The Whiteboard

user41796

12:43 AM

@WorldEngineer - Thanks for the updates. Yes, my thoughts and prayers are with her.

user20683

1:58 AM

@GlenH7 actually quite well informed. She goes in Thursday

user20683

staying in the hospital till then

user20683

I'm very zen

user55340

2:10 AM

user55340

o_O

user55340

#1: Screw stocks.. invest in wine.
#2: *save* $500 on a $1000 bottle of wine?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa I don't have the money atm to get up there

user20683

@MichaelT Wines are like grain futures

user55340

@WorldEngineer grape futures would be more apt.

user20683

2:12 AM

@MichaelT true

user20683

@GlenH7 there's no way for me to get work off for that

user20683

it's logistically impractical

user20683

and I can support her well enough from afar

user20683

best thing I can do is work more on my javascript and the like and continue job hunting and post lots of cat videos on her FB

user41796

:-)

user55340

2:15 AM

I got a katnip box today and have the happiest cat in the world!

user55340

(subscription cat toys and treats: kitnipbox.com )

user55340

btw, did you watch that "if google was a guy" video?

user20683

@MichaelT I think so

user20683

I can't recall

user55340

If Google was a Guy

►

user55340

2:21 AM

(if you find that amusing, watch the part 2 and part 3 too)

user20683

@GlenH7 back so soon?

user20683

:P

overexchange

@amon Using dynamic languages, There is a great opportunity to provide bad abstractions which would lead to more runtime errors. sorry there was power cut last night!!!

user55340

Ohh! T-shirt of amusing design:

user55340

2:32 AM

@overexchange It depends on what you are after. If you are all friends, you can write some things much faster than if you are forcing your thoughts through a less dynamic language. While I'll admit to being a bit rusty at it, I can still write things in perl much faster than Java. I don't have to worry about types of if its an int or a string... it just is. This faster time means faster time to market for companies that use them. That can be valuable.

overexchange

ya coder convenience is definitely an advantage

user55340

Pick a language and do project Euler #16:
2^15 = 32768 and the sum of its digits is 3 + 2 + 7 + 6 + 8 = 26.

What is the sum of the digits of the number 2^1000?

user55340

#!/usr/bin/perl

use bignum;
sub sum {
        my $array = shift @_;
        my $sum = 0;
        foreach my $i (@$array) {
                $sum += $i;
        }
        return $sum;
}

$foo = hex('0x100000...0000000');
@foo = split(//,$foo);
print sum(\@foo);

user55340

Hey! Its a bignum of some type... now its a string... now its an int!

user55340

The thing with dynamic languages is often they are closer to how you think than going through all the ceremony of languages with more type structure. Now, for me, I think in perl quite well. However, its also my thoughts - it can be harder for other people to get into those thoughts and read/fix my perl code. On the other hand, my Java code is constrained by the language - there is a way to do it and it makes the devs think more alike and easier to get into the other code.

user55340

2:42 AM

That is part of why pythonic is such a religion in the python realm... but its something thats more enforced by culture than code.

overexchange

2:55 AM

this is a strong point :

it can be harder for other people to get into those thoughts and read/fix my perl code. On the other hand, my Java code is constrained by the language - there is a way to do it and it makes the devs think more alike and easier to get into the other code.

which I was unable to express

For me python is to just learn the paradigms and get back to static type languages.

@MichaelT Do you think this is one reason it makes the devs think more alike why java is more famous?

It is important for me to make a call on, how much these dynamic languages are going to help me in future?

user55340

@overexchange Getting your mind into the head of the developer who wrote the code before is a key component of maintaining any enterprise software. The more ceremony around it - the more structure around the code - the easier it is to do. Sure its frustrating, but its faster than trying to get into some oddly written ruby.

overexchange

-4

Q: Type checking in dynamic language

from module operator.py we have functional abstraction def concat(a, b): "Same as a + b, for a and b sequences." if not hasattr(a, '__getitem__'): msg = "'%s' object can't be concatenated" % type(a).__name__ raise TypeError(msg) return a + b to perform concatenatio...

user55340

Java's fame is in part its ubiquity. I can run it anywhere as an EE developer. Just give me tomcat and I'm good to go.

user55340

On the other hand, I've written some rather impressive and useful perl code in a day to automate part of a build.

overexchange

ok

user55340

3:02 AM

(Take two .war files... each file is ~300 megs (the code base was 1.5M lines of code and then third party libraries too...

