The Whiteboard

4:00 PM

@MichaelT IPC (via sockets) is the technical aspect of the answer, but there's a bit more to it when attempting a design-level answer.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt terminus-font.sourceforge.net

Thomas Owens

I wonder when the systems engineers are going to get upset at the DevOps people taking over the term.

Ampt

wow that is really bold

it's like TNG bold

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt not terminus

Ampt

no, CP Mono

I will say, IntelliJ ships with some pretty nice fonts as it is

user55340

4:11 PM

3

Q: local communications between two apps

To make a platform-independent program in C++ I want to separate the GUI (separate for each OS, using native libraries/APIs) and the actual program. Obviously those two need to communicate with each other. Doing that by saving and reading XML files would be one solution. As it is kind of slow/al...

user55340

@amon ^^

amon

@MichaelT that's platform-agnostic and comprehensive enough to serve as a dup. Excellent answer!

user55340

I was trying to get the op to hint that way in comments... Your edit worked too.

Lightness Races in Orbit

"you can think of arrays as simply pointers to their first array-element" No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!!!! — Lightness Races in Orbit 14 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@LightnessRacesinOrbit but this is how every piece of C/C++ code I've seen works with arrays... :x

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:18 PM

@JimmyHoffa go drown in scotch

"C/C++"

seriously

Jimmy Hoffa

@LightnessRacesinOrbit that sounds lovely!!!

seriously

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I just mean.. in both cases. I presume you can do otherwise in both cases, but in both cases...no one seems to? In the terribad bits of code I've had to poke around in anywho..

Ampt

I'm trying to see where that's not true?

Lightness Races in Orbit

oh god

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa YOU SAID TERRIBAD.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens word of the day?

Thomas Owens

4:21 PM

@JimmyHoffa Word of every day. It's the best word ever.

Ampt

char name[20];

name[0] == *(&name);
name[10] == *(&name + sizeof(char) x 10);

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt you're about to be mauled by an ~~angry~~ normal C++ developer

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa it's going to be glorious :D

granted most of my experience comes with just straight up C, but I'm willing to eat my own words either way.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt what about it

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit so.... an array is just a pointer to the first element in the array?

i mean if we ignore the fact that there's a promise of a contiguous memory spot, blah blah blah

are you disagreeing because ptr++ won't work to increment for stuff that isn't the right size?

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:24 PM

@Ampt no

@Ampt we're disagreeing because it's not true

user55340

Just remember in C you can write a[i] or i[a] - they mean the same thing.

Lightness Races in Orbit

the fact (and occasional utility) of implicit array name to pointer decay leads people to think that "arrays are pointers" and use that myth to do terrible things

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT they're completely different acronyms, one takes over the world, the other only takes over police departments.

Lightness Races in Orbit

I can see why more experienced developers would hold on to that myth in the form of a willful abstraction, for convenience — I'm sure that's the case for you

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit you're going to have to expound a little more on the topic than no.

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:25 PM

but I find it really dangerous particularly in SO answers

user55340

Lie-to-children

A lie-to-children is a simplified explanation of technical or complex subjects as a teaching method for children and laypeople, first described by science writers Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart. The word "children" should not be taken literally, but as encompassing anyone in the process of learning about a given topic regardless of age. It is itself a simplification of certain concepts in the philosophy of science. Because some topics can be extremely difficult to understand without experience, introducing a full level of complexity to a student or child all at once can be overwhelming. Hence elementary...

Lightness Races in Orbit

if nothing else it actively harms the education of new programmers to the notion that both C and C++ are abstractions, because "arrays are just pointers under the 'hood'", right? wrong! arrays are arrays are arrays

@MichaelT Almost. A lie to children is usually not harmfully inaccurate, but an acceptable simplification (possibly with some harmless inaccuracies around the edges).

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit can you give me an example of where the logic of "Arrays are pointers" breaks down?

user55340

I know... Just egging you on with your C/C++ rant.

Jimmy Hoffa

@LightnessRacesinOrbit so what I'm hearing is that "under the hood" - while they are laid out using contiguous memory segments; they are not simply dereference points but recognized by the underlying compiler and structured assembly output distinct from a pointer?

