The Whiteboard

12:29 AM

Damn you @MichaelT... you are not allowed to go around on SO, and answer questions i have answerred already, with answers that are so much better than mine....

Makes my answer look.... sparse.

And it makes me vote, which is not traditional on SO.

And I am off to grab a bite to eat... nice answer.

user55340

1:10 AM

@rolfl Blame my P.SE sensibilities of fully answering questions.

user55340

Though do note that I started writing it before I saw '1 answer' alert box show up.

user55340

1:23 AM

In random perusal of hot questions (judaism often shows up in there), saw an interesting advert there... to a meta question itself.

user55340

10

A: Community Promotion Ads - 2014

user55340

user55340

Then links to:

user55340

20

Q: Mi Yodeya Referencer: A Syntax for Linking to Sources

Several times, the community has discussed and requested an easier way to link to sources. So recently, with the help of Hashem yisborach, and @Menachem, I threw together a quick script to do just that. It links to Tanach and most of Talmud Bavli, and with the help of the community, we've added ...

user55340

Not sure how we'd use it (most of our meta tends to be prescriptive rather than informative)... but maybe with the proper meta guidance for things.

user55340

1:27 AM

@RobertHarvey hey, you could use that to have a 'community advert' on SO that links to the close vote queue.

user55340

Or maybe a 'how to format your code' MSO question.

Jimmy Hoffa

2:23 AM

@AshleyNunn fun with broken english: Wife asked me the other day if I had a good day, my response: "aye, did some chores 'rounna hahse 'nat" -> 2 fun language things I stole from living in pittsburgh: ow/ou->ah, downtown=dahntahn, "and all that" -> 'nat

shit like that is why I see my kid failing english... I wonder if "aye" for "yes" is even accepted as proper english? That one might be...maybe...

Sean Allred

Hey all, visitor from TeX.SX over here. I'm a bit wary about asking a question I think may be off-topic here. I'm looking for a C++ reference manual in texinfo format (to be used within emacs)—would such a question be on-topic here?

Jimmy Hoffa

@SeanAllred unfortunately no, resource requests aren't on topic, but asking stuff like that in chat is always fine - that said, not many C++ folks 'round here usually, you may want to hop into SO's chat rooms and find their C++ room (the lounge), they may be able to help you (inbetween being relatively inappropriate and beware of NSFW there...)

Sean Allred

@JimmyHoffa Oh boy… heh. But thanks for the heads up :) I forgot that SO has a lot of tech-specific rooms :)

Jimmy Hoffa

yep, no worries. They can be helpful, C++ folks just tend to have a very insular community and as such their culture can be a bit prickly (in my experience)

user15026

@JimmyHoffa I use it periodically, so I say yes

user15026

2:38 AM

@JimmyHoffa Also, trying to read this makes me curious how it sounds when you actually say it

Jimmy Hoffa

I kind of drawl everything together a lot in my home speech... skip pronouns wherever I feel like it, refer to people with "oy" as replacement for 'hey you', my vernacular is sincerely broken

though it's nothing like a southern drawl, no twang in my voice.. anytime there's a "the" I tend to just make it an a at the end of whatever word came before, "inna" "rounna", etc

oh and I habit to use "vas" (was) from german when referencing a thing I'm inquiring regarding, "vas ist das" or just "vas" - my wife's used to it and doesn't notice because she knows what I mean...

the context is usually clear sometimes I use that outside of home and people usually just assume I stumbled over my words I think as they respond without really noticing

"did you see this?" "vas?" "there's a new horror movie out!" "oh aye"

Ampt

2:02 PM

Man people are sour about being told to not test their private methods

user55340

@Ampt Its one of those holy wars and misunderstandings.

Ampt

Yeah, it definitely smells like one

All the zealots showed up to the party I guess

user55340

I don't go through hoops testing private methods, but I do give sufficient access to a lot of internals to the class... other things are indeed private, but can be fully exercised through public methods.

user55340

@Ampt Read The Way of Testivus and go get some beer and buffalo wings.

