The Whiteboard

user55340

12:01 AM

user55340

Canada? whats up with that? Pizza and spaghetti icees?

user20683

12:40 AM

looking up the finer points of user agent manipulation while drinking black coffee

user20683

I almost feel like a professional

user55340

@WorldEngineer Admit it... you'd rather be slurping down a pizza slushy right now.

user20683

@MichaelT gag

user55340

@WorldEngineer Can only get them in canada.

user20683

trying to figure out how to make battle.net think I'm using OS X 10.6 so I can get the mac installer to put in wine

user20683

12:42 AM

I own the anthology but I can only get the windows installer and that doesn't work

user20683

and yes, getting windows would solve many problems but I work with what I have

user55340

Do you have access to a windows machine?

user55340

Is it indeed a web request?

user20683

@MichaelT so I've read

user55340

I'd grab a copy of Fiddler if I could, set that up on windows, proxy the mac through fiddler, and see whats being sent.

user55340

12:44 AM

You can also (I think) have fiddler modify the content going out, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

user55340

However, it does make it easier than trying to read tcpdump.

user20683

I know what's being sent as far as my useragent goes

user20683

whatsmyuseragent.com

user55340

Also might want to look at Wireshark for disgnostics ( wireshark.org/download.html )

user55340

12:45 AM

Have you tweaked the develop menu on on Safari?

user20683

@MichaelT I don't use Safari

user20683

working with Firefox

user55340

Told it (on my 10.10.1 system) that I was using Safari 6.2 and that's what I got.

user20683

@MichaelT huh

user20683

12:47 AM

hmm

user55340

If you select 'other' you can do whatever you want there.

user20683

I think I'll see if I can spoof Safari 5

user20683

that should do it

user55340

@WorldEngineer useragentstring.com/pages/Safari

user55340

12:49 AM

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/534.1+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16

user20683

@MichaelT I am but a grasshopper :)

user55340

Thats from years of working tech support. You learn how to look up information quickly

user20683

@MichaelT @AshleyNunn is better at researching that sort of thing than I

user55340

@WorldEngineer more time in a call center likely - similar knowledge base query skills required (even if a different domain)

user20683

@MichaelT Personality thing

user20683

12:54 AM

I've spent 8 years looking up books in a database with often vague requirements

user20683

less research and more blind creativity

user20683

hmm

user20683

didn't work

user20683

on to next option

user20683

@Oxinabox Good Evening

Oxinabox

1:00 AM

morning

user20683

@Oxinabox as an old RPG groupie used to say "It's always morning somewhere"

user20683

in this case, most of Asia and Oceania

Oxinabox

I am about to write a presentation called "Remedial Software Architecture for people with CS degrees".
coving things like Separation of Model from UI.
and Dependency Injection,
and Unit Testing.
but before i do I want to check i am not reinventing the wheel.

anyone know of good tuitorials online for this?

user20683

@Oxinabox not covering all that at once

user20683

I know of a number of books on the subjects

user20683

1:07 AM

I own a good many of them

Oxinabox

Yep, I have a few books too.
but I need to conver a rough enough ersion of the information as fast as I can,
and I can make up for my breivity with handholding as we go.

Robert Harvey

1:32 AM

@JimmyHoffa Is Knockout the JS framework you liked?

psr

1:45 AM

@RobertHarvey It was, unless my memory is really playing tricks on me.

user55340

1:55 AM

@Oxinabox The underlying issue between software engineering and computer science is delivery of the product. Computer science teaches you about how to write code. The structure of algorithms. Various patterns for solving problems and a fair bit of theory to boot.

user55340

But the software architecture you're mentioning there is more of the 'how to deliver code and respond to change in the requirements and enviroments'

user55340

Computer science doesn't worry about dev, stage, or production. But thats a key concept when you get into the 'real world'. That then leads you to DI (use it to describe logging DI structures and database connectivity). You don't want to build three copies of the app - you want one, that you tell it where it is and behaves appropriately.

user55340

The computer scientist writes code, hands it in... or uses it in a paper and then throws it away or never looks at it again. But that is rare in the 'real world'. That brings us to maintaining the code that is written. How do we know the code we wrote today didn't break what John wrote last year.

user55340

Automated unit tests are the approach there. And then pull in the bit about DI to allow you to show how to mock a database connection.

user55340

But people are lazy (its the first of the three virtues of a programmer - Laziness, Impatience and Hubris).

user55340

2:02 AM

And so you want to make sure you have those tests that you have to make sure you didn't break John's code (John wrote them - he doesn't like people saying "your code broke when I changed something" so he wrote the tests so you can run them) run frequently. This brings us to CI servers.

user55340

From that material I am sure that you could do a 30 minute, 45 minute (with 15 minutes for Q&A) or 60 minute presentation. Break it up into thirds and go into as much detail as you want to fill out the time.

Oxinabox

@MichaelT I agree 100%. That is basically what I was going to do/say.

