The Whiteboard

user41796

6:03 PM

Entropy within the requirements management process stinks. We had a big push to get everyone to use a central repository for all bug and feature requests. Now we've got supporting documentation for feature requests living in another repository. And the official feature request just says "Go see document Foo" without providing a link to it.

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 I used to think that feature requests and defects could be tracked side-by-side.

I've begun to rethink that, though.

user41796

There's certainly a challenge in getting BA / product owner types to use a tool designed primarily for developers. The part that bugs me is that we're duplicating effort and fragmenting our focus

Thomas Owens

Where do you keep your requirements?

user41796

We're using the bug / feature tracking system to monitor level of effort & sizings. But all of the details are somewhere completely different

user41796

@ThomasOwens A different content management system. Fortunately, not sharepoint.

Thomas Owens

6:08 PM

@GlenH7 So not in a tool designed for requirements management?

That's too bad.

user41796

@ThomasOwens correct

Thomas Owens

You really should have a tool for requirements. Doesn't matter if what goes in is a bunch of shall statements or a bunch of user stories.

user41796

And this is the (sanitized) sum text of one of the features in the work effort tracking system. "Refer to documentation in FOO.docx on how to convert in BAR section. Parent/Child BAR handling"

Thomas Owens

:(

user41796

No link to the CMS itself.
No link to the document within the hundreds of thousands of folders in the CMS. (No, not exaggerating there - it's a company wide CMS)

enderland

6:11 PM

I should write a story, "enderlands woes in the corporate environment"

user15026

Well, this interview will be a wash. It's a marketing door to door meat grinder that I have interviewed with before and they rejected me.

user15026

They just changed their name since.

user41796

And you might think that's okay - My department and projects would be easily found, right? Wrong - everything for the top 4 or 5 layers is numerical codes that refer to projects.

user41796

@AshleyNunn Sorry to hear it.

user41796

You should do the same thing - change your name and see if they're interested. :-)

user15026

6:12 PM

Oh well, I got a walk in the sunshine! And I am here now, so might as well go through the motions.

user41796

It can be good preparation for other interviews

user15026

Exactly.

user15026

Also if I recall right they want me to have a car

user41796

Company car? So soon? :-)

user41796

<--- Not a corporate ladder climber anymore....

user15026

6:14 PM

I am not really good at ladders

enderland

enderland raises hand

user41796

Without the proper footwear, they tend to hurt your feet from standing on the rungs for too long.

whatsisname

i.imgur.com/6YGgtGX.webm

user15026

@GlenH7 then I am definitely in the wrong shoes.

whatsisname

user15026

6:23 PM

Interview is 22 min late, people keep coming in, we are out of chairs.

user41796

Another frustration of the day is online tutorials that weren't updated along with the sample project that is automatically created by eclipse

user41796

@AshleyNunn demand a refund?

enderland

@GlenH7 so now, of the two jobs I am in queue for to be interviewed, the one I want least won't let the other interview at the same time

oh ffs

user41796

@enderland really?

user41796

I'd try and escalate that one

enderland

6:25 PM

I know, I have, and am

user41796

Play it by the rules though - "Hey, I've got ### days left before the rotations end. I fully understand I'm not guaranteed anything just by interviewing. So I need to put more irons in the fire and this doesn't seem fair to me."

user41796

@enderland Part of it is the particular corporation you work for

enderland

yup

user41796

I have another friend who works there and she can verify there's some odd rules in place

user41796

Not your location necessarily, but for the parent corp.

enderland

6:26 PM

mhm

user41796

Do any of the regulars here work with drools?

user41796

I'm hoping for a better tutorial than the one I'm working through

Thomas Owens

@enderland Have you said where you're working?

user41796

@ThomasOwens Yes, but it was [ removed ]

user15026

Got a phone message from a recruiter while I have been sitting here. Really want to check it :p

user41796

6:29 PM

@AshleyNunn Normally, I'd argue that would be gauche. But given that you've been waiting...

user41796

and you just hang up if they happen to call your name next

user41796

I'm also considering your low expectations regarding the outcome

user15026

I have like negative downvote expectations.

