The Whiteboard - 2015-04-28 (page 1 of 4)

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3:24 AM

To people voting to close as off-topic: how is this question not about "[software tools commonly used by programmers; and [...] a practical, answerable problem that is unique to software development](stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic)";? — jthill 35 secs ago

3 hours later…

6:43 AM

1. Is much too broad for SO, and is the same in Python as any other language (perhaps programmers.stackexchange.com, have a look at the questions already tagged testing). 2. Yes, but requests for package recommendations are off-topic everywhere on SE. — jonrsharpe 9 secs ago

4 hours later…

10:44 AM

@MichaelT - String abose answer on Code Review... got a second?

What are you thinking?!!!???? Seriously..... you missed an obvious one....

The "other permutations" is the only place you put the append(int) option ;-) Which I would have thought of as being the logical first-choice, not the last choice.

Meh, this whole thing just made me see all sorts of problems.

1 hour later…

12:00 PM

a factory for singletons? <insert "yo I heard you like patterns"-meme here>

0

Q: Factory for creating a singleton instance

We have some legacy code that has a bunch of singletons all over the place (written in C#). The singleton is a fairly "classic" implementation of the pattern: public class SomeSingleton { private static SomeSingleton instance; private SomeSingleton() { } public static Some...

c# .net dependency-injection singleton factory-method

12:35 PM

Maybe this is better suited for programmers or some other meta site. — doldt 20 secs ago

@doldt This is off-topic on Programmers as it is a legal issue (copyright). I can see that you don't have an account on Programmers (at least one that is linked to your Stack Overflow account). Unless you understand what is on-topic and makes for a good question on a community, you shouldn't suggest it. It leads to people cross-posting questions on other sites. If they get closed, then that leads to a bad experience. — Thomas Owens just now

That part wasn't completely clear from the description of your issue. Maybe provide more details (understanding some things may be proprietary) to help us understand the situation better. To be honest, at this point this sounds like it might be more of a design issue and might get better results being moved to Programmers. — FreeMan 46 secs ago

1:07 PM

someone undo that garbage edit?

I am work busy

linky?

-1

Q: ttttttttttttttttttttttttt

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

user55340

Two delete votes on it so far.

3 now

user55340

Needs four total.

user41796

1:16 PM

@MichaelT What post? :-)

user41796

@ratchetfreak - Yep; it'll 404 for the non 10k crowd now.

didn't realize that you were retorical

Did you know that if the cv queue is empty, you can refresh the page until you get a honeypot?

user41796

@ratchetfreak I need constant snark and rhetorical tags after almost all of my commentary

user41796

@durron597 Who has time for that? :-)

1:19 PM

@GlenH7 It only takes like 5-7 refreshes. Y'all aren't creating enough review tasks for me to catch up to you!

user41796

Been busy, sorry

user41796

stupid xml parsing

user41796

stupid work

user41796

stupid moderator duties.

user41796

Ugh. All these distractions!

user41796

1:21 PM

at least the coworkers are either out or quiet today.

@GlenH7 I know, I mean, who cares about work when there are stupid questions to be closed on the internet!

user image

user41796

exactly! Far more interesting than fixing the code of dearly-departed

user41796

I love that play on words too.

user41796

Previous dev who left team == dearly-departed

s/left/was fired from/ ?

user41796

1:23 PM

Nope, left voluntarily

user41796

But hey, let's use int.parse for values that can be reals or not valid numbers. 'cause it's easy that way and nothing ever goes wrong, amiright?

user41796

Error checking === YAGNI!!!

well, to be fair they weren't going to need it.

user41796

Well played

wait they didn't use a prebuilt xml parser?

user41796

1:27 PM

@ratchetfreak kinda, not really

you can normally just feed the xsd and get a verifying parser+generator

user41796

The thought that someone else may have already solved that problem in a superior manner was a bit foreign to them.

user41796

I also got into arguments with this person about fundamental definitions of engineering terms. <sighs heavily/>

scrap it and plug in a proper xml parser?

user41796

I tried. Refactoring costs were too high and I had to abandon that approach. :-(

1:31 PM

@ratchetfreak Nah just parse the xml using regex

user41796

So I cleaned it up as best I could and commented the heck out of what future maintainers will need to do.

@durron597 Need moar lex and yacc.

@GlenH7 with a header of "this should be replaced with a proper xml parser but no budget now. Have fun :)"

@durron597 I SEE NOTHING.