Ampt

4:27 PM

I'm not trying to be obtuse, I'm genuinely curious.

Lightness Races in Orbit

Like if I told you, as a newcomer to the topic of me, that my name is Joanna .. that's not a "lie to children", it's just me telling you something that's outright wrong :)

@MichaelT ;p

@Ampt I realise that

the truth is I don't really have the time nor the will to explain it all in detail

user55340

Oh, wait... Two different languages? Sorry. C#/C++. Did I do it right?

Lightness Races in Orbit

suffice it to say: type safety, buffer overruns, UB pointers that point to some arbitrary place in the middle of space "which is fine because it's just a pointer and I didn't dereference it", blah blah blah

psr

@ThomasOwens On paper. Accurate accounting would have shown basically a giant Ponzi scheme.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@MichaelT Java/Python

Ampt

4:29 PM

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Shoulda done Java/Javascript

Lightness Races in Orbit

@JimmyHoffa can't speak for the assembly (and in fact I doubt it). but in terms of the language abstraction itself yes absolutely!!

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I try to avoid this to surprising effect. Ask my kid what the earth is made of and he'll tell you silicates. People genuinely undercut kids understanding a lot more than they should. Last night he said he learned about force in school so I asked him about the different kinds of energy effecting water and he claims electricity in water will electrocute you, kinetic energy on water makes waves, and thermal energy on water causes evaporation

Lightness Races in Orbit

I'm language lawyering a bit but I honestly believe C newbs would have a heck of a better time (and become much better programmers) if they weren't fed all these implementation details as if they were facts to be relied upon and refered to at every step of the way

Thomas Owens

NO! Who closed that architecture question?

Lightness Races in Orbit

which one

Thomas Owens

4:30 PM

Wow...three people not in the close power group.

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit are you trying to layer abstraction on top of C to "Help C Newbs"?

Lightness Races in Orbit

@JimmyHoffa \o/

Ampt

what?

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt no, I'm trying to stop people removing the abstractions that C is, because they "unhelp newbs" by doing so

(C++ more so - C is a bit minging when it comes to this stuff and I can sort of understand it a bit more in the C case)

Jimmy Hoffa

@LightnessRacesinOrbit but isn't C just assembly with silly-brackets?

:)

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:31 PM

@JimmyHoffa no.

@JimmyHoffa stab-in-the-face smiley

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit you keep saying no, but fail to provide examples. I'm going to have to go with Jimmy on this one :P

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt I've been talking about it for the last ten minutes what more do you want

4 mins ago, by Lightness Races in Orbit

the truth is I don't really have the time nor the will to explain it all in detail

Jimmy Hoffa

> -__> :(

Lightness Races in Orbit

4 mins ago, by Lightness Races in Orbit

suffice it to say: type safety, buffer overruns, UB pointers that point to some arbitrary place in the middle of space "which is fine because it's just a pointer and I didn't dereference it", blah blah blah

Ampt

5 mins ago, by Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit can you give me an example of where the logic of "Arrays are pointers" breaks down?

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:33 PM

you'd be surprised how many common actions in C code are either completely illegal or UB. that's not a problem necessarily but I do think people ought to at least bloody be aware of it!

40 secs ago, by Lightness Races in Orbit

4 mins ago, by Lightness Races in Orbit

suffice it to say: type safety, buffer overruns, UB pointers that point to some arbitrary place in the middle of space "which is fine because it's just a pointer and I didn't dereference it", blah blah blah

can play this game all day

Ampt

sure, if you start creating pointers of the wrong type to your array and try to iterate through it that way, you're going to have issues

Lightness Races in Orbit

well I can't

Jimmy Hoffa

@LightnessRacesinOrbit can I play?

Lightness Races in Orbit

@JimmyHoffa great scotch!

so anyway as I was saying

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

and that's that

user55340

Nono?