Duga

@PrimeByDesign I'm just pointing out that this question does not adhere to the standards that StackOverflow currently maintains: StackOverflow is not a code-writing service where users can simply request a piece of code to be written for them; it is a site in which experts offers assistance to their peers regarding problems or suggestions in their already-existing code. It is not fair to the rest of the community to have beginner programmers simply expecting us to write their code for them. — VedaadShakib 1 min ago

user41796

And even if offered, it doesn't sound like you would accept. So my vote is that listening to a voicemail isn't likely to jeopardize anything for you.

enderland

6:34 PM

@ThomasOwens I did by accident once in a bout of frustration ;)

Thomas Owens

:( There's no way to search for removed chat messages.

user15026

@GlenH7 considering I am still waiting...

user41796

@AshleyNunn Soooo.... What did the recruiter have to say in the VM?

user15026

I haven't checked, I am trying to be a good person but I have been here for 40 min and am frustrated and bored and convinced this is going nowhere

user15026

And the receptionist is calling a bunch of people for more interviews.

user15026

6:41 PM

This is ridiculous.

enderland

@ThomasOwens feature or bug... :D

Thomas Owens

I'm trying to think of a nice way to parallelize this work. I have a nice method that reads a directory and its subdirectories until there are no files. It's recursive now. But there should be a good way to make it potentially multi-threaded. Maybe it can't be a recursive method anymore.

user41796

@AshleyNunn That's where you weigh the benefits of the practice vs your time invested. Hard to say which route to follow.

enderland

do you know heuristically what the organization of the folder is?
ie is it always "one main folder with five roughly equal subfolders" ?

Thomas Owens

@enderland Nope.

It could be in any structure imaginable. It's unspecified in any interface document.

It may even be a single directory with no subdirectories.

I don't think spawning a thread for every directory is smart...is it? It seems like that's just a waste of resources.

enderland

6:52 PM

might cause problesm if you have a ton of directories too

user41796

@ThomasOwens use a thread pool instead

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 That's incredibly obvious.

whatsisname

have you tried using logarithms

user41796

@ThomasOwens Not sure regarding the tone of that, sorry.

Thomas Owens

My Reader implements Runnable. That way, it can be invoked outside of a thread. The client can choose to implement a thread pool with the appropriate number of threads or just run it serial.

@GlenH7 I should have thought of that idea myself.

user41796

6:54 PM

ah, ok. You're welcome for the self-inflicted facepalm then. :-)

Thomas Owens

7:05 PM

No, not Runnable. Callable, so I can return a list of directories to the client when the exectution is finished and spawn new workers.

user15026

@GlenH7 turns out it is telemarketing or being one of those people who pester people on the street.

user15026

And also it was a recruiter who called.

enderland

7:32 PM

0

Q: Algorithm to decide category within an interval

Suppose a day is divided: Night 00-06 Morning 06-12 Afternoon 12-18 Evening 18-00 I need some kind of algorithm to decide what category (Night, Morning...) a given time within an interval of 6 hours falls into (should be calculated backwards, as in history) For instance, the given time is 01:...

burn it!

Thomas Owens

Gah. I hate being tied to Java 6. Java 7 has some sweet concurrency features and Java 8 has a ton of awesome stuff. Someone, give me a personal project to work on so I can use JDK8 for something.

user20683

@ThomasOwens reimplement Master of Orion in Java

durron597

@ThomasOwens Did I ever tell you about the time I told my brother to upgrade to Java 7 and the performance improvements singlehandedly saved his customer demo

Thomas Owens

The Fork/Join Framework will save me a lot. :(

durron597

What is the problem? It's totally backwards compatible

Thomas Owens

7:36 PM

Yeah, but the dependencies aren't approved. Security restrictions and all.

durron597

Java 6 hasn't been supported for MORE THAN TWO YEARS

Are you still developing for Windows XP or something?

user41796

@durron597 You haven't worked for a large corporation before....

Thomas Owens

We've started to migrate to newer versions of Java.

durron597

@GlenH7 Oh please, you think Google is still using Java 6?

Thomas Owens

But when you have deployed hardware in who knows where, it's not easy to update all of it.

whatsisname

7:38 PM

not supported for more than two years? and that's a long time for you? LOL

Thomas Owens

And the software still needs to run everywhere.

user41796

@durron597 No, but many large institutions in the financial, manufacturing, and insurance fields are

user41796

Google is the exception; not the rule in things like this

durron597

What you mean is, I haven't worked for a corporation that's had a staring contest with Medusa yet

whatsisname

in the medical field there are a lot of winxp machines out there still being used

enderland

7:39 PM

aww was about to say "some of us are still using XP" (not me)

user41796

@durron597 correct. Spoiler alert: Corporation wins.