Robert Harvey

Took a look at some blog posts about #regions. I genuinely don't understand the hate. #regions are just another organizational tool; if your beef is with code folding, then why don't we just dispense with code folding altogether? — Robert Harvey 24 secs ago

user55340

2:06 PM

Btw, fun world news in sports... Oslo essentially said "screw you" to the IOCC leaving them with a choice of China or Kazakhstan for the winter olympics of 2022. cbsnews.com/news/…

user41796

@Ampt Not supposed to fiddle with your privates in public, right?

Ampt

no one wants to host the olypmics? why

user55340

deadspin.com/nobody-wants-to-host-the-2022-olympics-1582151092

Matt S.

Why wouldn't you test something?

Ampt

@GlenH7 I guess I'm just more forward thinking but I like to have my privates out where everyone can see them

user41796

2:07 PM

@MichaelT Cost to Benefit of being the host city has gotten way out of whack.

Ampt

@MattS. I'm on the mindset that you should be able to thoroughly test your private methods from the public one

if you can't, you need to pull that functionality out

user55340

@Ampt No one wants to bribe the IOCC with another $50B after Sochi... and IOCC doesn't want to reuse existing facilities... like SLC or Vancouver. It takes decades to get the stadiums paid off.

Robert Harvey

@Ampt Well, that's just silly. You might as well just dispense with refactoring altogether.

user41796

@RobertHarvey Some people abuse them. Therefore they are evil and everyone should avoid using them.

user55340

businessinsider.com/olympics-oslo-2022-olympics-2014-10

Ampt

2:09 PM

@RobertHarvey I don't follow

user55340

A picture from 2004 Athens stadium today...

user55340

Robert Harvey

The whole point of writing methods is to make a testable piece of code.

Doesn't necessarily mean you want it in your public API.

But it's still nice to be able to test it. For God's sake, is it really the position of the TDD'ers that "if it's not public, thou shalt not write unit tests against it?"

Ridiculous.

user55340

Didn't help that a newspaper released the demands that the IOCC had for Norway... vg.no/sport/ol-2022/… (norwegian)

user55340

> The high ranking IOC members must have a cocktail party with the King of Norway, paid for in full
Roads cleared for traffic and only to be used by high ranking IOC members during the stay
VIP lounges and bars with full service and staff 24/7
New cellphones for all the IOC members, Samsung brand
Dedicated cars with drivers for all IOC members and whoever else they see fit
Separate entries on the airport for high ranking IOC members
A ceremonious reception to be held at the air port for high ranking IOC members

user55340

2:12 PM

Its almost as if the IOCC wanted to give FIFA a run for their money as most corrupt organization.

Matt S.

@Ampt yeah, I was just thinking how people would catch mistakes without testing. But I guess people who don't test don't make mistakes...

Ampt

What's up with everyone and this "Public API" crap. What are you trying to hide by making your methods private? Do you really think that not allowing people to call them is the best way to protect your class or keep things from getting out of order? We are talking about people who are coding against your class here.

@MattS. Who's not testing?

Matt S.

@Ampt Not testing private classes. Sorry, I'm a bit behind I think.

Robert Harvey

Writing a good API is hard. It's made harder by folks insisting that methods be made public that have no business being made public. Not ever bit of code you write is reusable.

user55340

@Ampt we're talking about your stupid cow-orker who will mess it up... or maybe the client who wants to maintain it and doesn't mind fiddling.

Ampt

2:15 PM

So putting a private keyword on your method is going to fix your stupid co-workers or other folks from tarnishing your class? Right... I can see why we should litter our classes with extra junk to allow third classes to come in and test them.

That'll just make everything better

user55340

Hopefully it makes them think twice about doing it.

user55340

Once you go into making private methods public it means you can't refactor it because they are expecting that method to do something. And it means you need to maintain it.

Ampt

Well if we're tying unit tests to all of our private methods we can't just go around deleting them either, right?

or changing the functionality drastically

user55340

You go through, you've got a private method. Someone makes it public and uses it. The class gets refactored so it doesn't use that method... now that method doesn't work anymore and something, somewhere you didn't even consider breaks because your object isn't changing state as expected.

Matt S.