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:34 PM

giggle

The West Wing 4x11 - Will Bailey meets President Bartlet

►

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit It's not a game, you've stated your point and failed to provide any real support for your position, so I have to assume that you don't have any ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt I had a feeling you were going to say that

Ampt

> type safety, buffer overruns, UB pointers that point to some arbitrary place in the middle of space "which is fine because it's just a pointer and I didn't dereference it", blah blah blah

All of these are inherent to doing just about ANYTHING in C

it's a "Feature" of the language - 0 hand holding

Lightness Races in Orbit

shame I have to remind you that I didn't commit to a fixed-term of debating nor agree to a disclaimer that everything I say may be deemed false if I fail to provide on demand a tome of scientific evidence for it

@Ampt seems you don't understand UB :(

are you still undercover? :)

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Man that's coming close to sounding ad hominem

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:39 PM

@Ampt not really. if I insult you it's not an ad hominem. it's only an ad hominem if I insult you and claim that the facts presented in the insult somehow debunk your argument ;)

Ampt

FWIW, I have production C code running on Mobile hydraulics platforms (Read: Big ass snowplows) using Arrays as pointers, and guess what, it works.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt I'm sure it does!

15 mins ago, by Lightness Races in Orbit

I can see why more experienced developers would hold on to that myth in the form of a willful abstraction, for convenience — I'm sure that's the case for you

you is not a 5-rep 13 year old student

btw woah really you write software for snowplows? that's pretty cool

Ampt

I did at employer^

it was really fun

the office environment, not so much

It was a very old-school Engineering department - in at 8, out at 5, work from home? You're out of your god damn mind!

Ok, one last question - is it a conceptual difference for the array-pointer thing, or an actual underlying code thing?

Lightness Races in Orbit

8-5 yuck

@Ampt the point is that it doesn't matter either way (& I don't know)

Ampt

yeah, and if you didn't take lunch at exactly 12, you got funny looks for the rest of the week.

Lightness Races in Orbit

4:44 PM

@Ampt That snow fun.

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Rolls up newspaper.....

amon

@Ampt arrays and pointers are different types, and have different representations. You just happen to be able to use array subscripts on all pointers, can't pass arrays by value (unless you wrap 'em in a struct), but get T[n] implicitly converted to T*.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt Yeah I'll give you that

@Ampt Plow on.

Ampt

I'll give you that in an ideal world, you wouldn't do stuff like that, but C is such an unideal language that hacks like this are just so commonplace it's hard to not treat them as such.

Lightness Races in Orbit

remember I was relating to C++ though

in C++ we really try not to do crap like that

Ampt

4:49 PM

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Given. Also most of my C experience is on embedded, which makes hacks even more prominent, given we have non-standard compilers and crappy silicon errata

Lightness Races in Orbit

yeah

though even in embedded the world is moving away from that little by little

we stick beaglebones along motorways and there's only proper abstract code on them

Ampt

I guess that answers my question for the most part.

Lightness Races in Orbit

of course there's also Debian on them, so..

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit haha yeeeeaah, I'm talking 8MHz Digital Signal Processors with 64K EEPROM

Lightness Races in Orbit

still no excuse for forgetting what arrays are :P

Duga

4:53 PM

Probably a better question for programmers.stackexchange.com — Johnny Mopp 34 secs ago

Ampt

I understand that they are different, but I also never had any problem thinking of them as pointers as well.

Sure, it's dangerous if you overrun your array, or fuck up the type or what have you, but it also means saving a few K of ROM so....

and sometimes you HAVE to save that few K of rom to make room for a bootloader, or a library or whatever else you need.

and most of the time you had 3-5 arrays in the whole program, allocated at development time, and you knew exactly where they start and stop.

enderland

I want to vote to close our highly paid consultant as unclear

3

Ampt

@enderland Does this mean I get to go home early?

wait, no, we're having thanksgiving potluck today!

psr

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Day 3973. This may be my last entry. Can't hold out much longer, coffee ran out over 20 minutes ago. Have barricaded door to auxiliary conference room but outside there's just so many of them. It's all PMs so they'll probably never get through the door, but in a few minutes I'll have to make a run for the coffee machine and they'll probably get me then.

Project still nowhere near completion. Still have no idea what the requirements are. Have I become a developer myself? No way to tell. If you read this, happy coffee day.

