The Whiteboard

user20683

8:00 PM

they will turn him against PHP and then he won't ask anymore of that type of GvS (we hope)

user41796

no kidding. Interestingly, it was someone with 100k+ rep and who claimed to be an MS MVP.

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer Goma was fairly active on SO before he came to Programmers.

user20683

@GlenH7 go listen to the Eric Lippert podcast on SE

user20683

he has some hilarious rips on VBScript

user20683

"What is your least favorite thing about C#?" - His answer "Do I have to pick just one?"

user20683

8:01 PM

paraphrasing mind

user41796

right; and given his involvement, I'm sure there's quite a few details he dislikes

user41796

I'm glad it was something innocuous like ASP web services instead of something like Silverlight. I'm afraid the guy would have created sock puppets just to add more down votes....

user20683

@GlenH7 just mention jsf to Maple_Shaft and watch him go boom

user41796

mental note for later....

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 ahh you linked old ASMX web services eh? Yeah, I'm not surprised you got griped at for that one; they were pretty terrible heh

compared to WCF ones

user20683

8:05 PM

@GlenH7 Poor sod was in here one night with Jimmy Hoffa helping him deal with JQuery Insanity

user41796

@JimmyHoffa - yes. truth be told, it was the first MSDN web services tutorial link that came up in google. it wasn't really germane to the question being asked, more of a "hey it's easy to research this crap so you can better understand what you're trying to ask"

user41796

and AFAIK there isn't a clean designation to indicate old, crap ASMX vs. "new-we-swear-it's-not-crap" ASP.NET MVC web services. Seems like it's all ASMX to me, but I'm an ignorant noob who just uses WCF

Jimmy Hoffa

Aye, yeah the ASP/C# tags are full of zealoutous folks on SO, truth. Reason being, the massive flocking to SO for those communities in general has resulted in an inordinately high number of .NET savants there

@GlenH7 Yeah, I stick with WCF, if the guy was suggesting MVC web services instead he was suggesting REST I'm wagering, I don't know anybody who uses MVC to prop up soap...

user41796

nah, the guy was just adamant about hating ASMX

user41796

but I know of some who will argue it's good-enough and reasonably quick to get setup easily. WCF can be a real bear to get going

Jimmy Hoffa

8:09 PM

Maybe he had java experience, those guys bashed on ASMX a ton back in the day because ASMX was wayyy behind in standards compared to what java had I've heard

@GlenH7 yeah, WCF has a bad learning curve for configuration, no doubt about that..

user20683

@JimmyHoffa I revised my project scope somewhat, doing instruction simulators rather than full system...because not entirely crazy.

user41796

@WorldEngineer - you should really add an expert system in to that too

Jimmy Hoffa

Fun. What kind of instructions?

@GlenH7 I presume he is talking about an expert system, he'll instruct it with machine learning practices, and then it will simulate things, instruction simulator right?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Assembly

user20683

gonna attempt a modular architecture

user20683

8:12 PM

so that for instance you could swap SPARC and MIPS

user41796

Ah! an expert system that identifies the best modular architecture

user20683

@GlenH7 having never had a course in AI, this is a bad plan

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer ah, you know what would be awesome? You're interested in UX, come up with a data representation that accurately portrays the systematic transformations those instructions are committing

user20683

@JimmyHoffa that's gonna be a tad much for the time being

user20683

visual6502.org/JSSim

user20683

8:13 PM

something like this?

Jimmy Hoffa

I'm imagining a stack of LEDs, you do a pop and one of them blinks off then shows up in a representation of a CPU

user41796

@WorldEngineer - this is the inside joke Jimmy and I are referring to:

user41796

programmers.stackexchange.com/revisions/194969/1

user20683

@GlenH7 oh that thing

user20683

Clojure

user20683

8:14 PM

that's your best bet

user20683

that or maybe IronScheme

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer yeah, we already had that discussion heh

user20683

@JimmyHoffa yeah, I've been kind of out of it for a bit. I've got 3 tests, 2 projects and a paper left and I'm done with undergrad

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer I'm thinking about some visual representation that's more UX based: Informative. That JSSIM thing is wayy too technical. I'm thinking something that represents the information visually in such a way as to express to the viewer what is occurring

user20683

then I might actually drink something

user20683

8:15 PM

with alcohol even

Jimmy Hoffa

whoa. crazy.