I am just looking to see if anyone has said them already to save myself the time.

user55340

You should probably write the presentation yourself. The time saving on getting someone else's would be lost when you're up there doing it and not as familiar with the train of thought.

user55340

Giving someone else's presentation is hard.

user55340

And then there's the language choice too. Do you want to do it in ruby? or Java? or C#? or...

Oxinabox

2:08 AM

I wasn't going to give someone elses presentation, I was going to link to it online.

user15026

2:44 AM

Tonight, I got to drink a great local beer inside a library. :D

user55340

@RobertHarvey Fun times for naming over in MSO (if you haven't seen already):

user55340

5

Q: Is it OK to ask for a "word-choice" on SO?

Sometimes I need to name a database table or a class or just a variable but I'm unable to find a descriptive name which can be easily understood by others. Obviously, a more general or a well-known term fit better with what I have in my mind. Is it OK to ask for a word-choice (as in English Lan...

user55340

2

Q: Are "What is this thing called?" questions on-topic for SO?

In a recent question on SO, the user was asking for the proper name for a concept, so that they could further research the topic (on their own). We all know how difficult it is to search for something when you don't even know what it is called. My initial feeling is that this is more suited to S...

discussion scope

user55340

I do a fair bit of wholesale copy of other meta answers (including yours from old MSO) in:

user55340

0

A: Are "What is this thing called?" questions on-topic for SO?

From old MSO (now MSE): What is the appropriate / preferred method for questions concerning programming nomenclature? Robert Harvey says thus: "What is the name of this thing" questions are off-topic on both Stack Overflow and Programmers. These are poor questions for the same reasons...

overexchange

3:08 AM

hai

good morning

@MichaelT as you said here: The underlying issue between software engineering and computer science is delivery of the product so why don't the industry people come up with their courses on courseera/Edx for fundamentals and practices of s/w engg by completing a good mock software product so that people like us can learn this experience.

or do you think we already have such courses available?

user55340

3:27 AM

@overexchange The problem is its really hard to teach that. Those are things you learn by doing. Its hard enough to explain the use of a hash table when the assignment can clearly use it. But the process of doing something? That's a bit harder.

overexchange

oh ok

user55340

Why use source control? or unit testing? or continuous integration? or DI at all? You can write lots of good software without it... but you have trouble wiring big software without it.

user55340

Its one thing for "here's a few hundred (if that) lines of code needed for this assignment." Its quite another for "here's a few tens of thousands of lines of code - make these changes and don't break anything."

user55340

I worked on some code... the entire project was 1.4M source lines of code (ignoring comments and lines with '}' or '{' on their own). 1.4 million lines of code.

user55340

I worked on the receipt printing. There were functions there that were longer than anything I ever wrote in college. It was the wrong way of doing it too... but a function with 1000 if(token.equalsIgnoreCase("foo")) { ... } else if (token.equalsIgnoreCase("bar") {... } for 1000x different "foo"s and "bar"s.

user55340

3:31 AM

Now, make a change... and don't break anything.

user55340

Its something you only really learn by doing... and breaking.

user55340

I spent a good month going through figuring out how parts of that code worked... and then writing debugging routines for it. Something of that scope would be too large to do in a few weeks in college.

overexchange

i do this job of: here's a few tens of thousands of lines of code - make these changes and don't break anything.

product i work for has 5000 files including c/java works on IMT technology

but what is the remedy for people like me who just make the code change for existing code base but does not do from-scratch dev

can't the online training courses have virtual office hours that can make experience thisrocess?

user55340

How long has it taken you to become familiar with the large code base?

user55340

And how much are you willing to pay what would be the equivalent of the sr developer walking you through the code?

overexchange

3:40 AM

without training and knowledge transfer from somebody, using runtime debugging i self learnt 10-15% of the product design in 1 month(day&night)

i started from database design and analysed using some reverse engg tools. i think somebody needs to just say the which functionality is sitting where and what technologies are involved(like servlet using CORBA or java swing sending htttp request something like that) rest of the stuff will be available on internet to learn

it has been 3 months am into this product-basically for making code changes initially and then intorduce new features after proving my skills

currently am working on an issue, where doPost(fetch alist of chocolate names) from java swing creates a hang at servlet code, because servlet just forwards this request to business module on other server using CORBA. servlet blocks on CORBA calls and hang's due to size of data about chocolate names): if list size is small then things work fine.

user55340

@overexchange imagine the time commitment for a class where you have to just study the code all day for a month before you can start making competent changes to it.

user55340

Also, consider... is there a way to automatically grade DI? or unit testing? or CI use? or code reviews?

user55340

You might claim "coverage" for unit testing... but I've seen unit testing code written that had 100% coverage but lacked a single assert statement that would make anything fail (that was fun fixing).

overexchange

am learning testing from lecture 10 of this course and infact you get the fruit of it if you start apply it in real time. generally developers feel lazy about it and throw it on code reviewer.

sorry, what is DI?

user55340

3:56 AM

dependency injection.