@ThomasOwens I SAID NOTHING

user41796

1:33 PM

@ratchetfreak Colorful commentary was appropriate in this case, yes

@GlenH7 Just write an Antlr cfg. how long could that take?

user41796

1:46 PM

@durron597 I was more motivated to get my minecraft server back up and running instead of futzing with that code

@GlenH7 So my girlfriend and I own two xbox 360s because we both had one when we lived separately. I finally got around to buying a second copy of console minecraft and hooking up the other xbox on the other tv. yelling across the apartment "ahhh! creeper" the cats were like "wtf are you doing"

actually that last bit isn't really relevant, they're always like "wtf are you doing"

user41796

Cats....

user41796

I'm definitely a dog person

user image

dogs are way more work

user41796

No doubt about that

user41796

1:52 PM

But dogs will at least pretend to like you

pssh, you just let dogs into the yard to poop. cats you need to clean up after

cats clean themselves

dogs you have to give a bath every so often

(or don't, i guess)

user41796

@durron597 easy enough to hire that out. :-)

or to just spray them down with a garden hose

@Telastyn but... i'd have to go outside for that

1:54 PM

well, it's advisable.

user41796

@durron597 'cause it's so cold where you live?

user image

user image

user55340

@durron597 out of close votes. Did a bunch of reviews to try to catch up to Glen.

user55340

Cats rule. Dogs drool.

user55340

@rolfl updated post to explain context of less than ideal solutions.

2:05 PM

I overreacted anyway... ;-)

user55340

Strings are my overreaction too.

user55340

I see so many people using and creating them in Java in far less than ideal ways.

There's a neat trick with the bold code... well played.

You already have my +1 though...

Why did the stci post get unpinned?

Structured Tag Cleanup Phase II Planning

2

@durron597 timeout on the pin

pins only last 2 weeks IIRC

2:12 PM

@ratchetfreak I don't think so, because Thomas Owens post about crappy interviews also is gone

No matter, there's another one now

@durron597 or it was 1 week... I just know there is a time limit on them

If anyone reviews this close task, please use my close reason and not the migration close reason. Thanks

@durron597 Why?

@ThomasOwens Because of the link in my comment

It has the error message. I'm not a maven expert, but may that be sufficient to solve the problem?

2:20 PM

I mean, feel free to use any close reason as long as it's not the migration one. cc: @GlenH7

user41796

already dun. :-)

@GlenH7 I know :)

@ThomasOwens I am a (relative) maven expert. It isn't enough.

Further there is little attempt to say stuff like "however, every other dependency works"

The post has no formatting

That works for me. Since you know more about Maven then me, are there specific questions that would need to be answered in the question to provide an answer?

They didn't say whether they're connecting to maven central or a local repo

If there are, those should be in a comment.

Something like "X? Y? Z? Please edit your question to answer these."

user55340

2:24 PM

@rolfl I've seen the bold trick other places. I wanted to focus on those two lines.

@ThomasOwens I would do that if the question were on SO already

@durron597 my ears perk up.... " I am a (relative) maven expert." I would like to bounce some questions off you if you don't mind, at some point.

@rolfl mmf. Sure, but the way this conversation has played out fair warning I may have oversold my skills

user41796

@ThomasOwens I'm willing to bet a virtual $1 that the OP is q-banned on SO

My "expertise" doesn't extend to writing custom plugins, for instance.

user55340

2:25 PM

i once fixed code that was programmatically building some JavaScript inline that was a few kilobytes in size... With string +=. Each loop megabytes were being created and collected.

user41796

Account for 19 days; no apparent SO posts; and user posts low quality question here => likely q-ban

OK, it is a non-urgent, and somewhat simple question for someone who knows how the build tool "hangs together".

user55340

It's so easy to use += without being aware of its costs.

@rolfl I'll do my best. Koalafications: I deploy my production code using maven, I maintain a private archiva server, but my project doesn't do all that much clever beyond that

user55340

@GlenH7 or entire site/network is rate limited.

2:27 PM

@rolfl, I suppose you can ask me too, I think I can be helpful as @durron597

OK, I am the maintainer of JDOM, the XML library.... right?, it's on maven central.