Lightness Races in Orbit

^_^

ironically, if he'd said that, I'd buy that he'd actually integrated his cover pretty well, since that's A Day In A Life for many of us...

psr

4:58 PM

@LightnessRacesinOrbit What do you mean? I was talking about myself.

Thomas Owens

Why are so many people obsessed with finding out what degree program, career path, industry, or job makes the most money? Why not do something that you at least like so that you, you won't hate yourself when you're at work all day.

Ampt

We're all just pretenders

@ThomasOwens Because Money Talks

enderland

@ThomasOwens a lot of social pressure if your background is Chinese or Indian...

Thomas Owens

@enderland I see.

That's unfortunate.

Ampt

$$$ = Success, afterall

Thomas Owens

5:01 PM

I'd rather make a difference than make $$$.

As long as I have enough $$$ to do the things I want to do, of course. Have the home I want, the lifestyle I want.

Ampt

Well the American Dream says you're wrong. Please turn in your citizenship and relocate to canada, please.

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft

Thomas Owens

@Ampt :(

Ampt

@ThomasOwens Such is life in ~~latvia~~ 'murica

whatsisname

5:28 PM

making a difference doesn't pay the bills, cashmoney does

enderland

@ThomasOwens of course you have the background to enable that choice, many people do not have engineering/technical backgrounds

Thomas Owens

@whatsisname Why is why I followed it up with needing enough cashmoney to pay the bills and have the life I want. As long as I can afford the things I want, I'd rather do a meaningful job than make money I don't need to have the things I want.

@enderland I realize that, but have you seen the countless forum posts and whatnot with people if working in web development or financial software makes more money?

Or what kind of engineer makes the most money?

Step 1: Make enough money to cover your needs. Step 2: Make enough money to cover your wants. Step 3: Work toward something that you like to do.

whatsisname

or Step 1: Make all the monies

Thomas Owens

What good is the money if you're miserable?

enderland

so this is a timely discussion for me as I have been pondering this exact question, a lot, since @MichaelT is trying to get me to work for the state of WI :)

I make more money now than I should, because SAP sucks

whatsisname

5:35 PM

making bunches of money doesn't necessarily mean you have to be miserable

user55340

There are cobol positions available too if you want to be miserable.

whatsisname

you just need to have lots of irons in the fire and strike when its hot

Thomas Owens

@whatsisname No, but spending 4+ years of school and tens of thousands of dollars on a degree program just because it makes you a lot of money is dumb.

For one thing, you may not make a lot of money at it if you aren't as passionate or driven as someone else. So the whole data points could be skewed.

whatsisname

I think doing that is a lot less dumb than what most high school students are instructed to do, which is to 'follow their interests' with no regards to how they're going to pay the bills later

Thomas Owens

@whatsisname That's true. There needs to be some kind of balance.

user55340

5:37 PM

There is a dirty jobs rant about that out there.

whatsisname

that dirty jobs rant, if it's the one I saw, is borderline anti-intellectualism

user55340

There is that aspect of it too.

user55340

As nice as it would be, we don't have a society where everyone can be an artist or space explorer (a la Star Trek)

user55340

@ThomasOwens :

user55340

@MichaelT, I directed this question to the Microsoft dotnet Monodevelop forum 8 hours ago and was just told to post it Miguel Icaza's mono forum. I have found Stack Exchange to be the best ever support forum. Thank you very much, — Frank 49 secs ago

Thomas Owens

5:43 PM

o_o

user55340

@Thomas Owens, What should I do to take this question off of hold? Thank you. — Frank 1 min ago

user55340

@ThomasOwens your turn.

Thomas Owens

Handled.

