're wrong isn't going to go over well.

@MichaelT I cannot fathom why you would need 6 months in Japan to marry a Japanese national, but I will take your word for it. Regardless, 6 months of eating at home. Doable.

user55340

@jmac Thats what it was...

(Indian food, all Indian food)

Speaking of which, there are plenty of Indians who manage by bringing their own lunches, and cooking themselves and/or going to restaurants preparing food they know to be 'safe'

I'm sure it's inconvenient, but never heard a complaint.

at any rate, it's 12:30am, and I probably went off for too long on tangents -- apologies for any disruption!

If you want vegetarian food in Western Japan, just ask. I am more than happy to provide recommendations.

user55340

3:31 PM

@jmac The place I worked in California had 3 sets of kitchen utensils... green handle (vegetable), yellow handle (chicken), red handle (beef). This made it easy for them to have proper separation of food and assured the observant indians that they could use a given utensil.

user55340

@jmac thank you for your time.

@jmac This is what all the indians I worked with in Pittsburgh did

@MichaelT One in parting. The Japanese do not have this tradition. There's a story of a Buddhist monk who was putting in a new bathroom to the temple.

@jmac Pfft, he should have just gone in the woods, mendicants don't need bathrooms!

@MichaelT When the workers were digging up the area for the new bathroom, they found a bunch of fish bones. They were worried about how they should tell the head monk, since monk's aren't allowed to eat anything living.

@MichaelT They apologize to the head monk and say, "We are very sorry to inform you that someone in your temple has been eating fish. We found these bones where the bathroom is being built"

@MichaelT The monk replies, "That is absolutely horrible. In my day, we ate the bones too."

user55340

3:35 PM

(random tangent - when I was in japan, we stayed in Koyosan (? - collection of temples on a mountain - many temples were also doubling as a bed and breakfast for tourists)... they had two dogs on one leash (the rock garden had dog prints in it all the time)... a big old golden retriever and a small yipping dog. It was amusing watching the little dog try to go in one direction and the retriever decide to go in another)

The point is that while there are restrictions, and rules, Japanese culture doesn't tend to see them as absolute. Of course they can be broken. The principled 100% "cannot, will not, do not" stance of vegetarians, for instance, is something so incredibly foreign.

@MichaelT Koya-san, in Wakayama. I've been there. All the food you ate was likely vegetarian (one of the few places you can get vegetarian Japanese food)

user55340

Yep, it was.

anyway, enjoy the evening.

or day, or whatever. I am usually in the water cooler

user55340

(hey! I was only off by one vowel!)

user image

-Blake

3:36 PM

it's 高野山 I think, so you were totally off by more than a vowel ;)

You would be saying 紅葉さん which is "Mr. Foliage" instead of "Koya Mountain"

user55340

@jmac Random tangent to that... my parents have stray cats show up from time to time. The third one was named nekosan which I understand to be a pun of "Mr Cat" or "Cat #3"

@MichaelT Clearly it's just named after Neko Case

user55340

@JimmyHoffa We had a rule of "don't name stray cats familiar / friendly names... you'd get attached to them." So we had "Tom", "Little Guy", and "Nekosan". The 4th cat was "Black Cat" - who eventually became my cat.

@MichaelT It sounds like your rule was antithetical with reality

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Well, the first 3 went on their way. Tom was a house cat once, but something terrified him of being in a house when he wandered by. Little guy was also a house cat once, but he had some other issues (didn't trust being alone with multiple people at all).

user55340

3:45 PM

Nekosan was never a house cat (never heard him meow - he only hissed). Black Cat was very much a house cat... and he stuck around my parents house just before I got my house... he really wanted in and was ok with multiple cats.

user55340

But, he got his name before we knew he was a house cat once and would become one again.

user55340

Chances are, his name was "Blacky" - he did recognize "Black..." when calling him... though we used to have a Blacky and I just can't bring myself to give a cat the same name as a former cat.

@MichaelT Might I suggest a simple system of guaranteeing you don't do that then? Guids are always good, though an auto-increment system is just as effective so long as the cat isn't distributed amongst others with differing cat stores lacking an agreed-upon cat name mapping with your cat store, or else you could run into foreign cat collisions.

4:04 PM

@MichaelT Yeah that was a half assed answer so I deleted it haha

user55340

@JimmyHoffa That won't work any worse... realize that class Cat { boolean recognizeName(String name) { return random(100) == 0; } } -- so can't do any worse than that.

user55340

@Sparticus If you know the term "Cyclomatic complexity" you can throw it around and sound all intelligent like.

@MichaelT Even though I've only used it once in a sophomore level programming course?