I have a "fair number" of downloads, about 250,000 a month

@durron597 ain't that how it always is? Either you've go the world fanciest build-deploy keychain with the most boring project, or the most complex project with the worlds most lack-luster build-deploy chain haha

user image

@Ampt Well, I haven't had @JimmyHoffa to do my builds up all fancy-like yet

Right, so it's a reasonable thing.... but, I have a problem with it, because the vast bulk of downloads are for old versions.

2:29 PM

@rolfl Why is that a problem for you?

user image

So, the big slice is the old version.

you need atool to let you keep multiple versions?

No, my problem is that I believe the maven tool itself uses JDOM..... but I can't track the tools dependencies to see which version uses it.

I believe that every time someone types mvn .... compile ... it's causing a download of a version that's.... 6 years old.

user55340

You want the reverse dependency tree?

I want to find out which mvn component in the mnvn tool itself is causing the reference.

then I will contact that component's devs, and negotiate an upgrade.

I need to know who to contact ;-)

2:32 PM

So you need Liam Neeson

"I will find you, and I will upgrade you."

So, who in the mvn tool itself, is "depending on" group org.jdom artifact jdom.

user55340

Actually... I know a maven maintainer.

user55340

Let me dig just a bit...

or block its update and see which component complains?

@rolfl search.maven.org/…

I'm pretty sure that's the culprit

maven release plugin uses jdom 1 also

2:34 PM

<dependency>
  <groupId>jdom</groupId>
  <artifactId>jdom</artifactId>
  <version>1.0</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

user55340

Ok, found him.

lol of course it's in test

$ find . -name '*.pom' | xargs fgrep jdom | cut -d: -f1 | sort -u
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream/1.3.1/xstream-1.3.1.pom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream/1.4.2/xstream-1.4.2.pom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream-parent/1.3.1/xstream-parent-1.3.1.pom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream-parent/1.4.2/xstream-parent-1.4.2.pom
./jaxen/jaxen/1.1-beta-8/jaxen-1.1-beta-8.pom
./jdom/jdom/1.0/jdom-1.0.pom
./org/apache/activemq/activemq-parent/5.9.0/activemq-parent-5.9.0.pom
./org/apache/camel/camel-parent/2.12.1/camel-parent-2.12.1.pom

@durron597 There's probably going to be a lot....... of course.

user55340

(Ahh... "Just" a commiter on the team, not a member)

2:37 PM

Let's try that again;

$ find . -name '*.pom' | xargs fgrep -l jdom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream/1.3.1/xstream-1.3.1.pom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream/1.4.2/xstream-1.4.2.pom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream-parent/1.3.1/xstream-parent-1.3.1.pom
./com/thoughtworks/xstream/xstream-parent/1.4.2/xstream-parent-1.4.2.pom
./jaxen/jaxen/1.1-beta-8/jaxen-1.1-beta-8.pom
./jdom/jdom/1.0/jdom-1.0.pom
./org/apache/activemq/activemq-parent/5.9.0/activemq-parent-5.9.0.pom
./org/apache/camel/camel-parent/2.12.1/camel-parent-2.12.1.pom

Since JDOM 2.x and JDOM 1.x can coexist nicely together, what I should do is track down the maven-release and maven-assembly folk, and work with them.....

get them to migrate, the rest will likely follow.

This has been helpful, thanks a lot.

@rolfl You may be interested in this conversation between myself and @ThomasOwens from awhile back

Feb 25 at 14:47, by durron597

The problem is less getting surprised by 3rd party update releases and more about worrying about backwards compatibility when I do notice them.

JDOM is careful about that... ;-) I sett up about 1800 test cases to ensure that backward compatibility is reliable from 1.x to 2.x on a conceptual level. The technical level was intentionally broken.... from package org.jdom.* to org.jdom2.*

On the other hand, you now have generics, covariant types, and so on, although, for 99% of people changing their import statementswill let them compile their code with warnings only.

@rolfl I'm simply saying, I'm sure that's why they haven't updated. You may know it's safe, but they don't.

there is also on
maven-help-plugin
maven-eclipse-plugin
cobertura uses 1.1.3
gwt-maven-plugin uses 1.1.3
plexus-containers
commons-vfs2-project

if that is any help

2:44 PM

@rolfl go into the repo and branch a test where you s/org\.jdom\./org\.jdom2\./g

user image

1.1 is 200,000 per month

@rolfl Since I've got you as a captive audience, I use vtd-xml in my own code. Would you say jdom is superior, the same, or worse than vtd-xml and why?