user55340

Find out the minimal set of files needed to be transferred to go from war v1 to war v2 as an incremental update.

user55340

And... while you're at it... write a script to install those files in the proper place.

user55340

I wrote a perl script to do that. Open up the archives, check the checksums, examine the differences between the two, and generate a .sh file, and then package it all back up in a .tar file to be deployed.

user55340

It was about 200 lines of perl when all together...

overexchange

so python and perl is more ideal for configuration?

user55340

3:05 AM

They have their place... they are wonderful swissarmy chainsaws of code. But you don't always need that much power and utility.

user55340

And, for what its worth, I was the only person there who understood perl and could write it... the java only coders were thinking about 1k lines of code (and about a week to design) to do what I did in a fraction of that in a day.

overexchange

important question is, can python fit for enterprise software?

user55340

It can be.

user55340

That said, I don't know any enterprise python shops.

overexchange

it can't be, if you say: it can be harder for other people to get into those thoughts and read/fix

user55340

3:07 AM

I know lots of Java shops. I know of quite a few C# shops. I even saw a scala shop... and lots of "we'll do whatever you pay us to do" contractors.

user55340

Netapp's customer support site (and the IT department there) used to be a 90% perl shop (and 10% VB). I think now its a 25% perl, 75% Java.

user55340

Given that, I'm sure there are other python shops in the enterprise world... I just never looked for them.

user55340

I've seen academic python places... though they are more interested in scipy. And biotech perl places today too... again, perl is big in bioinformatics.

user55340

But as a industry programer, I would not limit myself to a single language ever. I try to learn a new language every year... enough at least to get through the first 50 and a bit of project euler.

overexchange

are you an active member of project euler?

user55340

3:11 AM

Staying stuck in one language... you'll find yourself being a whatever today's cobol is when you're 50 because you can't learn another language.

user55340

I've dabbled in it from time to time.

overexchange

I agree, infact am about learn scheme as well after python

user55340

Being flexible with my programming skills, I've worked at fortune 500 companies, startups, small consulting shops, huge retail companies and now I'm working for the state.

overexchange

ok

user55340

Sit down, and learn one first. Trying to learn two at a time if you don't really understand one will confuse concepts.

overexchange

3:13 AM

sure

user55340

Until you can really think in one language and build up your inner metal model for how programming works... and be able to brain compile code you see... trying to do two at once will just confuse you because you won't have a firm model to build on.

overexchange

ok

am just learning python now. Infact am just following what course says, not on my own

Do you know any website that has info about languages used in enterprise software?

something like this w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language/all

user55340

This was neat, but its behind a paywall now: spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/…

overexchange

ok

thanks mike for your answers, It is office time now...

Jimmy Hoffa

3:45 AM

+1 this is also a great answer, "Functional programmers prefer constructs that can't fail by design" this so eloquently states what is the largest motivator behind a majority of design decisions functional programmers make. Imperative programmers have a rule they like that says "Tell, don't ask", FP takes this to the Nth degree by focusing on allowing continuous telling of instructions without requiring results checking until the absolute last moment, so we try to ensure intermediate steps can't fail, because Composability is king. Very well said. — Jimmy Hoffa 4 mins ago

Duga

8:21 AM

Slow down there pardner, that's a lot of question marks for a single question. I'd recommend tidying this up so we can work out exactly what you're asking, rather the guessing among the many questions you've got here. Also if you're asking a theoretical question about the MVC pattern it probably belongs on Programmers.SE rather than here, we only really deal with 'keyboard' problems rather than 'whiteboard' ones. — Aiken 53 secs ago

Simon André Forsberg

1:17 PM

in Duga's Playground, 34 mins ago, by Duga

If you want opinions on working code, SO is not the place to ask. Try programmers.stackexchange.com. — Jeroen Mostert 1 min ago

^^ still open for pull requests

Although I think someone confused programmers with Code Review perhaps?

I don't know though, don't have 10k rep on SO yet

ratchet freak

1:42 PM

it's a copy paste for programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/275181/…

Telastyn

2:17 PM

@JimmyHoffa what answer is that for?

bleh, "oh comments (and regions) are so useful for describing what functions do."

I hate those people so much.

Jimmy Hoffa

3:49 PM

@Telastyn click the "4 mins ago" and it links you to the Q

Telastyn

ah, ty.

