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Shahar
Shahar
12:02 AM
you used a goto statement
.tmp files don't automatically get deleted right? Only if I have a cron job correct?
 
user55340
12:53 AM
@Shahar Depends on the way you created them.
 
user55340
 
user41796
2:09 AM
I think we ought to open a community wiki question of "What language should I learn next?" We'll put one, and only one, answer in there of "Haskell." Which is a big "duh" or "natch" depending upon your preferred slang.

We'll then have Jimmy and whoever else pontificate at length in order to fill out the answer. Of course, we'll have to close it as OT -> What language next.

But we can use that as the canonical close as duplicate question for all future "What language next?" questions.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
2:19 AM
I see what you did there.
 
user20683
We could do a survey of ridiculous length of what language should you learn next and then list and add resources for every conceivable language that someone might want to learn.
 
user20683
We could even drag game theory into the mix and see if it has any applications to language selection
 
user41796
3:19 AM
@WorldEngineer But then @AshleyNunn would whinge at us for encroaching upon her turf. :-)
 
user15026
@GlenH7 Nah, we do video games, not game theory (pretty sure that is a proposal somewhere....) so he can have his crazy survey
 
user20683
3:43 AM
@GlenH7 That would be Gaming Theory (seriously that's the actual distinction).
 
atomSmasher
atomSmasher
4:17 AM
any ARM programmers in?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
5:06 AM
I program using my arms.
3
 
 
1 hour later…
Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange
6:14 AM
The Codeless Code: Case 156: The Garden Path
posted on August 03, 2014

Master Suku and her novices had come to a town that Suku knew from her youth. The day was hot, and all four travellers were parched. “Young monk”, said Suku to one of her novices. “Fetch us some water from the well at the foot of this hill, and I will tell you of my youth in this place.” When the monk had done this, and all four had drunk their fill, Suku said: “In this town I was pr…

 
 
9 hours later…
user55340
2:54 PM
My close vote expired back in October on this one...
 
user55340
1
Q: Is there a module for writing low level code on Python?

DokkatCan you manipulate bits and memory directly using Python? If yes, wouldn't that be a best option to dealing with performance-critical spots than C bindings?

python performance optimization
 
user55340
Is it possible we could get some people to kick it back through and close it this time?
 
Ampt
Ampt
that's 1
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
3:29 PM
Well, you've kinda asked two different questions here. Does syntax highlighting aid new learners? It can, especially given the sheer breadth of libraries and classes available to them in modern IDE's. Does syntax highlighting assist typing? Undoubtedly. Gone are the days when you could memorize everything you needed to know. But the new learner should know the basics without intellisense. They should be able to code up a small program in a basic text editor and compile/execute it, which is why resources like Learn C the Hard Way exist. — Robert Harvey 4 mins ago
 
amon
amon
3:49 PM
Syntax highlighting
Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming or scripting, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms. This feature facilitates writing in a structured language such as a programming language or a markup language as both structures and syntax errors are visually distinct. Highlighting does not affect the meaning of the text itself; it is intended only for human readers. Syntax highlighting is a form of secondary notation, since the highlights are not part of the text meaning...
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Yes, I know.
 
Ampt
Ampt
I have way too many emails... ugh.
i want to just do a giant delete all but I know that somewhere in the 15,000 emails is something actually important
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt haha how many do you get a day?
have you actually gotten assigned towards any tasks or projects yet?
 
Ampt
Ampt
oh no, this is my personal gmail. It doesn't help that I redirected every email from my school to gmail
my work email I've been staying on top of
and no, but I'm talking to my Staffing Manager today
I may get trained on another system
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt AS/400
You are so screwed
 
Ampt
Ampt
3:55 PM
AS/400?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
you're going to be stuffed in the back of a dusty old bank office with improper ventilation bound to an AS/400 console cranking out 100f temps as you're sweating RPG into the machine day in and out. It's going to be awesome. Watch them batch jobs, have fun!
 
Ampt
Ampt
lol, no, another web dev system. It's built on C# instead of Java
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
oh sorry, that's just some kind of software torture fantasy. Weird.
 
Ampt
Ampt
which, really, means I'm screwed
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt har har, I thought you knew C# better than Java, dreamspark 'n all 'at?
 