Telastyn

a corporation that does business with the government you mean.

durron597

@GlenH7 I know all the things you're saying I just think it's stupid. Not upgrading COBOL or fortran software, I get, but something like Java VM version is a lot easier

whatsisname

we get a lot of sales specifically due to the fact that we still 'support' XP

durron597

@Telastyn I imagine there's a lot of overlap in that particular Venn diagram

user41796

7:41 PM

@durron597 That presumes the ability to test and validate that the upgrade didn't cause any problems.

Thomas Owens

@durron597 How easy do you think it is to update JVM version?

user20683

@durron597 modern Cobol and Fortran are both quite modern. I mean they've got objects and generics and things

Thomas Owens

On a fielded system, that is.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Compared to rewriting legacy fortran in C#, Java, Python, Ruby, or Haskell?

user20683

@ThomasOwens do we get an eeprom?

Thomas Owens

7:42 PM

@durron597 I have a system that's running JVM 1.5. I want to go to something new. What do you think is involved?

durron597

Plus JRockit / Java 7 is so much more performant than Java 6

If you're running JRockit out there then I take it all back.

Thomas Owens

Looking at data, it seems like Java 8 offers at least a 1% improvement over Java 7, at a worst case.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Java 7 is 46% faster than Java 6

That's just the first article I was able to find

Thomas Owens

Anyway, this confuses me. My call() function returns a File[] that contains the subdirectories of the directory entered. My executor service returns a Future<File[]>. So do I just wait until that first thread finishes and then create a new Callable for each File (directory) in the array and hand those off to the Executor Service? I must say, the interfaces aren't terribly intuitive.

Unless I skip the returning and make the reader accept an ExecutorService. That way, it spawns new versions of itself. The client is just responsible for making an appropriate ExecutorService.

user41796

@ThomasOwens Futures are promises right? So that would imply that nothing will occur with Future<File[]> until you try to take some action with it.

durron597

7:51 PM

@ThomasOwens An executor service is a thread manager

You should have a FileHandler interface

You hand the files off to a SameThreadFileHandler or a MultiThreadedFileHander, and the latter gets injected with your ExecutorService

then your FileHandlerFactory contains the logic whether to keep generating new threads or not

Telastyn

I like this conversation. It is Java-suck in a nutshell.

Thomas Owens

I have a data model that is the data store (collection of files and directories) that I'm reading from and a data store reader.

My DataStoreDirectoryReader is your instantiation of a FileHandler.

I just don't understand why I want a FileHandlerFactory. But that gave me an idea.

durron597

@ThomasOwens The FileHandlerFactory is where the responsibility for deciding whether to recurse using a different thread or not is located

Because you don't want to generate hundreds of threads

Thomas Owens

@durron597 If I'm not generating the threads, it doesn't matter.

The ExecutorService deals with that. So that factory goes away.

durron597

@ThomasOwens There's a cost to offloading a task to a thread, even with an ExecutorService

Thomas Owens

8:00 PM

I start with the Executors interface.

If I need more control, I can create my own ThreadFactory or or change the instantiation later.

durron597

But you're offloading every step to a new thread, even if it's one in your thread pool

maybe you don't want to hand off to the executor many times

Thomas Owens

Not every step. Every new directory. I think that's intended.

durron597

@ThomasOwens In Java, a directory is a File

Thomas Owens

@durron597 Yes.

durron597

where are you putting the if (file.isDirectory()) { service.submit(file); } else { parseFile(file); }

Thomas Owens

8:03 PM

In the method defined by the FileHandler Interface.

durron597

Right, and I'm saying THAT CODE should be in a FileHandlerFactory

Thomas Owens

I guess I don't see the advantage to that.

durron597

Because you're embedding the multithreading logic in the same place as the directory processing

You're giving FileHandler more than one reason to change

Thomas Owens

Only if the multithreaded processor is invoked.