> IOC members will be received with a smile on arrival at hotel.

user55340

2:18 PM

Making things private for things you shouldn't be calling reduces the long term maintenance work that needs to be done on the class as the innards get changed.

user55340

@MattS. did you see the length of the document? Those are just the highlights.

user55340

google translate version of IOCC demands

Matt S.

@MichaelT Oh man, I'm reading through it. I'm just wondering what type of person writes these things up? No wonder everyone is saying no.

user55340

@MattS. There's the "separate lanes / roads for IOC where ordinary people and public transport won't go"

user55340

> In total, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) 7000 pages of requirements and specifications to Oslo søkerby. Much is normal security requirements and arrangements, but many pages is also about how the IOC delegates will have the best OL, fired up with continuous access to alcohol, special service and luxury food.

user55340

2:22 PM

> * Traffic rules and traffic lights must be adjusted so that the Olympic traffic is prioritized

user55340

Remember London?

user15026

@MichaelT This list is crazy

user15026

I can totally understand why just about everyone is pulling out of this

Matt S.

> All meeting rooms must be exactly 20 degrees Celsius all the times.

Ampt

This is nuts

Matt S.

2:24 PM

What did you do at the olympics? "I was the temperature checker."

user55340

@AshleyNunn I heard that Montreal recently paid off the 1976 stadium... as in in the last few years.

whatsisname

the olympics are a scam

user55340

(apparently, 2006 was when the $1.5B debt on the stadium was paid off)

Ampt

> * There should be continuous access to sufficient food and drink of "high quality". Light snacks and canapés are not good enough

user15026

@MichaelT It was within the last few years, yes

user55340

2:27 PM

@AshleyNunn So... any city want to get saddled with another bigger debt for today's olympics?

Robert Harvey

@Ampt: The API design should drive your code, not the other way around. If you allow additional needed functionality to pollute your external API with new methods (because it needs to be tested properly), then your external API never stabilizes.

user15026

@MichaelT Yeah, I don't think so. It's gotten so ridiculous.

Robert Harvey

Microsoft does this all the time. They have a Split method on the String class, but it is driven by a private SplitInternal method. It's done this way to allow overloads like "discard duplicate delimiters" to modify the split behavior.

Ampt

@MichaelT those ridiculous demands for private roads and free booze are really adding insult to injury

user55340

Look into the Java classes.. they're full of private methods... and some that don't exist between 1.6 and 1.7.

Matt S.

2:30 PM

The last olympics in Sochi was so publicly corrupt. Now anyone associated is going to be seen as being a part of it.

Robert Harvey

Ah, never mind. People are talking about the Olympics now.

user41796

What amazes me is the claim that the 2022 Olympics only need $5.4B but the hosting costs haven't been that cheap since before 1988.

Ampt

You don't mean to say that the IOC is corrupt do you?!

user15026

@MattS. That and the demands at this point are so over the top - its like they are trying to drive countries into large debt piles.

user55340

@Ampt Just slightly less than FIFA.

user41796

2:31 PM

@MattS. apparently even the local mafia were killing each other off for a bigger slice of that pie

user55340

Hmm... wonder if Quatar can make a bid for the 2022 winter olympics.

user15026

@GlenH7 Yeah, that's about as likely as...a. very unlikely thing.

Ampt

@RobertHarvey Getting into a religious war over testing methods wasn't on today's agenda. Sorry :)

user55340

You should put your ~~private~~ public internal methods in a #reigon so that you know not to touch them with refactoring.

user41796

@MichaelT apparently only non-democratic countries are willing to tolerate the associated and requisite graft that goes along with hosting

Ampt

2:33 PM

Ocean's IOC

user41796

@Ampt - but who is getting fleeced? I suspect it's the host countries themselves...

Ampt

Anyone who pays taxes would be a start

Matt S.

The people living in the host country.

user41796

Brazil demonstrated that FIFA and the World Cup isn't far from having the same sorts of issues.

user55340

@GlenH7 Just wait for Qatar. Its on track to make Brazil look great.

user41796

2:36 PM

@MichaelT The stadium design generated enough chatter, that's true.

user41796

Appalling work conditions are the norm there, and there's an utter contempt for immigrant labor. I am doubtful we'll see much news about the human cost involved in construction.