Ampt
Ampt
3:57 PM
@JimmyHoffa F no hahaha. I had a subscription through my school, but we were definitely a Java shop
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
or did you just do it for the free VS and never actually touched C#?
oh
well
 
Ampt
Ampt
I played with it to try and make windows Apps and then got bored because it was stupidly complex
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
You'll feel like you're writing Java, but every now and then you'll look for a solution to a problem and find something far more concise than Java provides. that's the long and the short of it
 
Ampt
Ampt
When do I start babbling about monads?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
outside of those small shortcuts they're the same language
 
Ampt
Ampt
3:58 PM
yeah that's what I gathered.
I'm not for sure doing it yet though
so who knows
she's the staffing manager for like 100+ people, and she also manages projects. Great job security, but its hard as hell to get a hold of her
So here on the bench I doth rest my rear
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt so what's the story with that then, I take it you're supposed to basically sharpen your skills constantly while you warm the bench or are their other instructions for you in that regard?
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa Sharpen my skills mostly. I have a system I'm 'aligned' to, but there aren't any projects open for it right now, and if there are, we have other low level employees filling those rolls
I've been playing with backbone and node mostly
I may or may not end up on a project using the system I was trained/aligned to, so I'm just keeping it diverse
AKA doing whatever holds my interest for the day
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt pfah -> like I said before, don't bother with Backbone. It really doesn't do shit. Go play with something useful like knockout, angular, mustache, etc one of the things that can actually provide value to a web app
As for node, have you got your head wrapped around the whole continuation passing style it's based on?
 
Ampt
Ampt
blah blah blah. We use backbone for apps round here, so I'm learning it
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt oh you do?
sorry
 
Ampt
Ampt
4:06 PM
Eh, the Front end Devs use it mostly
as for node, I've just barely dug into it
I used it to run an in-house project setup app called yeogurt
one of my buddies made it
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Continuation-passing style
In functional programming, continuation-passing style (CPS) is a style of programming in which control is passed explicitly in the form of a continuation. Gerald Jay Sussman and Guy L. Steele, Jr. coined the phrase in AI Memo 349 (1975), which sets out the first version of the Scheme programming language. John C. Reynolds gives a detailed account of the numerous discoveries of continuations. A function written in continuation-passing style takes an extra argument: an explicit "continuation" i.e. a function of one argument. When the CPS function has computed its result value, it "returns" it by...
^-- read that before bothering with Node, it's the entire basis for Node
 
Ampt
Ampt
gives you a prompt for different frameworks/css/test suites and automatically sets up the project structure for you
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
and it's not complex or anything
@Ampt something based on yeoman I presume
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa you got it
err
wrong link haha
that ones right
so... continuation just means that instead of returning to the caller, you go to an arbitrary function with your result
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
the java example is more telling
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
4:11 PM
aye well, if you want to learn something of Node - understand that simple fact about how it's non-blocking IO works and requires you to work in 'continuation passing style' -> it's easy but you find very little references to it around Node.JS stuff it seems as most stuff written in Node.JS are from front-end folks who don't dig into the fundamentals underlying it much... the other day I had to show that article to a fellow here trying to learn Node and wasn't understanding the 'next' functions
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
but it's kind of the basis of doing anything in a event based architecture
when you are done post an event saying so
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ratchetfreak not necessarily
 
Ampt
Ampt
so do you ever return anything in a continuation-style passing call?
or should you always set results with another function
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
well if you are stuck in a event loop then you need to post events to not block the loop
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
CPS is all about demanding your devs write explicit coroutines as opposed to runtimes that allow implicit coroutines such as Haskell and Erlang
 
Ampt
Ampt
4:15 PM
also, to answer your question from friday @JimmyHoffa, I feel that one of the big problems with JS is that it's too loose. There aren't a lot of enforced structures, which means that you often are nesting things all over the place. Define an object in the middle of a callback? Why not. Put all of your JS at the bottom of your index.html? Go for it. Want to nest callbacks 20 levels deep? Awesome!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt think about it this way: at a low level 'return' just means: set a register with your return value, and go to another function on the stack. CPS asks you do the same thing except you have to manually set that return value by stuffing the value into some place it'll be accessible by the next function you go to. Also it's key that if your function or anything below your function does IO, your function will need to demand a continuation in it's sig
 
Ampt
Ampt
Coupled with the fact that a lot of the front end devs doing it feel free to do any or all of those things makes reading and modifying the code a serious nightmare
 
user55340
@Ampt Ahh... good ole AIX and Pains.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
understanding even the basics of CPS would help so many people that struggle with async stuff
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt that last note you just mentioned is often referred to as 'arrow coding' and is one of the first things that people need to avoid in Node.JS, CPS breeds arrow coding if you don't name and structure your functions before declaring their execution chain by calling them and chaining their continuations
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
4:17 PM
I mean the standard answer in Qt is almost always "add a signal-slot connection for the return value"
 
Ampt
Ampt
is it wrong to feel like these CPS functions are similar to goto?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ratchetfreak yeah, it really should be more well known, unfortunate how timeless things age out of the collective conciousness to an extent sometimes - CPS is a timeless concept, but because research regarding it finished in the 70's and there's nothing new to really learn from it it's just faded away except for the few who do things like come up with Node.JS
@Ampt Nope.
 
user55340
@Ampt once you realize that everything is a goto, you will be much more at ease with coding.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
it does tend to feel a bit all over the place
 
Ampt
Ampt
@MichaelT I get that, it's just that you're basically telling your function explicitly where to go next
 
user55340
4:20 PM
> Mel's job was to re-write
the blackjack program for the RPC-4000.
(Port? What does that mean?)
The new computer had a one-plus-one
addressing scheme,
in which each machine instruction,
in addition to the operation code
and the address of the needed operand,
had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum,
the next instruction was located.

