The Whiteboard

user55340

12:00 AM

The day of chaos is finished... June 30th = last day of fiscal year

user55340

Things have to be deployed today so that they are available on the 1st.

user55340

The app I was suddenly assigned to last week was a "we need this application now so that we can turn off a program that would otherwise cost us another $?00,000/year - oh yea, it needs to be deployed by the 30th.

Jimmy Hoffa

eesh

user55340

And then today the sysadmin (different department - and I mean different TLA department) was "I'm having trouble accessing the files in production..." at 1:30 pm.

user55340

So the project manager comes and asks if I can do this convoluted thing... I was "no, wait, let me just add another path to the controller that can serve a file directly" which allowed the sysadmin to debug the problem in production.

user55340

12:03 AM

(that was a 5 minute fix - but just part of the day of chaos)

user114359

12:25 AM

Anyone here familiar with wxWidgets?

Ampt

No, but I did stay in a holiday in express last night

user114359

You are nothing more than a sock puppet

user114359

This documentation is utterly useless for what I need.

user114359

Ah, found a forum post that I could decipher. Crisis averted.

user114359

12:40 AM

For a moment there I thought I would have to post a "fix my code dump" request to give @gnat something to do.

user55340

1:11 AM

>
She began with Wangohan’s code, and discovered that everything about it was unfamiliar—even the implementation language was one which the Temple did not use. Wading through the alien syntax, she learned that the user interface was coded with an AJAX-JSON-XPath framework well beyond the capabilities of the Temple’s junior developers; the templating language made Perl4 look civilized and quaint; and the persistence layer was a NoSQL database so experimental that the release number began with two zeroes and ended in the words ‘alpha’ and ‘SNAPSHOT’.

user55340

(heh - from thecodelesscode.com/case/194 )

user114359

Sounds painful

user55340

I like the "start with two zeros and ended in alpha snapshot"

user114359

Huh. So apparently C++11 does not have make_unique while C++14 does, although VC++ has it in C++11 anyway via extension

user114359

yeah that reeked of enterpriseness.

Ampt

1:22 AM

So would anyone in here be interested in a book club of sorts? I'd like to start reading more programming books/learning new languages just for fun.

figured it would be pretty low-key. pick a book and a rough timeframe for chapters, and just kind of discuss it in a secondary chat room

user114359

I am in theory, but in practice I am not sure I want to invest the time and money for that. But if they are books I already own and read, I would be.

Ampt

These are some of the books I had in mind: Slack, Peopleware, A Pattern Language, Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art, Quality Code: Software Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns, Mastering the Requirements Process: Getting Requirements Right, Why Programs Fail: A Guide to Systematic Debugging, Mythical Man Month, Programming Pearls, Understanding Computation, Society of the Mind

(Thanks @MichaelT ;)

user55340

@Ampt that looks familiar.

Ampt

as well as books on specific languages as well, like Learn you a Haskell for Great Good, or Mining Ruby

@MichaelT I fleshed out the idea over a 3 hour drive but that didn't leave me with the free hands to really go through a list

and I knew you had one started so... :)

user55340

The thing with language books is that some learn programming differently.

Ampt

1:26 AM

Agreed, which is why I kind of liked the idea of the open ended discussion

It wouldn't be a "Lets meet up at friday at 3 to talk for 2 hours"

user55340

I would hate to try to read a book on an API or language now - I want the reference manual, not the "I want to read this" book in those cases.

user114359

I read Mythical Man Month (20 years later edition) recently, it was interesting.

Ampt

it would be a "Ok, for the next 7 days, we can discuss anything in chapters 1-2, including questions, ideas, critiques, etc"

user114359

I have Stroustrup's C++ 4th edition (C++11/14) and it was good

user55340

I like the surgical team model - if not as the team as roles for programmers to work at.

Ampt

1:27 AM

We already function pretty time-independent here anyway

@MichaelT yeah, that part stuck with me too. specialized roles

the idea of small teams is so agile, but the idea of specialization is so... not. I could definitely see that being something that comes into practice in 5 years when people get fed up with the bureaucratization of agile

user55340

There are times when I'm the language lawyer now... or the toolsmith... or the surgeon. Its important to realize what role is needed and how to fill it - and if you can't that it is something that someone else may need to fill.

user55340

People realize that I know how to make eclipse do what I want it to (I still don't name it as my preferred IDE, but I can make it do things)... or that I can do more than "here's hudson, there's the build.xml"

Ampt

and yeah, I'd like to have at least one person in the group who's already read the book we'd be doing next, so that they can help set pacing, guide conversations ("Yeah, that is brought up again and refined in chapter 5"), and throw out books that aren't a good fit

user55340

Ping @enderland when you get to Slack.