Thinking about deleting the question, though.

maple_shaft

6:01 PM

@ThomasOwens Those questions about "which .... makes more money?" is not actually about greed for more money.

transcending even the desire for accumulation of wealth is the innate need to feel like we are getting a good deal, or ... we aren't getting ripped off, or... Fuck, I should have got the fish entree

How many people will stand in line on Black Friday until their ankles bleed just so they can save 2 dollars on a Tickle-My-Nutsack Elmo doll for their unappreciative brat kid that will have more fun with the box?

whatsisname

right, plus it's at attempt to maximiz the risk/reward payoff

maple_shaft

Think about the housing market... or ANY market

its not about supply demand

Prices go up when supply is limited... true

But even in a housing glut... people will rather drive themselves into bankruptcy than sell their house for less than they think it is worth

Hardly the workings of a rational actor in a market

Well people aren't rational. We have a deep emotional need to NOT feel like we are losing, even if it costs us EVERYTHING

So it is really hard for pricing to go down

If I invest 4 years in an education, I am belabored by the constant nagging thoughts that I might have made a terrible choice

I would rather trust a complete stranger on the internet to tell me what to do than to have to make a choice myself

because then in my mind if my life falls apart I have nobody to blame but myself.

and nobody likes to blame themselves

whatsisname

@maple_shaft: indeed, it's also why people hate stuff like car dealerships and airline tickets

people would rather pay a higher price knowing everyone is all paying that exact price

than pay a lower price but with the knowledge someone else might be paying cheaper, because that means "i'm getting screwed over"

Thomas Owens

On another topic, is there a list of all the terrible "software development is like x" analogies?

whatsisname

are you thinking analogies like "building a bridge" or more on the scale of "pulling teeth"

maple_shaft

6:15 PM

@ThomasOwens No, but I hear there is this site called Programmers where you should ask such questions :)

Thomas Owens

@whatsisname I think more like building a bridge. People compare software development to other engineering disciplines, arts, crafts, and other things.

maple_shaft

Don't worry... if it gets closed you should go to Meta and write a post that challenges 5 years of established precedent and complaining how we have lost our way, without reading the Help Center

Thomas Owens

@maple_shaft You first. There's probably a ton of rep in it!

whatsisname

im sure there are 9001 blog articles with analogies

maple_shaft

@ThomasOwens I would argue at least 5k of my 20k rep is probably from answering such questions

Jimmy Hoffa

6:18 PM

@maple_shaft ideally a small number, bleedy ankles is hopefully a rare health problem.

maple_shaft

@JimmyHoffa Pittsburgh... Number 52 in old people

amazing

Sad and amazing

Jimmy Hoffa

@whatsisname nonsense, people hate car dealerships because purchasing a car from one is possible the single most painful process most of us will ever go through.

whatsisname

well, there are many reasons to hate them, and what I listed was one of them

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa I had an amazing experience when I bought my current car.

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft you already knew it was true. The baffling thing is the local marketing machine that constantly bombards the area with "We're a vibrant metro, with immense growth opportunities attracting the best and brightest young people!" when the region has lost population year over year for 4 decades straight, with the oldest median age for metros in the nation... the marketing machine they have is staggeringly silly.

@ThomasOwens then you got taken for a ride my friend

claims itself to be so good for non-commuters: But the vast majority of the metro has no sidewalks

So in conclusion: Old people lie like rugs.

Thomas Owens

6:24 PM

I narrowed my choices down. I walked into the Toyota dealer and they found a specific car on their lot that met my criteria. I told them to give me one number for cost and put it on paper - that would be their number that I was comparing to other dealers. Then, I went to the Ford dealer and did the exact same thing with the specific car I wanted. Then, I went to the Honda dealer, and a second Ford dealer. I went with the lowest price - no negotiation. They had one shot to sell me a car.

And then, I brought out my employee discount and told them to take it off the number they gave me. Saved an extra 6%.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens so you're saying having to go all over hell and back to compare prices was a pleasant experience? How long were you filling out paperwork, or did you buy it in cash outright?

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa No. Of the four dealers, three were in the town I lived in. The other one was the next town over. Two were across the street from each other.

I spent less than an hour at each dealership. I gave them the info so they could give me their best financing deal as part of it.

In one day, I had a new car in my hands, including trading in my old car and a 0% loan.

Jimmy Hoffa

My last car purchase I did precisely what you describe but online / over the phone. Then when I went in (with financing from my own credit union all set), the guy in the back office spent forever punching numbers in trying the classic tire-me-out-so-he-can-add-fees routine. He tried to put another $400 on the price and said "We have to, it's standard, we do it on all our purchases" - I had to tell him alright I'll just go next door then of course "lemme speak to my manager - hey he waived it!"