In modern parlance,
every single instruction was followed by a GO TO!
Put that in Pascal's pipe and smoke it.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt just remember: you'll get to a point where you're writing a function and confused about how to return and realize -> you forget to demand a continuation in your sig, once you put that in your sig you just call it like you would return.
 
user55340
I bet Mel would have loved it... well, if it had a rotating drum.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt which is the same thing as a return. But to cede control of where you go next to your caller just as a return does (being synchronous it just goes to the next line in the callers function) you have to accept the continuation on your sig so your caller can decide what the next line of code is after your function finishes
@MichaelT I could totally see Mel loving CPS... heh
 
Ampt
Ampt
so everything just has a callback
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
synchronousFunc = function() {
  console.log('step 2'); return; // step 3 is the next line
}
arr = function() {
  console.log('step 1');
  synchronousFunc();
  console.log('step 3');
}
 
Ampt
Ampt
4:25 PM
I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or if it's that simple...
 
user55340
There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses -- Bjarne Stroustrup
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
asynchronousFunc = function(continuation) {
  console.log('step 2'); continuation(); // step 3 is the next line
}
arr = function() {
  console.log('step 1');
  asynchronousFunc(function() {
    console.log('step 3');
  });
}
@Ampt you're missing something: everything that's asynchronous has a callback
@Ampt in Node.JS what is synchronous and what is asynchronous?
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa I thought in node.js Everything was Asynch?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt Nope. Only IO operations.
Node.JS is chrome's javascript runtime with some C interoperability built in so that people can create IO operations in C and make them runnable by Node.JS -> remember, chrome's javascript runtime doesn't have facilities for all kinds of IO operations by default
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Well, and an asynchronous servicing loop.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
4:29 PM
@RobertHarvey yeah but that just muddies the waters, that's an implementation detail
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
A detail that many people seem to get wrong.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
The trick of Node.JS is when it calls to one of those C libs to do some IO like network, disk, or database access etc, it send's the task to the background to the OS while it executes, and calls your callback after it's done -> so all of those interopped IO operations are asynchronous
@RobertHarvey yes but it's not necessary to know until you start doing more advanced stuff. Just understanding that IO operations are asynchronous/non-blocking is enough in 95% of scenarios.
@Ampt so if you make everything use callbacks, you'll have tons of simple JavaScript functions that don't do anything but string manipulation or other simple synchronous stuff which have unnecessary complexity. Only if your function calls IO, or calls something that calls IO does it need a continuation. And if your function is providing the continuation for the IO operation it's calling then it doesn't need to cede control to it's caller as it is deciding itself responsible for
what happens after the IO operation finishes
 
psr
psr
5:15 PM
20
Q: The Stack'O'Mounts

eimyrThis is an exercise in ridiculousness, but I find it quite fun to consider - hence powergaming. Let's consider three characters: a gnomish cavalier (small) with his wolf mount (medium), half-orc druid (medium) and druid's companion, a gorilla (large). I remember the rules saying that the rider...

pathfinder rules-as-written powergaming
 
user55340
@MetaFight on your requirements and agile question... while its not off topic here, I suspect you might get some better answers to it if you flagged it for migration to ProjectManagement.SE.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
I dunno. I browsed that SE a bit in the past and I didn't find any of the Agile/Scrum questions or answers particularly insightful.
It was just a glance, though. I'll look into it again.
 
user55340
I'd lay that more on the bland questions than the answers..
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
What prevents you from simply improving your requirements gathering process?
 