Ampt

... they won't let you use intellij?

user55340

1:30 AM

@Ampt I'm not telling them that when I use maven I'm downloading all those plugins and libraries from the net...

user55340

Also, with current practices, it is based on checked in .settings and the like for eclipse.

user55340

To use any other IDE requires the entire department abandon that form of sharing projects in svn.

user55340

Not to mention that there's also an IBM IDE based on eclipse, and a vendor has a customized version of eclipse too.

user55340

So those things make it... challenging to have a mixed IDE environment - even if I could persuade them to let me download software that I've got a license to onto the machine. Oh yea, and the company is eastern european and russian... remember who I work for.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt the thing about specialization is people really are just better at different things - and more importantly a team full of people who all have the same strengths will always be weaker than one with a spectrum.

Lots of people really are just better at, enjoy more, doing surface level stuff, lots of people love being super thorough and OCD repetitive stuff, lots of people genuinely dislike looking at the big picture and aren't as good at it as a result. I like the surgical team model just for the concept of "If you have a person like X, give them this role and they will aid the team more than in other roles"

I've played language lawyer for teams many times and recognizing the role has given me ideas about how I can use that particular skill I enjoy in a way that helps the team.

user55340

1:42 AM

Its also a thing for managers to be aware of and look at for helping individuals grow more.

user55340

You've got someone who is always co-pilot? Ask them if they want to try doing more architecture work or taking a Microsoft / Oracle certification in the language.

Ampt

@MichaelT created a pull request for the whiteboard-recipes github repo :)

added a margarita recipe that's rather good.

user55340

@Ampt Merged.

Ampt

Neat. I've never done that before!

user55340

@Ampt Welcome to the world of git.

Ampt

1:49 AM

GitHub*

pretty sure pull requests aren't a Git feature, right?

unless.. they are and I've just never used them lol

user55340

@Ampt Its the way its done. The actual thing that happened was I did a pull from your repository. The pull is git, the pull request is git hub.

Ampt

yeah, ok, that's what I figured

user55340

(as opposed to when I have the code on my machine and I want to push it up to github)

user55340

the pull request also doubles as code review.

Ampt

psssh

we don't need those

user55340

1:54 AM

Dunno... might have to review that drink.

user55340

@AshleyNunn do you do QA at all?

Ampt

don't review it too much. those things go down easy and hit hard haha

user15026

@MichaelT I haven't really ever, no

user15026

@Ampt Oh gosh then it will be like the sangria I had this weekend all over again

user15026

(my brain couldn't seem to remember that although it tasted like juice it was super alcohol yay :P)

user55340

1:59 AM

@AshleyNunn would you try verifying this: github.com/shagie/WhiteBoard-Recipes/blob/master/Drink/Hard/…

Ampt

Ah, we had that too. My mother made some for my brothers grad party

user15026

@MichaelT I am not sure what you mean by verify

Ampt

triple sec subs for Cointreau as well

@AshleyNunn need we explain the process?

user15026

Yes

Ampt

step 1: buy the ingredients

step 2: combine

user55340

2:00 AM

@AshleyNunn @Ampt said it is good... I'm still not on speaking terms with Jose. Would you try?

Ampt

step 3: drink

user15026

@MichaelT Well, can't til later this week, because no LCBO tomorrow (Canada Day!) but I can try for Friday/weekend possible :)

user15026

I wasn't sure if you meant verfiy as in "try this and see if it tastes good" or like some super secret GitHub words :P

Ampt

that is the highest form of verification haha

user15026

I will take one for the team, then

user55340

2:02 AM

(everyone has that liquor that they don't drink... Tequila was the last one of the night many years ago when too much else was had... but it was tequila that I remember being the one that was the "ok... that was too much")

Ampt

Godspeed.

user15026

it's an excuse to start building up a stock of cocktail making bits!