Ampt

@GlenH7 I think that would depend on what kind of news services you frequent. I'm sure reddit will be aflutter with allegations, there'll probably be a few trending hashtags and maybe CNN will put out a story about the hashtags and gloss over the details of why they exist

user15026

@Ampt This is likely.

user15026

And tumblr will yell things at each other

Ampt

Using gifs

user15026

2:40 PM

In their yelly vaccuum

user55340

@Ampt soccer vs football gifs.

Ampt

@MichaelT "It's Called FUTBOL".gif

user41796

with cats?

Ampt

plenty of those too

user41796

Just skimmed an overview of the bribes involved with the 2022 world cup.

Ampt

2:41 PM

When are we getting an IOC replacement again?

we really ought to make it say (censored) instead of (removed)

maybe even [REDACTED]

user15026

I vote [REDACTED]

Ampt

you're a mod so your vote counts for twice as much, and the rest of us regular's votes count for nothing.

user15026

So basically I win?

user55340

@AshleyNunn hard to tell, your vote is redacted so I can't see what it is.

Ampt

Well since twice of nothing is nothing...

user55340

2:52 PM

That 'why make a function with no parameters' question is oddly rewarding.

user55340

54

A: What is the benefit of a function without parameters which only calls another function

Please pardon my memory if I have this incorrect... Javascript isn't my preferred implementation language. There are several reasons why one would want to have a no arg function wrap another function call. While the simple call to window.alert("Hello"); is something that you could imagine just ...

durron597

Why is it that every single applicant that sends us a code sample sends us 150+ line methods (often this method is main)

i beat myself up over 20 line methods

user41796

@durron597 You missed yesterday's conversation about that subject

user41796

The short answer is that they don't know any better

durron597

I guess the people that are looking for work aren't the people who write clean code

Ampt

2:59 PM

Don't forsake them all

durron597

anyone interested in being a Java programmer in houston?

Ampt

You hear about the recruiter who asked for LAMP devvelopers on github?

durron597

no

user41796

I would be more worried with how they are encapsulating their logic than the length of the function. But that's me

durron597

@GlenH7 if the entire business logic of the application is in main?

well i guess then it's not very encapsulated either :-P

user41796

3:02 PM

Is it less than 8000 lines long?

durron597

yes

user41796

ok, doesn't beat my horror story then. :-D

durron597

someone sent you an 8000 line code sample?

user41796

(waits for that to sink in)

user41796

@durron597 oh ~~hell~~ no. That was production code.

user41796

3:03 PM

I forget how many functions I refactored that in to

user41796

Apologies to anyone that spat out coffee after reading that.

durron597

the winner is still the guy from the stackoverflow thread

that would do things in C# like this.x = this.x

and if you removed the line it would break

because so much other crap happened in the property setter

user41796

Yeah, can't argue there. My IRL stories are comparatively tame in comparison to some of the worst

Robert Harvey

@ampt: programmers.stackexchange.com/a/229773/1204

> There's an if statement that checks the StringSplitOptions enumeration, and runs one of two different methods depending on which StringSplitOptions setting is specified. The two methods are called InternalSplitKeepEmptyEntries and InternalSplitOmitEmptyEntries. They are pretty much two completely different implementations.

durron597

System.err.println( "Theres a gremlin in the server: "+ref.getClass() );`

Robert Harvey

3:08 PM

So yeah, I suppose you can test those from the public API by throwing the switch on the enumeration.

ratchet freak

that is simple enough to just assume it's a black box

Robert Harvey

I'm not so sure that would always be the case.

One day in the future, when everything becomes solid TDD, someone will come along and say "y'now, it would be nice if we could test our internal methods independently of the public API." And a new best practice will be born.

user41796

@RobertHarvey Didn't know about the Telerik product, thanks for mentioning that. I've been having a horrible time figuring out what the RabbitMQ .NET client is (or isn't) doing. I'm going to give that a try.

durron597

Can I just say that a lot of times respected open source projects aren't any better

Robert Harvey

Better than what?

user41796

3:15 PM

durron597

Mmm that was not the best way to phrase what I meant

Many respected open source projects don't encapsulate themselves well and make it difficult to modify, extend, etc.