user55340
Consider also that the 'lets migrate it over there' would garner eyeballs from both sites for a little while, so you won't miss out on the people who can give good answers here.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
5:24 PM
Man, I have a hard time expressing myself ;)
I don't think there's anything wrong with our requirement's gathering process. The requirements are found, and documented into Stories.
My concern is how to read through a long list of Stories (some of which supersede others) years after they were written and long after the original team has gone.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Then what is the problem, exactly? Feature drift?
Well, requirements are like any other living document. They need to be kept up to date. This is especially true with Agile.
If you're expecting documentation artifacts to naturally arise out of the Agile process, I'm not sure that's a realistic expectation.
Good documentation is written.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
If it is known that your product will be in production for a long time, and that development might span many years and many teams with large gaps in between... how do you deal with that?
@RobertHarvey I guess I'm hoping that through discussion such a mechanism might become more obvious.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Firstly, by understanding that documentation is not an afterthought.
You start by writing code that is easily discoverable, understandable and, to the largest extent possible, self-documenting.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
exactly. Man do I ever go on and on about discoverable code/functionality.
I rant a lot to my dev buddies about the importance of discoverability :)
but that only benefits coders.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
You still need a User Guide.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
5:29 PM
that would help, yes.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
The user guide, if written correctly, states what the program is supposed to do (it's mission statement), and describes all of the features, how to use them, and how it benefits them.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
I've never seen an up-to-date user guide though ;) But in my hypothetical scenario it would be easy to have one.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
That's the whole "documentation is an afterthought" thing. No non-trivial program is ever completely self-describing, no matter how clever the programmers are.
Good human/computer interaction is hard.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
I was talking to a BA friend of mine who was trying stay on top of documentation by storing all his requirements in a spreadsheet. He had a hierarchy of Business Requirement > Feature > UI (optional) > Acceptance Criteria.
his system wasn't perfect, but it got me thinking about requirements management. and how storing acceptance criteria against User Stories doesn't really make much sense.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
That's essentially how we do it, though we could be better at it. Good requirements are tied to some acceptance criteria, so that you can declare success.
I'm currently reading this book:
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
5:33 PM
Yeah, I think I'll take a look at that one.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
It's an excellent book. I found out right away how much I didn't know about requirements gathering.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
Like you said, good requirements are tied to some AC. And, as a developer, I like checking if I've meet my requirements by coding tests against AC. Another thing I wish was more concrete was the link between coded AC tests and their requirements.
@RobertHarvey neat. I'll see if my boss will buy it for us.
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
Hey
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
@RobertHarvey if you don't mind me asking, where do you work?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
NASA
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
5:40 PM
really? neat ;)
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Well, a NASA contractor, actually. But I have a NASA email address, and I work at a NASA facility. I write software that nobody uses. :)
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
Using Python, how can I get a input of a date in a certain form ( IE Month Day Year OR DAY MONTH YEAR ) using i = str(raw_input())?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@ChrisOkyen docs.python.org/2/library/… seems to be relevant.
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
@RobertHarvey Who cares if people use your software when you have a @nasa.gov email address??
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
NASA = NOT A STRAIGHT ANSWER
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
5:44 PM
My first project was cancelled (overcome by events), and the second one was a one-time thing. Here's hoping that the third one's the charm.
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
Government funded lies
by the Carnegie Endowment Fund and the Ford Foundation
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
You must be one of those "we never went to the moon" truthers.
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
No, I am a common sense truther
Anyway thanks
@RobertHarvey it was a great link but directing me to a page and not telling me what I am looking for may do more harm than good.
does controlling the order of different inputs go deeper than the date object itself
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
The description says "Returns a datetime corresponding to date_string, parsed according to format."
Isn't that what you want?
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
classmethod datetime.strptime(date_string, format)¶
YES!
Thank you Sir!!!
 
MetaFight
MetaFight
5:56 PM
Chris, you're bonkers.
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
Ok
So I could ask the user if they want the format to be day month year or month day year and then based on that if it was day month year I would do dt = datetime.strptime("raw_input(),raw_input(),raw_input()", "%d/%m/%y")
@RobertHarvey is that how I would do it>
is that how it would be implemented
seems to work
 
Ampt
Ampt
6:13 PM
@RobertHarvey you work... for... nasa?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
A NASA contractor.
 
Ampt
Ampt
Still turning green with envy over here
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
It's a nice place to work. Can't deny that.
 
user55340
... which can mean anything from "I play with core memory" to "I was Randall Munroe's secretary"
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Usually at the same time.
 
Ampt
Ampt
6:15 PM
Is your software in space?
 
user55340
"Kids these days... you think your ruby or node is so special... when I programmed, it was with rope memory... and patches were literally slices of copper wire... and we liked it that way. Get off my lawn."
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
We have ground systems and control rooms here. So no, not in space. The data for my current project comes from on-board flight recorders.
We do mostly below-space aeronautics research here.
Although Dream Chaser was here for awhile.
SOFIA flies fairly high to get above most of the atmosphere, from what I understand.
 