I've never had an experience where a dealership didn't try to weasel some shit

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa I flat out told them up front that if they tried to do anything, I'd just walk out.

Pretty much the moment I suspected something, I'd go to the next best place. Give me the best deal you can, right now, in writing. When I was ready to buy, I even told them that they would be hearing from me that day on my decision and they were competing against other dealers.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens as did I, they still tried... that was the easiest it's ever been for me. I was in the back room with the guy for an hour and a half as he's filling shit out all the same which is just a stalling bullshit tactic.

maple_shaft

6:31 PM

@JimmyHoffa Lets not forget the other Pittsburgh marketing lie... its great for non commuters... but the entire flippin' downtown area shuts down after 8pm and the closest grocery store is Giant Eagle in the Hill District.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Yeah. 30-60 minutes at each dealership.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens I'm talking the purchase - how long were you filling out the paperwork for the purchase?

maple_shaft

Hill District. Gang violence, Penguins Hockey, Gang Violence, and getting mugged at the only grocery shopping choice after 8pm

Granted there are closer grocers in the Strip district, but they all close at 7pm

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft which is only explicable by their median age; they all need to get home and catch their wheel of fortune before passing out in front of the tube.

maple_shaft

And they wonder why nobody will buy this 2 million dollar apartment across from my office

LMAO!!

too true Jimmy... too true

Duga

6:46 PM

@Arashsoft they are a better fit for the programmers stack exchange — eh. 42 secs ago

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Not long. That was another hour. I was already run through and approved for financing. The longest part was waiting for them to assess the value of the car I was selling.

They had a service tech look at it, and part of it was waiting for someone to free up to look at it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens see that's when they try all their tricks. I had financing all set when I walked in to sign all the papers and they still tried to mess with me on it.

Thomas Owens

They didn't try anything on me. Well, the usually extra packages that you can sign up for.

Like the extended warantees, care plans, etc. But I just declined and had to sign that they were offered and I declined.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens and no "handling fee" ? You verified 100% every number on the paperwork was precisely as you agreed; calculated the tax 'n all to make sure? They didn't say anything about the "handling fee" - I had to manually look through all their numbers and run them all to find the $300 or whatever it was to ask him why that was in there.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa I bought it in New Hampshire. No tax. And the price I paid was exactly what was written on the paper earlier in the day.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:57 PM

no tax? whoa, crazy

Thomas Owens

No sales tax in the state of New Hampshire. And I pay the registration fees and such later myself.

Jimmy Hoffa

new england is such a weird region; you guys have so many little rules all over

Thomas Owens

We're awesome.

I live in Massachusetts now.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens some parts

Thomas Owens

I'm out for a bit - meeting.

maple_shaft

7:08 PM

@ThomasOwens Damn on the no sales tax for a car

In PA sales tax varies by county. Some counties it is 6% and others it is 7%...

The messed up part is that if you live in a 7% county and you travel to a 6% county to buy a car, they still charge you 7% because the sales tax is effective based on the county you reside in and not where you buy the car

BUT

If the opposite is true and you live in a 6% sales tax county and buy a car in a 7% sales tax county, then they STILL CHARGE YOU 7%

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft I loved how in Pittsburgh they tout low tax rates but don't tell you they nest so you pay separately to Township, Municipality, (possibly city), County, and State. All added together it was hardly a low tax rate..

Ampt

7:29 PM

@maple_shaft ain't that some shit...

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt it goes both ways too, you know most places have excise tax you have to pay for working across state lines from where you live? In the burgh they charge you taxes for working across city or county lines from your house! :D

@RobertHarvey if you want to change fonts in visual studio, get this extension - monospace fonts look wayyy the hell better with aliasing so they are printed as intended (such as Source Code Pro)

psr

@JimmyHoffa I bring a book and read it and glance up to say things like "if it costs more than 0 pennies I don't want it." Not sure if it helps.

Robert Harvey

7:45 PM

@JimmyHoffa I use Consolas 10 point; have never found a superior font, despite looking extensively.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey did you peek at the font pack I pointed out?