But yeah, that's what I was going for

@MichaelT It's sad how often people know the term "Cyclomatic Complexity" and have even read a bit about it because it's mentioned in best practices everywhere, but they still can't recognize it to save their lives and suck at reducing it.

@JimmyHoffa this is true but if you consider Cyclomatic Complexity with ever line you write, I might be inclined to think you're over optimizing.

4:08 PM

I don't even care about the negatives of cyclomatic complexity I'm supposed to care about like the risk and untestability aspects etc, I just hate it because it's so bloody hard to read code with high cyclomatic complexity

@Sparticus Cyclomatic complexity isn't about a line by line thing, it's about how you structure control flow in each individual method

If you aren't thinking about well-structured control flow everytime you write a method your code's going to become hard to read, quickly.

So Cyclomatic Complexity should just be reserved for code cleanliness?

user55340

Consider the code:

user55340

if( c1() )
   f1();
else
   f2();

if( c2() )
   f3();
else
   f4();

user55340

This has a graph of:

user55340

user55340

4:11 PM

> The cyclomatic complexity of the program is 3 (as the strongly connected graph for the program contains 9 edges, 7 nodes and 1 connected component) (9-7+1).

Which, in performance, is equal to putting the methods strait into the if else statements

so cyclomatic complexity is only for readability

@Sparticus It's touted because high cyclomatic complexity creates risk (more code paths = more scenarios you have to account for with each change to any given code path) as well as being harder to test (more code paths = more tests necessary to effectively cover them all), but in my book it's just a simple matter of: It's hard to read and keep track of in your mind, so maintaining it will be painful and annoying, so reduce it.

user55340

Its about how complex the decision structure of a block of code is.

user55340

It also relates to the minimum number of tests necessary.

user55340

> It is useful because of two properties of the cyclomatic complexity, M, for a specific module:
M is an upper bound for the number of test cases that are necessary to achieve a complete branch coverage.
M is a lower bound for the number of paths through the control flow graph (CFG). Assuming each test case takes one path, the number of cases needed to achieve path coverage is equal to the number of paths that can actually be taken. But some paths may be impossible, so although the number of paths through the CFG is clearly an upper bound on the number of test cases needed for path coverage…

4:15 PM

@Sparticus No, it's for risk reduction and testability improvement, the readability is just the part I care about, it's the part that leaps into your face and causes you as a developer pains. It causes test pains as well as maintenance risks, but the readability is the symptom I find most painful to tolerate (granted if it was highly readable it wouldn't have maintenance risks and probably wouldn't have testability problems, the readability is part and parcel of those other issues)

user55340

In the question in question, when you start talking about how many nested levels it implies how complex a method, and thats were my answer addressed from.

user55340

4:31 PM

(I feel guilty answering a "is it legal" question)

@MichaelT You should

user55340

@JimmyHoffa But its a good answer.

user55340

And one that I can answer.

user55340

And ultimately, not really a legal question, but rather a "will I find myself in court" (its not a criminal thing, but a civil one).

user55340

And one that rarely shows up on P.SE - trademark.

5:03 PM

You often hear that because people have oversized egos. Try this on for size instead: Real programmers learn to program over 10 years. Seriously though that is an easily oversold statement, next time someone claims they can learn any language in a week tell them to go learn Haskell in a week, or Prolog or Agda. All languages are not identical, people who claim they are betray a lack of knowledge on the broader spectrum of programming languages. — Jimmy Hoffa 17 secs ago

@MichaelT Can't complain about that then. Helping someone (now and possibly in the future) is only good for everyone.

That all-programmings-the-same mantra you hear so much of is so horribly fallible, which is so rarely recognized.

Shit that Q is collider bate

@gnat what do you think, is that Q going to hit collider in an hour, or less?

@JimmyHoffa isn't that, by definition, a question requiring a book to answer?

@enderland I vote closed for off-topic of education advice

@gnat correct me if I'm wrong on that close vote, I wasn't certain but it seemed like the right thing to do to me

or that, much better custom close reason (not sure if the "so broad" close reason got propogated across all of SE

Also education advice is off-topic here unfortunately, feel free to have this discussion in The Whiteboard the site's general discussion room however. — Jimmy Hoffa 3 mins ago

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Delving further into it, it becomes a licensing question.

5:11 PM

@JimmyHoffa this link is so true...

It's a touch chilly in here, the AC kicks on too hard in this office anytime it's warm outside (and it's not even warm outside today)

bring a space heater in (I did because of the same problem)

user55340

The question asked was "is it legal to do XYZ" - the answer is "if you name it ABC, its fine, if you name it New ABC, its not because thats trademarked / copyrighted, but here's the link to license it which really isn't that onerous (free if you put something on the page, $10/month if you don't).

user55340

And I can answer that without being a lawyer.