Ampt
Ampt
Thats so freakin cool
well if you're ever looking to offload some tickets to space, you should just send them my way. I'm sure those come across your desk all the time haha
@ChrisOkyen doesn't look right to me
 
user55340
 
Ampt
Ampt
ugh yes. That module would be me
SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
6:24 PM
confused about somebody bothering @RobertHarvey with a python question
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@JimmyHoffa Those moon landing truthers do the strangest things.
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
"doesn't look right to me" @Ampt ???
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt don't get too green, remember the amount of red-tape and law-of-the-letter culture you find in working on any super-critical software like aeronautical software
 
user55340
@RobertHarvey like refuse to watch myth busters... I mean, who would refuse to watch myth busters?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
6:27 PM
this is giving me the error Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 13, in <module>
File "/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", line 270, in <module>
_TimeRE_cache = TimeRE()
File "/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", line 188, in __init__
self.locale_time = LocaleTime()
File "/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", ...
http://pastebin.com/UeKkRH1f
 
user55340
@ChrisOkyen Have you tried asking in the SO python room?
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
@MichaelT nope
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey yes I've seen that article before
 
user55340
 
Ampt
Ampt
@ChrisOkyen Ah, that makes sense
 
psr
psr
6:29 PM
@RobertHarvey NASA would just use Haskell, but it would have caught that the lunar landing was a fake at compile time.
3
 
user55340
Just a quick glance at the people in the room, I see Java EE, Functional, MUMPS, C#, Perl, Sr. Intern... no python coders at all. And even then, we're not paticuarlly "debug specific code" here.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
> It may not be sexy, it may not be a coding ego-trip -- but it is the future of software
 
Ampt
Ampt
I do python as well. Well, I did
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
I disagree
 
Ampt
Ampt
@MichaelT Also, did you just label me as Sr. Intern :P
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
6:30 PM
It is hyper-critical systems software development
 
user41796
@Ampt You're getting quicker...
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
it is not the "future" of development
 
Ampt
Ampt
@GlenH7 That's Mr. Sock Puppet to you
 
user41796
Whateva
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@JimmyHoffa Probably some journalist who doesn't understand that most software is (to a greater or lesser degree) duct tape and chewing gum, and always will be.
 
Ampt
Ampt
6:32 PM
> John Munson, a software engineer and professor of computer science at the University of Idaho, is not quite so generous. "Cave art," he says. "It's primitive. We supposedly teach computer science. There's no science here at all."
wut
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey the "future" of development is only increased releases with shorter cycles as people who have the money to pay for development teams continue trying to increase profits. That same more-faster mentality that has driven release cycles from yearly to semi-yearly to quarterly all the way down to biweekly being common in industry now compared to 20 years ago
@RobertHarvey yes.
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
I haven't programmed in almost a year and it feels good to come back
It is like bam you don't forget a whole bunch
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt Haskell is hording all the science and people are still too scared of it.
;P
 
user55340
@Ampt Btw, could also pull out "Benny" from The Lego Movie...
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
...everything is awesome....
 
Ampt
Ampt
6:33 PM
@ChrisOkyen it looks like you're parsing the time incorrectly for the string you're putting it in
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
damnit. My wife got that song stuck in my head this weekend...lovely...
 
Chris Okyen
Chris Okyen
@Ampt line?
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa EVERYTHING IS COOL WHEN YOU'RE PART OF A TEAM!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt ...I should just turn that on when I sit down in the morning and see how much of a day I can work through with that.
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa You just gotta follow the instructions man!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
6:36 PM
@Ampt it's my job to write them :(
we are all so totally screwed.
 
user55340
 
user55340
I remember when I got that set...
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa you're a lego master builder??
Why does everyone get the cool jobs
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt give yourself some years, you don't expect to go straight from warming bench straight out of college to He-Man Master of The Universe in 6 months unless you invent the real-world montage
 
Ampt
Ampt
seriously though, you write lego instructioins?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
6:42 PM
which I encourage you to invent, we could all use a real-world montage once in a while
Poll of the day: If you could have a real-world montage, what would be the result?
I'd be an expert at knife-throwing.
 
user55340
Btw, one more close vote please: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/252273/…
 
Oded
Oded
Sure thing
 
user55340
@Oded well, when you do it...
 
Oded
Oded
;)
 
Ampt
Ampt
Dang mods are takin our jobs!
 
user41796
6:49 PM
@Ampt hush you
 
bukzor
bukzor
should I have put this on meta.programmers? meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267700/…
 
user55340
1
Q: Where can I ask about CompSci research methods?

bukzorI asked this question several months ago: Title: What is a reasonable way to find canonical books? I see dozens of questions of the form 'Is there a canonical book on {topic here}?'. My question is different. What are some reasonable ways to go about answering this kind of question f...

discussion support
 
user55340
@bukzor Note that we've got the same close reason as SO for book requests... its something we've had trouble with in the past (though not to the degree that SO does).
 
user55340
You might try asking in CS.SE... however I'll put the caveat with that I'm not sure how well it would go over there.
 
bukzor
bukzor
@MichaelT I tried quite hard to make it not a request for books, but a request for methods to generate reading lists
 
user55340
6:52 PM
The reason I say CS is that first, you're asking about CS Research - which tends to be more their domain than ours (or SO)... and also as a beta site, they tend to be a bit more lax on their standards for what is allowed.
 
user55340
12
A: How Do I Determine the Value of a Technical book?