Specifically, I was trying to figure out a way to easily make a JUnit runner that would allow one to easily use PowerMock and Jukito's features at the same time

but chaining runners is just... not easy.

Robert Harvey

I wonder sometimes if mocking isn't overrated. There are things in ASP.NET MVC that are difficult, if not impossible to mock, and one of ASP.NET's key features is supposed to be testability. Seems to me like it would be better to write code in a way that you could test it without having to write mocks at all.

user41796

There you go being all heretical again...

durron597

Well, the only reason this even came up is that I have a third party class "MyGodObject"

and I wrote a class ConfiguredGodObjectFactory

And the test cases tests that the MyGodObject's methods were called the way they are supposed to be called

but the problem is that MyGodObject is full of final methods so they can't be mocked without PowerMock.

And I'm not really sure how I would test such behavior without using a mock. But if you have ideas, I'm interested.

Robert Harvey

[looks suspiciously at that class name]

user55340

3:24 PM

@RobertHarvey You're right... should be OhMyGodObject

durron597

I probably should have wrapped the MyGodObject in some sort of adapter but this was some of the first code I wrote two years ago and I haven't refactored it yet. Seemed more trouble than it's worth. But maybe not.

user41796

Apropos of nothing, why doesn't SE show when someone is Q or A banned? ie. why is that information restricted to mods+ only?

Robert Harvey

Because if they always showed it, people would figure out how to game it.

user41796

ah, ok. That makes sense

user41796

It's an anti-gaming measure as opposed to a protecting personal information measure.

Robert Harvey

3:36 PM

They show quite prominently when someone is suspended, though they are always vague on the details.

user41796

The rabbitmq .net client is making me feel stupid. (Not hard, I realize) I can't figure out how any code is being executed when a particular function is being called.

ratchet freak

magic

user41796

@RobertHarvey Not explaining the reason why in that case is understandable

user41796

@ratchetfreak certainly seems that way.

Robert Harvey

Hmm, are they using Reflection anywhere?

ratchet freak

3:37 PM

it's what the m stands for ;)

user41796

@RobertHarvey Honestly, I don't know / can't tell. grepping the entire source tree doesn't give any hints with this particular function

Robert Harvey

Let me guess... No code comments either?

user41796

Nope. Trying to find a direct link into their repository to show

Matt S.

@RobertHarvey It's self-documenting

Robert Harvey

And apparently self-running, too.

ratchet freak

3:40 PM

@GlenH7 you could grep for the reflection API?

user41796

hg.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-dotnet-client/file/c7a72d4a6f20/… And look for the BasicNack function

user41796

@ratchetfreak sure, what is it's name again? I don't recall offhand

user41796

Yep, they've got System.Reflection referenced in a number of places.

user41796

Sorry I linked the interface, not the implementation. hg.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-dotnet-client/file/c7a72d4a6f20/…

user55340

Btw, anyone give any thoughts on what could be done with advertisements to meta posts?

user55340

3:52 PM

@RobertHarvey I wonder if you could put an advert to Eric Lippert's "how to debug" posts on SO...

Robert Harvey

4:03 PM

@MichaelT It's already cited in stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask.

(granted, it is a bit buried there)

user55340

@RobertHarvey But no one ever reads help... to have a nice, colorful thing on the side that says "learn how to debug by Eric Lippert of C# fame"...

user55340

4:23 PM

Today's time waster... a wind map. Note, it looks like that 'kitchener' area is trying to steal all our air.

user15026

@MichaelT It's miiiiine you can't have it

user55340

@AshleyNunn I was expecting "and its from Chicago and Columbus?! So that's what I'm smelling..."

user15026

@MichaelT I am in the office, the air gets recycled! I can't smell it :P

user55340

@AshleyNunn just your co-workers exgassings...

user55340

@RobertHarvey The other thing one could do is to make an advert for /review/close

user55340

4:32 PM

See if you could get SE to actually make that a proper campaign that shows up for users with > 3k rep.

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