5:25 PM

1

A: "Real programmers can learn any language" - how do I learn to *actually* program?

Don't worry about meeting some ridiculous concept like the one in such statements as you've heard too much of in the vein of: All programming languages are basically the same Once you pick up one language well you can pick up any other language quickly and easily Languages are just tools, there...

user55340

And sometimes you get the really interesting questions...

user55340

0

Q: Algorithm to Find the Aggregate Mass of "Granola Bar"-Like Structures?

I'm a planetary science researcher and one project I'm working on is N-body simulations of Saturn's rings. The goal of this particular study is to watch as particles clump together under their own self-gravity and measure the aggregate mass of the clumps versus the mean velocity of all particles...

cluster simulation

@JimmyHoffa to me, it's an intersection of several close reasons, edu-advice included. Too broad seems like a good match, too. And yes, it has good chances to hit the collider

user55340

votes so far: 1 dup, 1 off topic edu, 1 too broad...

"skills that can be applied towards all languages" -> welcome opinions

there is likely an even better dupe, matching even up to the point of too broad / opinion based...

69

Q: How do I improve my coding skills?

Here's a bit information about me, before starting with the question. I am a Computer Science Undergraduate, Java being my primary coding language. The basic problem in my University are the teaching standards. No one is concerned about teaching coding knowledge to students, rather than just th...

learning skills

I will likely vote for it

5:42 PM

@gnat I put my CV in, but now with my answer I pray for the collider. I haven't rep-whored in too long, I deserve a nice 200 point day... besides, my answer's pretty good if I do say so myself.

@JimmyHoffa if that rep will help you to join the ranks of active delete voters, I will pray with you. The harder we get on deleting very bad content, the softer we will be able to be at salvageable stuff. Think of it, the more we're confident that bad stuff will be eventually wiped out off the site, the less we need to hurry to close questions that are at risk of attracting it

...oh I forgot, there is a question I need to flag for deletion, waiting for me out there :)

@gnat pshaw, I'll never see 10k. If I'm lucky some day I'll reach 9900+, but I think I'll gain rep asymptotically slower at that point, by the time I reach 9999 SE will have implemented fractional rep gains as a feature, at which point I'm screwed.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa But .9999999999.... is 1.

user55340

6:01 PM

@JimmyHoffa I'd point out in that answer that each programming language has a different way of thinking - even ones that are 'similar'. Clojure is lisplike, but dealing with Java objects is very different than traditional lisp structures. Perl and Python and Ruby are all 'scripting' languages, and superficially similar in various aspects of syntax and structure, but thinking as a perl programmer is quite different than thinking as a ruby or python programmer.

user55340

Learning to program in any language in a week - You Can Write FORTRAN in any Language

@JimmyHoffa yeah, that's what I thought about myself few months ago. Especially when I discovered an answer in the need of bounty

25

A: Why are cryptic short identifiers still so common in low-level programming?

Zipf's Law You yourself can observe by looking at this very text that word length and frequency of usage are, in general, inversely related. Words that are used very frequently, like it, a, but, you, and and are very short, while words that are used less often like observe, comprehension, and ve...

user55340

You end up writing the language you know in the syntax of the new language.

that would definitely throw me back into dark ages of under 10K

user55340

Various high level concepts are transferable to other languages of the same general idea (Objects, Classes and such in an OO language) - but rarely transferable out of that domain.

6:06 PM

yeah with answers like that, question is a sure candidate for collider...

0

A: "Real programmers can learn any language" - how do I learn to *actually* program?

One question needs to be asked. Do you construct your logic in syntax or do you use a faster and more efficient mental model? I find that novice programmers tend to think using syntax.

@MichaelT I think it's a problem of the uniformity of our modern enterprise languages, ruby, python, C++, C#, Java, the amount they have in common with eachother is so much greater than the amount most all languages have in common with eachother outside of that little bubble of languages

@CharlesE.Grant I think you overestimate what the majority learn in college, also how long it takes to become even semi-proficient in a language like Haskell or Prolog. I would argue a skilled industry experienced engineer with no functional programming experience would take significantly more than a week to be able to fix his first bug in a Haskell program. — Jimmy Hoffa 4 mins ago

@gnat I'd feel bad throwing a DV immediately if the answerer didn't have 5k rep and theoretically knows better

Anybody disagree with that sentiment? Think in a week or less they could fix a bug in a Haskell program having not worked in a similar language in the past?