MichaelTThe majority of the tech books out there are hopping onto a particular bandwagon. With the rate of change of technology (frameworks, languages, cloud applications, fads of the day), many tech authors write poorly done books trying to get them out there to be sold to the masses who are following ...

 
user55340
Know the names to look for, and get those. Find books purchased by people who get those books, and consider them.
 
bukzor
bukzor
that's a quite different question: given a book, how relevant is it
 
user55340
Also I find that a book subscription service such as Safari Books allows you to look at lots of books.
 
user55340
> The first thing to look at is that if the book was written a few years ago and is still in bookstores today, it likely is not something that will not be in a bookstore next year (double negatives are fun).

Books such as The Mythical Man Month, Programming Pearls, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, and The Art of Computer Programming have been around for decades and are still good reading for a programmer. Having a "second edition" would be a good thing when looking at technology books because it means that its lasted long enough that some parts of it need upd…
 
bukzor
bukzor
6:54 PM
@MichaelT thank you but i'm not seeking an answer to the question, but a home for it
i note your linked question isn't closed, nor deleted
@MichaelT: I'm very much tempted to repost the question as is..
 
user55340
What you don't see is a deleted answer that links to another book list... or for that matter, our history of deleted book lists.
 
user55340
Given that its CS, I think you would have better luck at CS.SE rather than P.SE
 
bukzor
bukzor
the answers to my question were not book lists, but helpful methods and resources for finding prominent works
tangential question: is there any way at all to recover the answers to that question?
i tried data.stackexchange to no avail
 
user55340
There is a very different world between Computer Science and industry programmers... and while we may be familiar with it... we're more the car mechanics that keeps the stuff running than the people designing new engines. We're more interested in Popular Mechanics than science papers about material science.
 
user55340
(related: see that whole thing about the ACM and why people aren't joining it now days)
 
bukzor
bukzor
6:58 PM
While I can agree, I feel that it's best practice to broaden my learning periodically
^ on recovering the answers
especially given i don't actually have a CS degree
 
user55340
 
user55340
If you're interested in the theory consider trying to redirect your question to CS.SE.
 
user55340
At least three of your five topics are ones that are limey better addressed in CS (language design, static analysis methods, provable correct systems).
 
bukzor
bukzor
@MichaelT: note i only added those topics at the moderators request
I'd much rather keep it a general how-to question
 
user55340
You can try, though you need to keep it very, very far away from asking for book recommendations. Book recommendations will get closed rather quickly.
 
user55340
7:06 PM
The "What is the canonical book for ${topic}" will get closed too.
 
user55340
Note that your question, as it was written originally was too broad. ( programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/221451/… - 10k link). It is still too broad as it is written.
 
user55340
The answers from it:
 
user55340
> If the thing you are searching for is a programming language, library, framework or methodology, then there will likely be a community trying to promote this thing. The website will most likely have a “learn more” section which lists books. The books and websites listed there will be more canonical than a random book on Amazon.
As an extension of the previous point: If the thing was invented or written by somebody, there might exist a book by the same person(s). Such books will likely be considered most canonical. Likewise if the author is highly regarded in the surrounding community.
 
user55340
> It depends on what kind of topic you're looking for. For example, to find a canonical book on Erlang, I would check http://www.erlang.org/, click on Documentation, and find the list of books on the right. The one authored by the creator of the programming language (Joe Armstrong) is the canonical source.

For commercial technologies offered by a corporate vendor (.NET, Java, etc), the vendor should have a list of publications that can be considered canonical. For example, F# has a list of publications that includes books.
 
bukzor
bukzor
@MichaelT: how did you (how can I) get those?
 
user55340
7:12 PM
I followed the link from the leach site you linked on SO, that brought me to the P.SE answer. Having 10k rep, I was able to see the deleted content for both the question and the answers.
 