user20683

well actually that has to wait

user41796

@WorldEngineer congrats on being almost there. it's a nice feeling, no doubt

user20683

I've got Jury Duty the next day after last final

user20683

because the universe likes to mess with me

user20683

8:16 PM

on the plus side, no work and I get paid anyway due to vacation time :D

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer what is an "instruction simulator" going to do? Sounds like a simple stupid VM

user20683

@JimmyHoffa it runs assembly programs

Jimmy Hoffa

(not simple to implement, just simple relative to non-simulator implementations of a VM)

user20683

right

Jimmy Hoffa

Ok

user20683

8:17 PM

the problem I ran into with full system was the hardware clocking and the like

user20683

doable but I need more time than I have

user20683

the idea is to use JS's ability to basically ad hoc objects to be able to hot swap instruction sets

user41796

There's a valuable life lesson in that last statement: "doable but I need more time than I have"

user20683

@GlenH7 that's basically what CS has taught me

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I suggest one attempt to do the thing claimed in the statement to ensure the life lesson is really...lessoned... :)

user20683

8:19 PM

that's time complexity in a nutshell

user41796

and don't forget to avoid ASMX. Or Silverlight.

user41796

Or ....

user20683

@GlenH7 it'll be JQuery at most

user20683

maybe D3 if I go visual

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer JQuery at least; avoiding JQuery just makes things harder on you. Plus you already understand fundamental functional style, so JQuery will come more naturally to you than without anyway

user20683

8:21 PM

@JimmyHoffa the way my mind works, Javascript's ad hoc objects just seem "right"

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer how do you define an object in JavaScript?

user20683

var example = new Object(); or var example = {} I can populate them if you want

Jimmy Hoffa

pfleh. They're overrated. heh

user20683

yeah

user20683

I likely won't need many except as holders

user20683

8:24 PM

here's an idea: Shodan = Expert System simulating all failed Area51 proposals for a 1000 year time span

user20683

so it will evolve to sentience eventually and definitely want to kill all humans

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer that's generally the only purpose, they give you arbitrary encapsulation, I get confused working with them though because they obey different scope rules than functions, and I can only remember so many scoping rules.

user55340

> This is now raised to 73 on Programmers. MichaelT makes a good point: while this won't do much in terms of absolute numbers, it may help with the perception a bit by blocking some of the more egregious questions.

user55340

Whoo! I was the justification!

Jimmy Hoffa

Woot.

user20683

8:33 PM

@MichaelT I do hereby dub thee: "Michael the Justicar"

Jimmy Hoffa

Who directed me to "cache oblivious data structures" recently? This stuff is nuts.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa maybe me?

user20683

I've been trying to figure out Van Emde Boas Trees in practice for a while

Jimmy Hoffa

blogs.msdn.com/b/devdev/archive/2007/06/12/…

user55340

@WorldEngineer So, when you don't see enough crap in the new questions to suit your likings, blame me. If you see too much, blame Jimmy... saying "Haskell" gives an automatic high score.

Jimmy Hoffa

8:41 PM

@WorldEngineer Maybe it was you, I don't entirely understand that because to be blunt I don't know what a logarithm is beyond what it's growth pattern is, but I think I get the general idea

user41796

I think all Haskell questions should be auto-closed with a reason of "clojure"

3

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT it's true, you're just jealous you can't write questions that don't make any sense, include the word haskell and get automatic rep. It's like the shibbolleet code, but on P.SE

user20683

@GlenH7 it'd get closed with the reason: Impure Function Scope

user20683

Because this site ain't pure

user20683

at all

user20683

8:43 PM

ever

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer No, it couldn't get closed, you'd have to create a new question that's already closed

user55340

The Whiteboard - average questions per day. 159. Yesterday: 454. Today 357.

Jimmy Hoffa

The cool thing about my reading of that article is that a minor semantic change in the numbers you choose for your leaf counts can result in such a large difference in behaviour at the metal level.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa that just won you a beer if I see you in person

Jimmy Hoffa

Sweet, an IOU-1-Beer, I'm keeping that in the piggy bank.

@MichaelT Wha? Where did you get them numbers?

user55340

8:48 PM

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/the-whiteboard

Jimmy Hoffa

That doesn't even make sense; my graph counts ~200+ in a week lately, where did you get 159 per day?

user55340

The info link.

Jimmy Hoffa

Oh; messages per day

user55340

Frequently in the room: Jimmy Hoffa (5.4k), Yannis Rizos (4.7k), World Engineer (4.5k), MichaelT (3.5k), Gnat (1k). --- If we use gnat as a metric again, Jimmy is 5.4 gnats...

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Heh, if we've gotten 454 question in a day, you would have definitely noticed. You would have run out of close votes.

user41796

8:51 PM

@WorldEngineer - joshk is showing as an owner of Whiteboard if it matters. Interestingly, Yannis is not an owner of Whiteboard

user55340

Blah... questions... was typing questions in that previous one too. Chat messages per day.

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos that would be known as the reddit DDOS

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/…

Yannis Rizos

@GlenH7 "owner" is redundant when you're king.