user15026

@MichaelT That's cake flavoured vodka for me

user15026

I once drank a mickey of it solo at a New Year's party and paid for it

user55340

I think it was the recovery party... though it might have been the "its time for October party". The recovery party announcement is groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.sysadmin.recovery/…$20part‌y/alt.sysadmin.recovery/mkull9CIouQ/nEQAJmJ9Kw4J and the aftermath is groups.google.com/d/topic/alt.sysadmin.recovery/21hp-jHcKbE/…

user55340

2:06 AM

> And oh, did the pear cider flow....along with Guiness and other fine
brews and many other libations. We consumed:
7 pitchers of pear cider (the house bought us 2 pitchers!)
3-4 pitchers of Guiness, and as many pints
2 Newcastle pints
4 Sierra draft pints
1 Harp Ale
12 Purple Hooters (someone described this drink as 'Raspberry Nyquil')
6 Grape Apes (Purple Hooter's sweeter cousin)
1 shot vodka
5 shots tequila
and enough pub food to feed an army.

user55340

Yep... that was the tequila.

user55340

incidentally...

user55340

> > : ((sh(-na)+)(la -de -da)+)+

It scares me that someone can regexp a song on the fly.

user55340

I know regexes... even when throughly intoxicated.

user114359

@MichaelT Can't be all that hard, a finite state automaton is all that is required for that and all it knows is the last character it parsed.

user55340

2:09 AM

@Snowman question is - can you name the song?

user114359

Considering how much my memory is constrained when drunk, that is about all that fits anyway

user15026

@MichaelT I have no idea what is going there

user55340

Van Morrison Brown Eyed Girl lyrics

►

user114359

I'm not seeing this part in there: (sh(-na)+)

user55340

I blame it on the band.

user55340

2:11 AM

They were singing "Sh na na na na na na la la la la de da"

user114359

@AshleyNunn regular expressions are a way to parse a string, typically to see if it matches. Think of it like validating a phone number.

user15026

@Snowman Okay, that kinda makes sense to me

user114359

While they can look complex, they are really only able to parse simple stuff like you would find on a web page form: phone, email, etc.

user15026

so it is looking for a particular set of things.

user55340

Its looking for the string "sh" followed by one or more "-na" followed by "la de da" one or more times.

user114359

2:19 AM

Right, it is looking for a pattern

user114359

A simple example would be \d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4} for a phone number: match three digits, dash, three digits, dash, four digits. Or \d{5} for a U.S. zip code

user114359

Then there is drunken @MichaelT trying to match song lyrics...

user55340

@Snowman \d{5}(-\d{4})?

user114359

@MichaelT That would be technically more accurate

user114359

It almost sounds like you are asking me something though

user15026

2:32 AM

@Snowman Oh, okay, I am starting to get it :)

user114359

My application is leaking 24 bytes of memory when it exits, but VC++ cannot tell me which module or source file is responsible even with debug symbols and memory leak detection turned on. I am about ready to file this under "things that simultaneously annoy me but I don't care about" because the OS reclaims the application's heap anyway...

user114359

I just had to pick C++ for my next project... maybe I should have asked what language to use first.

Ampt

3:15 AM

GDB, perhaps?

user114359

@Ampt When I get this working in Linux, maybe.

Ampt

you're doing C development outside of linux? You must be a masochist...

user114359

C++11 actually, and it is much better than C++03

Robert Harvey

3:52 AM

The folks in The Lounge are such curmudgeons. They will tell you not to bother with c++11 because they still have so much leftover cruft from earlier c++ versions to deal with.

user114359

I just started a new project using C++11 and wxWidgets and it is nice to work with.

user114359

Except for crappy wxWidgets documentation in places

Duga

10:51 AM

I feel that this question should better be on programmers.stackexchange.com — Basile Starynkevitch 30 secs ago

Duga

11:41 AM

I think you should migrate your question to programmers.stackexchange.com — PierrOz 41 secs ago

@PierrOz This question is overly broad for Programmers. It's also career advice, which is specifically off-topic. Looking at your profile, it doesn't look like your an active participant on Programmers. Please don't suggest that people bring their questions to another site - it only leads to poor experiences when those questions are a poor fit and get down votes and closed. — Thomas Owens 52 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

1:01 PM

@Snowman and, you know, the C++11

Telastyn

1:25 PM

heh

Jimmy Hoffa

grumble new job I'm going to have to get used to always using curly braces in ifs again... My last job I spent over 2 years never using them for single line ifs, this is going to be an adjustment; Oh well, worth it. This job they're basically letting me have free reign over my design and implementation.