The 2.x versions in there are broken.

@durron597 - I have never used it.

Looking through their site, they describe themselves as an XML parser. JDOM is not a parser, JDOM relies on something like xeres, (or the version built in to Java).

galaxy quest? score.

@rolfl So, if I'm following you, JDOM is just a wrapper for the dom/sax api that makes your life easier?

2:49 PM

JDOM is normally compared against XOM, and DOM.

It is not a wrapper around DOM, it is a substitute for DOM.

It typically uses a SAX stream to build a more efficient DOM model, with Java-like accessors instead of the platform-agnostic DOM accessors

It also includes translation to/from StAX streams, events, SAX, DOM, and so on.....

I'm still not quite following

So, like DOM, in JDOM you can say: Element root = new Element("myroot");

what does JDOM do that a parser does not do, and what does an XML parser do that JDOM does not do

JDOm is not a parser, it is an in-memory model of an XML document

you can feed that model from a parser.

Consider, for example, maven...

so jdom is more about writing and manipulating xml but not so much reading?

2:52 PM

it has a pom.xml

If I understand it right: it creates the AST of xml generated from the output of a parser

Document doc = saxbuilder.build("pom.xml");

Your doc instance is now a complete in-memory copy using standard/native Java accessors to that model.

Things you can do are.... things like:

XMLOutputter writer = new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat()));
writer.write(System.out, doc);

or, XPath lookups.

or adding dependencies to your pom....

Okay, further reading suggests that vtd-xml breaks the dom API contract for performance

JDOM also ensures that all manipulations on the model will always result in well-formed documents.

it is not possible to build a non-well-formed one.

in other words, you wouldn't parse something using vtd-xml in order to feed it into jdom the same way you might with xerces because it's random access and doesn't build the entire tree into memory

2:55 PM

SAX and VTD seem to be somewhat more comparable, though VTD appears to preserve 'pointers' in to the source.

which would imply that it could have a potentially massive performance improvement on large files.

SAX is a 1-direction-only stream

Correct.

Any time you have a large document, any in-memory model will suffer both performance and memory constraints.

JDOM, XOM, DOM all have the same constraints.

I understand now, thanks

Additionally, they all also require the entire stream to be read to have the in-memory model funcitonal.

SAX and VTD will win with latency as well, becuase you get the data mid-parse, not end-of-parse.

@rolfl In my use case it actually seems like jdom would have been more appropriate (I have a configuration file that is only like 1500 bytes)

2:58 PM

yeah, JDOM is ideal for that sort of thing.

Consider ....... things like:

Document doc = .....
Element root = doc.getRootElement();
for (Element section : root.getChildren()) {
    // do something with config sections....
    .....
}

Or XPaths are a treat too....

@rolfl Yeah, I mean, I've used the default included java xml stuff too

The default DOM included with Java cannot do that ^^^

no generics, no iterators, nothing.

Casts all over the place.

I've used JAXB for parsing and generating xml

NodeLists and

I hav a meet I am late for.

@rolfl Yeah, I know, it's a gigantic buttpain, that's why I went and found vtd-xml

aight, take care. thanks for explanation

3:02 PM

directly from/into my classes using annotations though I object to the default netbeans style properties (I always set @XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD))

@MatthewFrontino While not explicitly stated, the OP asks for code (give me teh codez) in Java or C#. Programmers does not deal with code, but rather for stuff that you can do on a whiteboard like architecture approach and the like. So this question doesn't fit there. — Artjom B. 53 secs ago

@Duga huh a false positive that is a reply to a false negative...

we save so much money on having our help desk outsourced... which then infuriates people like me who consistently have bad experiences with it. ugh

user41796

@enderland Which in turn causes you to use the help desk less and saves the company even more money

@GlenH7 I know, I just wrote a comment (in the box which only shows you about 20 characters) indicating I am being pushed to use non-help desk resources for my requests... which has the effect of taking people who make 5x or 10x as much time as the help agents to support my questions

seriously, all I'm trying to do is figure out why monitors I requested last week are not here yet

3 weeks for monitors seems unacceptable without any explanation whatsoever

user41796

3:08 PM

"Oh, you actually needed to use those monitors? Our bad. We thought you were just hunting for desk trophies."