@JimmyHoffa from what you've shown me haskell is worse than greek :P

I could be wrong. Maybe I found Haskell took much more to learn than others would find.

6:11 PM

course it's likely you only show the particulars of it here rather than basics (I think)

@enderland no no, it is greek, see: Zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms

@enderland thing is, no Haskell software is written in "the basics"

hmmm. it's hard to learn to just by seeing pieces of it dropped in here

When you start getting into those crazy languages you find the only people producing software in them are doing it in the mindset of the language, which means writing it at the expertise level I write C#

@enderland then go learn it for real if you find it interesting

I think there's a difference between "mastery" and "I can create functional code" in languages

huh? no will link. whatever.

6:14 PM

@JimmyHoffa I think this is a sign I shouldn't learn Haskell ;)

even this site doesn't want me to

@enderland well what you see is a classical collider effect; high rep regulars learn to feel it even before shit hits the fan so to speak...

So comes next and next and next round of garbage answers, bumping the question, bringing mindless upvotes, over and over and over again.

Hotness algorithm calculates this as genuine popularity, keeps it accordingly high at collider, bringing more visitors that are breaking things further and so on and so on. Note it's not limited to newcomers only, everyone is invited to the party. Community regulars can clearly see that usual quality norms are broken in favor of populist garbage and that they are free to follow the New Order just like anyone else.

I'm a dummy, needed http://

30

A: Don't let questions stick to the top of the hot questions list forever

One problem with hot questions seems to be that there is no way for "hotness algorithm" to differentiate genuine popularity from fake one, that is from popularity introduced by the algorithm itself. The issue probably wasn't even noticeable when current algorithm was introduced in 2008, since S...

ooo here it comes, we haven't seen one of @gnat's classic burnination rants in a while. I do agree the response you got on your suggestion on MSO is more than a touch of bullshit.

@enderland - The answer is there but seems to be challenging for people to discern. I'm working on a better answer. — ChaosPandion 5 mins ago

what? lol.

6:17 PM

Sep 18 at 21:52, by gnat

user image

> from concatenative languages to vector based languages to languages specializing in AI or meta-programming (or languages which exist entirely to support regexps).

I think it's fair to say @JimmyHoffa regarding learning/mastering new languages you must have sufficient knowledge of your current language to know its strengths/weaknesses at a fairly deep level. Otherwise you will not necessarily see advantages/disadvantages and differences between languages

@JimmyHoffa to be fair, not entirely bullshit. Point #4, about denormalised column was actually well taken - and note, it was made before I added clarification in "Performance considerations". If it this was the only point, I'd even consider decline justified, or to be precise, temporarily justified

@gnat yeah, we can all relate to technical reasons not to implement a feature, but that's the only part really.

@enderland Iduno, many people have vast skill with their language, but recognizing advantages/disadvantages in comparison with others requires a completely different thing: Willingness to take the blinders off and look around a bit. Many people are fantastically good with whatever language they do and have worked in for many years but don't know the first thing about how it stacks up against other things

it's like in beating the averages, Paul Graham speaks to it perfectly when he says the average programmer knows Blub is better than some other languages, and that's all they care to know

6:33 PM

@JimmyHoffa I'm realizing this with VBA a lot recently. VBA sucks compared to a lot of real languages in many regards - but it has its definite strenghts

@JimmyHoffa well when I was studying about the formula issues and pondering about this technical reason, it looked like a showstopper to me (even to me, despite all my desire to get the solution, go figure)...

> As soon as I arrived at conclusion that cut would better be proportional to the score of the top voted post, I took a while to ponder on performance. This algorithm looked substantially harder than current formula and even without knowing if it's feasible or not, I wanted a variant that would be comparable to current one in terms of performance...

@JimmyHoffa I'm too damn curious for that

> If you were to ask Bob: "Hey Bob, how do you know you don't need to know anything about technology X? What makes you think it wouldn't help you do your job better?" Bob would reply that he's gotten by just fine for many years without knowing X, and he's been doing his job, so quid pro quo, ipso facto, ergo rectum, he obviously doesn't need to know X. He has no idea why you'd bother to ask such an inane question.

I was mistaken, I was thinking of Yegges "Being the averagest"

sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/being-the-averagest

Or maybe not... maybe I'm imagining things I made up all by myself O_o

I can't find a section I'm recalling from memory from any of the blogs I expected them

6:49 PM

@JimmyHoffa Well I'd at least hear you out first.

@Bob Look, I'm sorry but Blub just isn't the answer. It doesn't even have parametric polymorphism or higher kinded quantification... Wait you are bob@blubsoft.com right? Oh sorry, wrong bob.

@gnat with 9 answers how is that question not in the collider yet?

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