Jimmy Hoffa

Cool link

user55340

I've gone drain bead today. I can't even keep my b and d straight.

Stack Exchange

8:53 PM

Yannis Rizos has removed Rachel from the list of this room's owners.

Yannis Rizos has removed Josh K from the list of this room's owners.

user41796

@YannisRizos - apparently there's a challenger to your title: chat.stackexchange.com/users/1/marc-gravell

Stack Exchange

Yannis Rizos has added MichaelT to the list of this room's owners.

Yannis Rizos has added Jimmy Hoffa to the list of this room's owners.

user41796

I like the "users/1"

user55340

Mwhawahawhaw.... My evil plan is complete!

Stack Exchange

Yannis Rizos has added GlenH7 to the list of this room's owners.

user41796

8:54 PM

props to @JimmyHoffa, @MichaelT

user41796

and that's what I get for opening my big mouth

user55340

heh.

Yannis Rizos

There we go... Don't break anything. Also, you can't really do anything.

user55340

I can't find the "merge all chat messages to goma" link...

Jimmy Hoffa

I'm a winner!

That's about the long and the short of it. Yay me.

user20683

8:56 PM

@JimmyHoffa it's like being a member of the British Monarchy.

user41796

@YannisRizos - not true. Some comments deserve to be pinned

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Cool trick! (where's that suspend button, can't let him outshine me)

user20683

you theoretically have power

user20683

but you really don't

user55340

@WorldEngineer I've got to ask the Queen permission to date another programmer?

Jimmy Hoffa

8:56 PM

@YannisRizos am I going to get more of those flag review messages now? I could dowithout those

Yannis Rizos

No.

user41796

Gallery mode looks like fun...

user41796

Jimmy Hoffa

What was that about powerless again?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Given that any mod and I mean any mod can fix that immediately

Yannis Rizos

9:04 PM

Oh crap, room owners can do that? Well... don't. This is the site's main chat room, it should be public. Turn on gallery only if there's a flood of spammers or something weird like that (and only until it passes). You can, however, create another room and set it to gallery if you want. Just not the main room. Or I'll get angry and coerce @WorldEngineer into suspending you.

user41796

@YannisRizos - wasn't going to, don't worry. Although I nearly tripped myself when looking at the notification options (slider vs message box)

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos what does "hide posts" do? Just hide them from me?

user20683

@YannisRizos coerce? I'd do it myself

user41796

hey, why does my rep show as 1 on the main site now?!?

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer See. You are already coerced (is that even a word?).

@GlenH7 Hm? I see 11,401.

user41796

9:07 PM

@YannisRizos was a (weak) reference to getting suspended.

Yannis Rizos

Ah.

You wouldn't be able to chat if you were (need 20 rep to chat).

user41796

If I had shown more effort, I would have dug up an image of "this user account has been temporarily suspended"

user41796

d'oh. Curse you SE and your logical ways!

user20683

okay time to go talk about Computer Architecture and whatnots in front of bored undergrads.

user20683

and grads

user20683

9:09 PM

it's a mix

user41796

just talk about P.SE instead. Far more fun

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer just say endofunctor a lot, an F for the first student to snicker at it

user41796

apropos of nothing, what was MS thinking when they built WCF services? Oy....

Yannis Rizos

They were thinking: "It's certainly a step up from Microsoft Bob".

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Remember that the year was 2005/2006 when they did that. Compare it to other available RPC systems of the time...

@YannisRizos A step up from .NET remoting rather, which it was, and how

user41796

9:16 PM

Still a PITA in my book..... It gives hints and allegations as to how you think it's going to work and then when you try it .... fail.

Jimmy Hoffa

asmx web services or REST web services are a lot simpler and easier to work with, yeah, but if you look at the rest of WCF's bindings, it's really great. high performance named pipes/tcp/durable-queue based RPC mechanisms where serialization and network handshakes are handled for you...

Though I've also written plenty of classic sockets code in .NET, and frankly that wasn't particularly difficult either... meh maybe WCF was a bad idea, but now that I know it I can't un-know it..

user41796

my team's problem is we're using it to pass complex objects over the wire, and I'm whinging when some of the behavior doesn't come along with it. In this particular instance, I have a private object wrapped with a Property. The default value isn't coming through. <sigh>

user41796

the real likely issue is my comparative ignorance of WCF vs what I'm trying to make it do. But that sounds scarily close to taking responsibility for my actions. Can't be doing that

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 WCF deserialization by default doesn't execute constructors

there are attributes you can put on methods that will instruct the serializer to execute them after it has created the object through, well, magic

which you may wish to use for configuring the default value

user41796

@JimmyHoffa shhhh quit proving that it's my ignorance at work here... ;-)