If I have an interface, I have a class for single threaded and a class for multithreaded. I'm assuming the client set up their ExecutorService properly.

durron597

What if you decide to make it single threaded? Then you have to violate open-closed

Thomas Owens

8:06 PM

There are two options. Call the MultiThreadedExecutorService with an Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1) or instantiate the SingleThreadedReader variant.

Executors is a factory.

durron597

Just today you were telling me about how you are wrapping File with a ParsedObject object, why don't you want to wrap the ExecutorService threadfactory with your own factory

Thomas Owens

I'm not wrapping File with anything...

I'm converting File to a byte[], parsing the bytes, and making a class with accessors to the fields.

durron597

all this code about whether to call Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1) or Executors.newCachedThreadPool() naturally goes together, and there's a class there

Thomas Owens

Yeah. It's the client for my reader. Let me think about this, though.

durron597

3 hours ago, by Thomas Owens

Actually, I've already parsed the files and turned them into objects. They are binary files that I've worked with the data to create a wrapper object.

Thomas Owens

8:11 PM

@durron597 The wrapper is around the byte[], not File.

Should have been more clear about that.

durron597

@ThomasOwens My mistake. The point still holds, though.

Thomas Owens

Maybe I will have a factory. But it's not needed at this point in time.

Oh. I see what you're saying about the factory now. Instead of forcing the client to choose between instantiating a SingleThreadedReader and a MultiThreadedReader, I have a class that returns a Reader. Methods on that class would be newSingleThreadedReader, newMultiThreadedReader(int), and so on. I remove the need for the client to know about ExecutorService entirely.

My client just knows about the minimum stuff needed to read a directory. Like what directory to start in.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Exactly. Sorry if I wasn't clear

Thomas Owens

I had to start getting the code in there to see it.

It makes sense now. There's only so much you can communicate in text over the Internet.

I wonder if that makes sense. It does if the client will every be someone that isn't my code.

But this part of the code may be too low to ever be exposed by an API.

durron597

@ThomasOwens It's still good to code with SRP even if the only client is yourself

Thomas Owens

8:24 PM

True.

I've got to head out now. Thanks.

durron597

I wish this chatroom had something like realtimeboard.com

later

Ampt

8:57 PM

realtimeboard?

enderland

lmgtfy

Ampt

someones testy today

too many early april fools pranks?

whatsisname

9:16 PM

man 66 out

I should skip out of here

Ampt

god damn code golf is taking site egg uber serious...

durron597

medium.com/war-is-boring/…

Ampt

we spent it on stability

duh.

(that means we sent guns to an insurgent regime against the previous regime we backed the last time this happened)

don't worry, they invested another 45 billion and can use the returns on that to pay for the guns for the next regime

I'm interested to see what happens when they run out of oil.

whatsisname

that's almost 45 vikings stadiums

Ampt

probably turn into another sub saharan africa if I had to guess

Duga

9:32 PM

Questions about best practices tend to be off-topic as too broad/opinion based for Stack Overflow. If you are looking for conceptual help, then you question might be on-topic on Programmers, however you will want to read their help center to see what is on-topic there. — bluefeet ♦ 12 secs ago

gnat

what a lovely edit "I know this kind of post is banned on here, but I'm that desperate. I apologize."

Ampt

uuugh

instant DV + CV

I still haven't got a clue what is appropriate to post on this forum. I see that most askers immediately get downvotes. I guess I'll welcome myself to the club. — Mickael Caruso 2 mins ago

If most people were jumping off a bridge, would you jump too? — Ampt 32 secs ago

it's like we're dealing with children

gnat

By the way, interesting to see how recently introduced feature works. Comment has triggered saving a revision, so that edit that would prior be merged into grace period, became visible in revisions history over there...

34

A: Reset question grace period once an answer has been posted

Jarrod whipped this up this past week, and the behavior should now be live. Edits will be rolled into the previous revision if the previous revision was created by the same author and none of the following conditions are present: The previous revision was created 5 minutes or more in the past A...

Ampt

You say that as if learning something new such as this is dangerous like jumping off a bridge. Damn. I'm done in this forum. — Mickael Caruso 6 mins ago

"I didn't get what I want so I'm leaving!"

kthxbai

gnat

33

A: Should one advise on off-topic questions?