3

sigh

yeah...

whatever I guess. whoever figures out a system for tech support that doesn't SUCK and is even remotely cost effective will become very wealthy...

user41796

Help Desk is viewed solely as a cost center

user41796

it is inherently cost-ineffective until someone figures out a way to accurately measure lost productivity

nods

@durron597 pah! I gladly avoid doing any of that anymore. Handy to have someone do it, but I rather enjoy working on middleware instead. Got the build monkey off my back years ago.

user15026

3:20 PM

I want to work in things like that sometimes, then I realize the whole system is broken and although I want to be an agent for change, the helpdesk stuff is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

Build monkey, is that a thing?

user41796

@AshleyNunn They gave you something as large as a teaspoon? <jealous/>

@GlenH7 HA!

@AshleyNunn yeah... ITS CHEAP TO HAVE PEOPLE IN [[[cheaper country]]] ~~help~~ WASTE PEOPLE'S TIME!

I installed SonarQube here to keep track of my code quality, just the defaults. I got frowned upon :|

user15026

3:25 PM

@enderland Yeah, outsourcing sucks. I want to be actually helpful, but that might just be a silly dream.

user55340

Stuff broke yesterday in test. This is a good / bad thing. Bad it broke, but good that now a light has been shown upon lack of testing.

user15026

Then again, I got very frustrated when I knew what I had to do to fix a problem with my setup at the insurance company but I wasn't allowed to install the needed driver. They wasted two days trying to get someone to come to my desk to click the okay button.

@AshleyNunn often comes down to paperwork of what is installed where

user55340

Good that it broke in test rather than two weeks later in prod (which would have been very bad given where I work)

user55340

Forgive me mods, but I'm going to flag for a close vote bypass (I'm out)

3:29 PM

well I'm going to do my job today by driving up and down the same road several times

Companies really should have a trust and respond IT policy instead of a locked-down IT policy

in other words, you can do whatever you want on your computer, but if you download gigabytes of porn, you're fired

@durron597 problem is most people are basically computer illiterate ;)

unless, y'know... you're working for a porn company.

@Telastyn nah, in those companies you are probably uploading it but not downloading it so much

user55340

3:45 PM

@durron597 what about finance and government? It's one thing for me at small web shop where nothing important happens... Quite another when I've got data on lots of people going through my machine?

user41796

@MichaelT I've got plenty still

@MichaelT Mmm. Good point.

user15026

Hm, a job asks me to handwrite a cover letter. Can I do it in lined paper, or will they look down on that? Because if I do it on plain printer paper, I worry my lines will be all over the place.

user55340

@AshleyNunn can you do it with lined paper under the unlined?

user55340

As long as your paper isn't too heavy, you should be able to see some.

user15026

3:54 PM

Probably, because I am just using normal everyday printer paper. So I could do that. Would that look better?

user55340

Yep, it would look better (imho)

user41796

@AshleyNunn I would write it on your preferred type of paper. If they're going to eliminate you from consideration based upon paper choice, that's not a company you want to work for.

user41796

I'd call that a harbinger of future stressors.

Why would they want a handwritten cover letter? that doesn't make any sense

user55340

And it's a good sign (despite the annoying hoop) in that it will discourage people who are just copy pasting the cover letter. They have to want the job.

user15026

3:56 PM

@whatsisname makes perfect sense for a job where you would be handwriting things on the daily and they want to make sure your writing is legible.

user55340

At worst, it's an interview. And you can look at verifying job stress with the "do you have questions for us?"

I suppose

user15026

@michaelT also for this job I have to take cover letter/resume/references to them in person. So this is my task today. Write the letter, print the other stuff, take it over, be like hello I am wonderful.

user55340

Every job has stressors. It's a question of which ones you accept to deal with.

user41796

@AshleyNunn They actually want face to face contact at the beginning? That's a good sign in my book. "Humans only need apply, thank you."

user15026

3:58 PM

@michaelT so true.

user55340

Some places have barking dogs as stressors (eh @enderland)

user55340

35

A: How to avoid distractions from boisterous dog?

Can it be done? I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you're going to have a nearly impossible time changing this. Why is this going to be really hard? The manager doesn't seem to care, at all, and knows you and others have reservations. The following work against you: Manag...

user15026

@GlenH7 I like it, it means I can show them my face and be like "hi, I took the time to come do this because I value the opportunity" . Hoping there will be someone free to chat, even long enough for me to impress upon them how interested I am.

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