overexchange

i heard about it, but am still at basics of java and oops as you already know. so no idea, may be will wait for right time

currently am at lecture 11 of this course cs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/61bf06 and currently going thru joshua bloch book on java, because this book looks very interesting

am also preparing an OOPS document on what i chat with you and Matt here, so that my friends can also learn. this will be available on github for reference in future

i told about your perception on OOPS concept to my friends yesterday evening who worked for 10 years in IT support and were bit excited to listen more on it.

github.com/shamhub/books/blob/master/oops.txt need to format it later. for me this is a gold mine with whatever knowledge i have. am not sure if anybook teach like this

i had one query on http doPost() request-response architecture written in java, can i ask?

user55340

A fair bit of it is the old adage "those who can't do, teach". And its kind of true in some respects. There are a lot of teachers out there who haven't ever dealt with 'real' code. Many professors, while they've been in the industry from time to time - they don't always get the software engineering side of the world (they're over in R&D coming up with new file systems and locking for the next generation of database).

user55340

4:11 AM

@overexchange ask away... though doPost() harkens back to servlets. Not bad, just not modern.

user55340

You'll see things like:

user55340

    /**
     * <p>Deletes a person.</p>
     *
     * <p>Expected HTTP POST and request '/person/delete'.</p>
     */
    @RequestMapping(value="/person/delete", method=RequestMethod.POST)
    public String delete(Person person) {
        repository.delete(person);

        return SEARCH_VIEW_KEY;
    }

user55340

more often now - and that grabs the request to the given path for the post method.

overexchange

it is a 3 layer arch, layer1-javaswing places doPost(object of type Searchcriteria), where object encapsulates string like fetch list of city names or fetch list of animal names(say). layer3 is the module(c/c++) that has berkeleydb that stores this info of city/animal etc...

layer2 java servlet acts as proxy that receives the doPost() request and forwards to layer3 using CORBA IDL

user55340

I can't quite say that I can see that architecture at this time (and its 10:20 pm for me)

overexchange

4:20 AM

ok

client sends doPost() request and servlet hangs as it forwarded that request and got hang at CORBA api

so i need to first send the request for getting the soze of the list and then if the size is normal then get the actual list

do u think statemaintenance at different layers is safe?

state mean based on the value of size of list decisions need to be taken to avoid hang

i understand am actually not atcking the problem and looking for workaround

if you are not clear with above just ignore

@MichaelT which company do you work for?

oh it is 10:20 PM? which side of the world are you in?

user55340

MichaelT, Eau Claire, WI

33.4k 13 80 121

java algorithms programming-languages licensing object-oriented design c++

user55340

WI is for Wisconsin.

user55340

Eau Claire itself is at the 'W' of the 'Wisconsin' label.

overexchange

i got it from your profile

my brother is joining CMU in US next year. he is moving out from europe

once you join in a new job, will you get time for joing this chat room?

i try manage to come here in office time as well

user55340

4:37 AM

@overexchange I'll see what I can do. I suspect that working for the state may be a bit more beurocratic than other places and restricting on connections. Its one thing to check the main site on occasion... its another to have a persistence web socket open.

overexchange

ok

it is weekend morning here.

user55340

Anyways... quarter to 11pm now. Sleep.

overexchange

good night

Robert Harvey

5:37 AM

I have a one hour presentation to give next week called "How to become a software architect in 30 minutes or less", but I don't know anything about it yet. Do you know of any good tutorials?

Sheesh.

On another note, do you think coloring my graying hair and whitening my teeth will improve my chances of landing a software development position?

I already go to the gym 4 times a week now.

And I have a pretty good tan.

Maybe I could go for a whole new look... Perhaps something like this:

gnat

2:01 PM

43

Q: Is there any evidence that drugs can actually help programmers produce "better" code?

I just read this quote from Steve Jobs: "Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." Also a quote from that article: He was hardly alone among computer scientists in his appreciation of hallucinogenics and their capacity to liberate human thought f...

history

^^^ any 10Kers around to take care of it?

gnat

2:14 PM

This is general programers lounge isn't it? — Roman Toasov 1 min ago

wow. Just... wow

Ampt

3:45 PM

@RobertHarvey I... uh.. could use that information too, thanks.

@gnat Sometimes you just gotta laugh

@MichaelT Woe be the CS program that blocks stackexchange.com...

user55340

6:18 PM

@Ampt would make it harder for the professors to search for it. Would frustrate no end of students until they got home. And then there's academia.se that is related to the questions that grad students and professors might ask about non-cs.

Stack Exchange

6:36 PM

Lambda the Ultimate - Programming Languages Weblog: Zélus : A Synchronous Language with ODEs

posted on November 22, 2014

Zélus : A Synchronous Language with ODEs Timothy Bourke, Marc Pouzet 2013 Zélus is a new programming language for modeling systems that mix discrete logical time and continuous time behaviors. From a user's perspective, its main originality is to extend an existing Lustre-like synchronous language with Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). The extension is conservative: any synchronou…

Stack Exchange

8:36 PM

Ars Technica » Stack Exchange: Why is polling accepted in Web development?

posted on November 22, 2014 by Stack Exchange

For real-time communication, polling works.

Robert Harvey

9:17 PM

@ArsTechnica: That's your tag line? "For real-time communication, polling works?"

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