Ampt
Ampt
I love that Linus can curse out a dev team and they respond with a "Sorry, does this look better sir?"
 
bukzor
bukzor
oh yay i can open that link. I guess because I own it. Thanks much!
 
user55340
You should be able to see at least your own content from the leach site link... dunno if you can see deleted answers to your own deleted question (I suspect not, would be something to poke on MSE about)
 
user55340
Otherwise, you can always ask a mod to find your deleted questions that aren't recent... I'm not a mod, so I need a direct link to get there.
 
bukzor
bukzor
I somehow missed the link that you found. good eye.
@MichaelT: My previous attempt to make it less broad made it into a reading list question. How do I avoid that? I'm not in fact trying to ask for a reading list.
 
enderland
enderland
7:42 PM
@Ampt is this your alter-ego?
1
Q: Pressured to bring work at home by colleagues?

PierreGood evening everyone! I am an Italian guy which graduated in computer science last april (cum laude, saying this just to give a bit of context). The day after the graduation, I began work interviews (10+ in total in two weeks) and I received contract proposals by each interviewer but one - so I ...

work-life-balance
 
Ampt
Ampt
That could be me
only I'm not actually doing anything so I just kinda sit around
 
user41796
8:02 PM
What?! You don't already have unit tests to validate the difference between the two rounding methods? That seems like the easiest place to check and verify their operation. — GlenH7 12 secs ago
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
8:15 PM
@enderland oh man, dude was taken in by the freshness and youngness of the startup option among his choices, big mistake...
well...depending on what you want to do, like if you want to work until you get ulcers and your fingernails fall off from vitamin D deficiency, then he'll surely learn a lot...
 
user55340
@JimmyHoffa my new goal - to write a framework to replace Express with another project. I'll call it Omar or Oriole or something like that. Then the MEAN stack would be a MOAN stack...
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT I haven't so much as looked at express. Server side web frameworks are pfah. Generating UI on the server is only still done because that's how it has been done. It's just from a time when clients weren't powerful enough to generate their own UI, it's just tradition for it's own sake, and as always far trickier than generating UI on the client where the UI actually lives.
They're a backwards technology people only work in because they're still looking backwards. There's no value in them anymore. Therefore I encourage this idea. MOAN webstack FTW.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@MichaelT Call it Oded.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Oded o-ded ? o-did ? o-deed ?
 
user55340
@RobertHarvey Would you really want to immortalize him in a javascript buzzword framework? That sounds... well, mean.
3
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
8:24 PM
@MichaelT s/mean/moan/g
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
MEAN looks cool. Can Mongo be replaced with a SQL database? Postgres perhaps?
Is there an alternative for Angular that starts with R?
[waits while they figure it out]
@JimmyHoffa You still need ViewModels. Code-behind is the work of the devil.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
8:55 PM
@RobertHarvey what do view models have to do with server or client side? or code-behind for that matter?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Pushing the UI logic into the browser moves all of your IP into View/Source, and if the UI is elaborate, and you're not careful, you can wind up creating a big ball of mud, just like in the old VB6 days.
The truth, of course, is probably somewhere in-between. Most of the decent SPA approaches I've seen push a foundational HTML skeleton out to the browser, and then manipulate it with a Javascript framework.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey A) unless you're writing a graphics engine or don't know how to separate your concerns, your UI contains no IP. UI should only be concerned with presentation. B) big ball of mud is possible for any situation with code that you don't use deliberate caution
@RobertHarvey the last point you make is really the crux of it. Manipulating UI with JavaScript-> this means manipulating UI on the client side where it exists in real-time. It's manipulating UI from the server-side that people constantly try to do but the UI isn't alive on the serverside, so it doesn't present an API for properly working with it -> On the serverside, a UI is merely a string and you only have the API of strings for messing with it; yuck.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
And you have to wait for the entire page lifecycle to execute, at least in ASP.NET. It's just no fun.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
on the client side the UI is full of information that you can use to ensure your presenting it correctly. How do you ask a string what state a variety of form elements is in? Eff that, ask the DOM/jquery on the client side.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
It's still nice to be able to AJAX things in.
from time to time.
 
enderland
enderland
9:02 PM
0
Q: Summer 2014 Community Moderator Election

CommunityIt's that time again... One of the moderators on The Workplace recently became an SE employee. Now, the community needs to elect a new moderator on TWP to fill their shoes. The 2014 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase...

discussion moderators election
hmmmm
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey of course it is, that's got nothing to do with the server though
AJAX is clientside javascript work
 
user41796
@enderland I was wondering about that
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Sure, but you're still requesting data from the server.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey data ! Yes, now that is what server-side is for!
not for HTML
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Did you ever figure out your Angular/Backbone/Whatever thing?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
9:04 PM
@RobertHarvey I scrammed it and went with a combination of Knockout and Mustache templates which I think will offer the best of both worlds. The mustache templates allow arbitrary recursion and knockout gives me automatic updating of those templates when the data models on the client change
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
And you can do things like subviews?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey yep, got it working no problems
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Is the recursion for things like tree views?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
when you click nav items it changes the currentMainView value in my window.appModel object which KO is observing and knows to be tied to the template right in the middle. The value changes, it updates the template automatically
@RobertHarvey yep
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Are you sending a recursive data structure to the client, or just hitting a web service repeatedly?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
9:06 PM
the integration is loose but at least it's very simple to the point anybody could look at it and see how it's tied together
@RobertHarvey DAG
I only have one recursive view though right now and it doesn't have any sub-items yet, just tested to make sure when I do add sub-items it will work
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
So it's a data structure, then. I assumed you were chunking the data request somehow so that you only had to make one web service call.
 