Jimmy Hoffa

9:20 PM

I mean, just use DCOM, what do we need any of this other crap for anyway?

user41796

in this case, I'm actually setting the default in the client view-model instead / as-well. I dislike this particular property, so I'll code it like a 3rd class citizen in retaliation.

user41796

woo hoo. I've used up my vote allowance for the day

user41796

but I can still pin!

user41796

@JimmyHoffa - have you found a decent approach for refactoring data members within contracts then? The whole update the object; rebuild the service; refresh the reference; hunt-and-update the breakage; and then grep the XAML files is a bit ... tedious

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 You version your services?

user41796

9:32 PM

@JimmyHoffa - no. Kind of a non-starter for non-technical reasons near as I can tell

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 apparch.codeplex.com/releases/view/19801 good short general guidance

user41796

@JimmyHoffa you are a fountain of knowledge today!

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 An approach I've often advocated for but never had accepted is to simply publish a dumb contract assembly that simply has your contract interface and request/respond objects in it. When you want to update a clients version, you reference the new one and any broken code is automatically broken at compilation. This mostly just avoids the use of a service reference which needs updating and allows your build practices to rapidly identify all breakages

Never had it accepted anywhere I've worked, so it may have caveats I don't see

People tend to be pretty happy with service references, I've never been a fan

not versioning services also makes all service work considerably more painful... but we all have to deal with non-technical reasons for things being one way or another, it is what it is..

user41796

yes, the non-technical reason generally ends up being the driver. <sigh>

user41796

part of my pain is I'm refactoring someone else's choices. Which were obviously inferior choices because they weren't my own. And that happily ignores that I would have picked similar variable names based upon the available information at the time.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:41 PM

Meh, so imagine you wrote the code. The result will be the same: You'll know more than was known at the time and want to do the refactoring with greater information. Who wrote it the first time doesn't matter (unless they were procedural programmers, ugh).

If you can't version, do you have the ability for multitenancy? You could segregate parts into new smaller separate services that behave like new versions where the original monolith has the old version which you migrate away from in time

Versioning gives you much more ease in refactoring towards a goal, if you can't version, make new versions and just call them different services rather than different versions, is I guess the best idea I have for ya there heh

user41796

As I'm a dead-tree guy, I just pushed that pdf to a printer. I'm looking forward to their recommendations. Hopefully it will keep me from tripping over myself as much moving into the future. But that may be an unreasonable expectation.

Jimmy Hoffa

Give it a look, if you want something more complete there's this as well, but it touches on a ton more than just service stuff
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff650706.aspx

user55340

10:08 PM

Mods... how do you expect me to maintain palindromic rep values when you keep deleting awful answers that I've downvoted and giving me back my rep?! 6557 is not palindromic.

2

C. Ross

/kick MichaelT for whining

gnat

@MichaelT oh c'mon, it's easy to pull something for -1 isn't it

-1

A: Readable regular expressions without losing their power?

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror suggests writing non-whitespace significant regular expressions, using that whitespace for indentation, and marking up the sections with comments. var whitelist = @"</?p>|<br\s?/?>|</?b>|</?strong>|</?i>|</?em>| </?s>|</?strike>|</?blockquote>|</?sub>|</?super>| <

0

A: How can I determine how to charge for supporting SharePoint sites and SharePoint development?

Some of this depends on your customer. If your customer is the type who asks for lots of detail, and wants to know exactly what is being paid for, you may want to separate out the support for the custom applications vs. the basic support of the site itself. If the complexity of the custom applic...

-1

A: What haskell blogs do you follow?

My blog is intended as a record of my process of learning Haskell, including which resources I found useful and why. Hopefully other learners will find it useful.

1

A: Compatibility of current web standards with current browsers

Here you can see full list of compatibilities of the different engines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%28HTML5%29

1

A: Is there a canonical reference on algorithm design?

Programming Challenges by Steven S. Skiena and Miguel Revilla is a pretty good book for practising this sort of thing.

user55340

@gnat heh... I know... I've got my queries I can run too... there are far too many unworthy answers out there... or worthy answers if one is looking for a downvote.

gnat

3

A: Is there a canonical reference on algorithm design?

These online judges might be of help for practicing algorithmic problems http://uva.onlinejudge.org http://www.spoj.pl http://poj.org http://acm.timus.ru

C. Ross

@gnat you've proved your point, please stop the flood

gnat

10:19 PM

@MichaelT yeah. As soon as one get +10 that breaks a palindrome, it's really easy to run your script and get it back. There was a day when I lost like 30 points that way (not that I complain)

nor was I trying to get palindromic rep :)

user20683

11:17 PM

that went reasonably well

Transcript for