What you should do: cast a down vote vote to close (flag to close if you're under 3K rep) comment and explain why their question is bad and how to fix it, use the tour, the help, maybe even a chat session Don't ever answer a question, not via chat, comments, or any other way. It is even dange...

whatsisname

9:44 PM

it's not a forum

Ampt

not really helpful, even if true

I would say don't bait him, but that's just me

whatsisname

meh its gonna get closed in a minute or two anyway

also, how is the answer to his title not a self-evident no

gnat

@whatsisname for folks tagging their questions career-development I guess it doesn't matter. "Badger doesn't care"

Ampt

yeah, but we're here to help, no matter how indignant or self righteous the askers can be

gnat

enderland

9:47 PM

I'll advise people on their careers!

Ampt

@enderland it's all yours haha

@gnat I'm not sure if this is a reference to the help-vampire, or if you're calling me a whore....

whatsisname

lol

gnat

@Ampt no, it's a reference that "we're here to help" is somewhat slippery route...

10

A: Can a question with an accepted answer be closed as unanswerable

Remember, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming. A library is no good if you can't find anything, and by the same token there's no reason to keep questions around if the answers can't be found by the next person with the same problem. ...

Ampt

well, you're here to downvote, we've established that :P

gnat

Ampt

9:50 PM

but yes, not everyone is worth helping

or even helpable

@gnat hey, don't get me wrong, you're an integral part of our community and I wouldn't have it any other way

gnat

@Ampt so true... Reminds classic Robert's rant...

65

A: Reviewing some awful questions is just a waste of time, can we have a "no comment" close reason for these?

Too Broad is absolutely the correct close reason for "lacks a minimal understanding of the problem." Here's why: ME: Click the right mouse button. NOOB: What's a mouse? How much text do you suppose it will take to explain things now?

Ampt

but a comprehensive list of questions and answers isn't going to write itself

we need users capable of asking, and answering questions

gnat

@Ampt sure. I generally don't mind people answering close-worthy questions, because it's often not really as clear cut as permanent close-voters tend to believe. It's just some cases are... well, clear cut indeed

user55340

I'm still amused / disappointed that each time someone asks about our downvotes and close, and is shown the questions themselves, they go "oh, yea, people don't read"

Ampt

they really, really, really, really, really don't

gnat

9:56 PM

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/… @MichaelT - that guy was warned 15 times (about that and other issues)... Didn't stop him from banging his head against the wall though. — Shog9 ♦ Nov 6 '14 at 4:34

user55340

I wonder what more we can do without being intrusive in the don't post this.

durron597

@gnat I'm surprised you haven't taken the time to finish getting 20k on progs

Or, stop downvoting answers until you do ;)

enderland

downvote all the things

user55340

I've only got 3.1k outstanding down votes out of 12k.

durron597

I just figured "expanded deletion privileges" would be worth it

user55340

10:03 PM

The 20ks likely do a sufficient job of answer deletes. I've even seen Eric with some delete votes on a pink background.

durron597

@MichaelT FYI I just dropped this and this from -2 to -3

gnat

@durron597 I plan to take care of this after completion of my "hot questions" crusade at MSE (about 3.5K repz to invest in bounties over there will probably take 2-3 months)

durron597

@gnat Cool. I got me my 3k so I'm pretty content over here. Already have 130 CV reviews done in a little over a week

Ran out twice

user55340

Try topping @GlenH7 review count.

durron597

@MichaelT Yeah, no. Expect mine to mysteriously stop increasing at like, 1004

user55340

10:14 PM

He'd even be in the top reviewers page on SO.

durron597

Well, maybe not on Progs. On SO it's so thankless because the questions aren't even close, or interesting.

Progs I might keep doing it

user55340

(Current SO bottom is 95k, he has 97k)

user55340

9.7k rather

user55340

And 9.5k on so. 9586.

user55340

I blame math. And numbers. Any number other than 0 and 1 is confusing. Unless you are into math. In which case there are some systems that only use 1. And that's confusing too.

enderland

10:19 PM

@GlenH7 guess I'll have one wed and the other thurs, less exciting than it otherwise would be

durron597

@MichaelT Did you know that both pi and e made it into widespread use before negative numbers

user55340

Pi, yes. e too?

durron597

Oh, wait, I misread the site I was reading.

user55340

Negative got acceptance with Leibniz. 1646-1716.

durron597