@psr this is a good gag trick; pay them no mind, and then when they ask questions just sluff them off and then at the end of it tell them hell no, fix it, then go back to reading your book. Hmm...

@RobertHarvey consolas 10 point is the standard for visual studio, but I just changed to Terminus since after trying a bunch that's what I went with for emacs, and I am severely pleased with it. Coding Font Tobi is another good one. Look at the images in that pack I liked. At least try terminus from the installer here

Thomas Owens

8:35 PM

Hey, Quora is stealing stuff from this chat room now. WTF is up with that bull.

quora.com/Is-a-c++-array-a-pointer-to-the-first-element

Ixrec

@ThomasOwens do you know what else needs to happen before meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/7721/… can be implemented?

Thomas Owens

@Ixrec I need to not be lazy.

Ixrec

got it

Thomas Owens

I also need to check with someone who knows more to see if there are any implications I'm not aware of.

I'll do that part now.

Ixrec

cool

Ampt

8:45 PM

@ThomasOwens I swear on my life that isn't me.

can you see who asked a question on quora?

Thomas Owens

The asker automatically follows the question.

But you can ask anonymously, too.

I'm guessing you're the anonymous follower of that question, based on the non-anonymous followers.

Ampt

wait, did I follow it just by clicking the link?

CTRL + Z

Jimmy Hoffa

> c-z

FTFY

Thomas Owens

@Ampt No.

Jimmy Hoffa

I no comprende quora. The whole site's organization is such a mess; always been an instant turn off.

Ampt

8:54 PM

@ThomasOwens Then I haven't followed it

Jimmy Hoffa

It's like a news aggregator which is purposely trying to impinge on the viewers ability to view the content by stuffing other crap in your face. So basically it's a community driven buzzfeed.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa agreed

and they sit behind that stupid login wall

Ixrec

I find it amusing to look at quora questions every so often, but I basically just browse for a minute at most and then go back to something more substantial

Ampt

like, no, I'm not signing up for your stupid site first. Let me see what you have and then maybe I'll invest

Ixrec

the thing I really don't get is why the question links it emails me do not link to questions, but just my feed, so I have to click a second link just to browse that

Jimmy Hoffa

8:55 PM

@Ampt I never signed up but I wasn't given that login wall this time... In the past I just set it's display to none in CSS

@Ixrec because they want to feed you. Look at a question and notice how they put more links to other shit right in the main viewing area and between information - they also make the links purposefully not broken up from the main content because they want you to look at them on accident as a continuity of the content you were trying to look at.

The site is structured as an eye thief ala BuzzFeed, but pretending to be SE

psr

@JimmyHoffa The theory is that at some point they decide they are wasting their time, so they stop wasting mine. Failing that, I'd rather read a book than listen to a car salesman.

Jimmy Hoffa

@psr plus, worst case scenario, you end up scraping bits of salesmen out of your book after executing his summary destruction.

psr

@JimmyHoffa Is that really the worst case?

user55340

Instructions unclear. Have broken kindle now.

Thomas Owens

The new close reasons are live.

3

Jimmy Hoffa

9:04 PM

@ThomasOwens do they run around and speak in funny autonomous-inanimate-object languages?

Thomas Owens

Yes.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa haha that was always my solution too.

but try and just go to quora.com or whatever their main site is

BAM - please log in

it's like they think they're facebook or something.

@JimmyHoffa Just don't feed them after dark.

whatsisname

9:38 PM

if I was made dictator of the united states everyone involved in any of those datasheets websites would be put to death

Ampt

@whatsisname Why wait til you're president?

Jimmy Hoffa

@whatsisname huh?

whatsisname

@JimmyHoffa: whenever you search for datasheets, anything useful is buried under mounds and mounds of 'datasheetarchive.com' type garbage which is just links to other garbage pages and no actual information

they are SEO optimized to the max despite not having anything worthwhile

Robert Harvey

@ThomasOwens Awesome.

@JimmyHoffa I find Terminus too angular for my taste, and difficult to read.

Lightness Races in Orbit

9:54 PM

I'M BACK LUCKY YOU

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