enderland
enderland
@GlenH7 I'll see. I've thought pretty strongly about it, but I'm not sure I will be much interest from someone who will unapologetically close bad questions early
 
user41796
@enderland Bah! Every fire could use a little bit more fuel!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey not making any web service calls yet... later on I'll do that and will likely pull down data as I go...
 
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
Folks, I'm looking for a decent OO design patterns book for .NET and/or C# .
I have read the Head First Patterns book this summer. It's an okay book, and it's easy to read. It's Java-bases, though. I suspect that some things may be done differently in C#. For example, an Observer pattern can be implemented through events in C#, but in Java that would be done differently. I'd like learn more about these kinds of differences.
 
user41796
9:10 PM
@NickAlexeev Thank you for not asking that on the main site! :-)
 
user41796
And are you looking for design patterns in C# or are you looking for differences in design patterns between java and c#
 
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@GlenH7 You're welcome. (I'm a mod on a different stack. I have to eat my own cat food.)
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Those are risk free, since you don't have to buy a book. For language-agnostic, Fowler's book is as good as any.
Or GOF.
 
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@GlenH7 I'm looking for design patterns in C#, I guess. I can read Java. But, I can't say that I'm seriously familiar with design patterns in any language. Gamma's book is based around C++; it's on my reading list. My high level language of choice is C# .
 
user41796
And Robert Martin has Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#. There are some corners of the C# world that revere him. The book is pretty heavy on Agile as opposed to patterns, but they are there. Most recent version I could find was 2006, so it won't take advantage of some of the newer advancements in the language as well
 
Ampt
Ampt
9:16 PM
 
user41796
I'd go with the first 2 links that Robert Harvey suggested. Then look over the table of contents with Robert Martin's book.
 
Ampt
Ampt
Am I the only one who thinks that this isn't that great of an idea?
and embedded system that runs JS of all things?
 
user41796
It may be worth buying the book and just ignoring all of the Agile this / extreme that stuff
 
user41796
@Ampt Debugging that is likely going to be a real b*tch.
 
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@Ampt Is there a rationale for JS?
 
Ampt
Ampt
9:19 PM
@NickAlexeev nope. looks like they just wanted a high level language and chose JS
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
You can run Node on it, apparently.
That would be very cool.
 
Nick Alexeev
Nick Alexeev
@Ampt Is it like a scripting language for the end user, while the core remains untouchable?
@Ampt I would guess that tools for JS on the embedded wouldn't be very mature.
 
psr
psr
@JimmyHoffa Mustache beat ICanHaz?
 
user20683
You wouldn't need crazy mature tools. Generate the assembly and burn the rom
 
Ampt
Ampt
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
9:30 PM
@psr ICanHaz = Mustache + itty bitty wrapper widget
 
user20683
Also for the time being I have finally made user frontpage
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
I'm using ICanHaze
 
psr
psr
@JimmyHoffa Then I commend them for not calling it goatee.
 
user20683
@psr Goatee would be the JScript version.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt probably. I think it's a spectacular idea... not sure why you wouldn't other than a lack of experience working in JavaScript ;P
 
Ampt
Ampt
9:34 PM
@JimmyHoffa oh, you know, just the little things like precision timing and, idk, actually dealing with IO? Love to see how you do stuff like A2D and Sensors with this thing without having an off the shelf chip that plugs into it
otherwise you are completely at the mercy of the plug-in-able chips
No Serial communication chip? Sorry... looks like you can't do serial
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt I thought you were saying you didn't think JavaScript should run on an embedded machine, that may be a shite embedded machine there, but JavaScript on an embedded machine is still a great idea..
no worse of an idea than all the people putting together rPi's to run Python or netduino with .NET
 
user20683
Lua is f***ing great for embedded and it's mildly similar to JS
 
user20683
in terms of being a dynamically typed language with only floating points for numbers
 
user20683
and very wibbly definitions of functions and objects
 
gnat
gnat
9:51 PM
@RobertHarvey hey, this name is already taken!
codename for suggested feature: Oded 24x7 :) — gnat yesterday
 
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