Robert Harvey

4:07 PM

Railway Oriented Programming

user114359

@RobertHarvey is as picky about spelling and grammar as I am

user114359

I wonder if that question should be closed as primarily opinion based because it asks about popularity, but it did get some useful answers.

user114359

17

Q: Why is MVC more popular than PAC?

I just stumbled upon a question at SO about PAC and got interested in the pattern. I'm wondering why it's not as widely used as MVC? What is the MVC benefits compared to PAC?

design-patterns

user114359

If it were asked today and did not have the upvotes and answers I would definitely VTC

user55340

@amon I one "wrote" a "ruby" "interpreter". It handled 95% of the code I had and matched the implementation. It spat out "parse error on ${last line+1} and exited "

user15026

4:23 PM

Woo, finally got told what time my surgery will be (8 am tomorrow). Yay cyborg upgrade!

enderland

@AshleyNunn :)

user114359

Are you getting a bionic arm so you can crush the skulls of your enemies with your bare hands?

user55340

@AshleyNunn I hope that link to the game the other night didn't break your brain (it still hurts mine when I see it on steam)

Jimmy Hoffa

@AshleyNunn everytime someone gets near you with a needle, just remind them "Don't miss!" - always sage advice.

user114359

Or a laser cannon in your forearm a la Megaman?

user55340

4:25 PM

Skull cannon a la diamond age?

user15026

Someone suggested I ask for a toaster and my only response was "only if it comes in bagel width"

user15026

Because who doesn't want to be able to make toast whenever wherever

user15026

@michaelT diamond age was a really good book.

user55340

@AshleyNunn pint size. (Up to date on questionable content)?

user114359

I want to replace my belly button with a spigot that drains the fat out, so I can eat as much bacon as I want without gaining weight.

user15026

4:28 PM

@michaelT yes, always am, it's one of my favourite comics

user15026

@Snowman Oh that would be a good upgrade.

user55340

You saw that Crodak is updating regularly now?

user55340

dresdencodak.com

user55340

> Great news! Thanks to my amazing Patreon supporters, I can now offer a regular schedule for Dresden Codak! Look for the next page in exactly two weeks, and every other week from then on!

user15026

That is one I still need to get caught up on

user55340

4:33 PM

Better hurry. It's going to start moving.

user55340

And it's about a cyborg!

user55340

Cyborgess?

user55340

Cyborgette?

ratchet freak

she-borg?

user55340

Hmm. Tough questions. Off to English.SE!

user55340

4:35 PM

@ratchetfreak too narrow... Unless there is assimilation going on with tight clothing.

user55340

Btw, @AshleyNunn did you get the tie ins between Diamond Age and Snow Crash?

amon

Here's my C interpreter:

#include <stdio.h>
int main() { printf("Segmentation fault\n"); return -1; }

2

user55340

@amon matches 90% of the code output.

user114359

Here is a Java interpreter:
public static void main(String args) {
IProblem p = new ProblemFactory().createProblem();
p.doEnterpriseyActionWithLotsOfXmlAndOneHundredNestedLoopsAndConditionals();
}

(throws an exception, gives up)

user55340

@amon April 1, post a question about your c interpreter on SO and give that as the mvce?

user114359

4:48 PM

I guess no code formatting in here

user55340

Four spaces. Paste, select fixed on the side.

Duga

@TimSchmelter this is a very bad fit for Programmers, see meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/6483/… Recommended reading: What goes on Programmers.SE? A guide for Stack Overflow — gnat 1 min ago

amon

5:12 PM

@MichaelT Nah, I should post it on Hacker News: “Here at compilr.io (YC 2016) we're excited to announce the revolutionary, formally verified, self-hosted FemtoC interpreter that uses only 2SLOC. This even undercuts minimal Lisp eval implementations by 80%! Sign up HERE to request an invitation to our full-scale SAAS cloud compiler service to launch your crufty C code into the shiny future. You can ＜a href="javascript:alert('Segfault')"＞try it online now!＜/a＞”

Jimmy Hoffa

Here's my haskell interpreter:

durron597

@amon Doesn't a segfault in C go to stderr?

amon

@durron597 Neither. the message is printed out by the shell, not the program itself. But creating an actual segfault (int *p; *p=42;) is probably UB, and we don't want nasal demons, now do we?

user55340

5:30 PM

@amon you know you want to do that here. Maybe with a stack snippet.

Tanner's Job Hunt

Transcript for