André

Doesn't the IDE already add that if you configure the code formatter as such?

Thomas Owens

@André It should.

I have Eclipse set up to reformat my code to company style on save.

I have heard of places that do it as a pre-commit hook kind of thing, though.

André

@ThomasOwens nods I use sonar rules on eclipse, it saves me the hassle.

Thomas Owens

Regardless, style should be automatic.

Jimmy Hoffa

1:32 PM

@André blech, I hate IDE auto-filling my code for me, other than intellisense for type/member name completion, I have all that junk off. Irritates me too much when it tries putting in actual meaningful code like blocks and parentheticals because I like choosing when/where all my meaningful bits go.

Telastyn

once the one contractor leaves, I'm going to need to push for always use braces

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa It's not like it's changing the meaning of the code.

If it is...well, that's kind of an issue.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn :/ why? I used to agree with this, but after spending 2 years without the rule, I now see braceless ifs as both harmless and cleaner... I've yet to see an issue arise from it...

Telastyn

2 things

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens curly braces and parentheses definitely change meaning of code. Mostly I want to ensure the placement of those pieces are where I want them

enderland

1:35 PM

I'm in an all day training, where the book is a printed thing with DRM, and everyone has issues so the instructor basically said "yeah our system is terrible for this, makes it hard for honest people, since anyone with half a brain can get around it"

I'm going to like this guy

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa There is no difference between these two code samples:

if ((x == null) && (y == null)) {
  handleNulls();
}

if (x == null && y == null)
  handleNulls();

Except the first one is the superior style.

Jimmy Hoffa

HAH!

also, there actually is.

Thomas Owens

What's different?

Jimmy Hoffa

scope.

André

scope? Can you elaborate?

Jimmy Hoffa

1:37 PM

not that it matters, but {} has meaning, so I don't want my IDE to ever write them

Thomas Owens

In Java, both produce the same bytecode, I think.

Telastyn

1. I've _rarely_ seen the fall-though if bug, but if you have super new programmers join, they're more likely to cause it. No need to risk something unnecessarily.
2. I don't want to have to think about it. All ifs, all loops get braces. Done. I can then put my brainpower towards the actual problem at hand.

^^

@ThomasOwens nods

That.

1:38 PM

@André anything defined in a statement block (in most C-like languages), is inaccessible outside that statement block, parent scopes cannot access bindings in their child scopes.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa What in my code is defined in a statement block? Nothing that I can see.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn for me it's just a readability thing, the {} becomes noise, and yes the fall-through bug is pretty well known to be totally bunk at this point outside of some seriously green folk, who you'll be reviewing the code of closely anyways.

André

@JimmyHoffa I just fail to see how both handleNulls(); there have different scopes.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens doesn't matter, my point is {} are characters with meaning. They may change the behaviour of my code. So I want to write them myself. I just can't stand it when the default visual studio settings are on which cause me typing { for the IDE to type } etc. I can type fast, I wish to choose on my own when and where blocks start and end

Telastyn

shrug the only place I have single-line conditionals is for input validation, and it almost always is {return bleh;} or { throw new blah(...); } so I'm not often reading that.

André

1:41 PM

Ah, eclipse format after a save, not during typing .

Thomas Owens

I don't rememebr the last time I added a block around code by typing. It's always select the code, right click > Surround With (or Alt-Shift-Z) > the type of block.

I can see how adding a { and having an automatic } added would be annoying if you wanted it like 10 lines down.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn exactly! This is the majority of the scenarios I refer to though. I find 4 or 5 one-liner if's at the top of the method far less noisy and in my way than when you add 2 lines to each of those, now instead of 3 lines each (if line, then line, whitespace), it's 5 lines each...

ratchet freak

or the last time you typed the closing brace

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens O_O WHAT?? You use your mouse to put in a code block? Ugh...

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Not usually. I Alt-Shift-Z

ratchet freak

1:43 PM

I tend to chain the ctrl+shift+f and ctrl+s to save

Jimmy Hoffa

keyboard FTW. I type more than fast enough to pop in my {} all on my own.

Telastyn

@JimmyHoffa - oh yeah, I don't add lines, that's totally noisy

Jimmy Hoffa

Just crawls under my skin when my IDE starts typing things my mind is still trained to do

Telastyn

I do have the braces though (all on one line)

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn oh! Hah yeah ok that's fine then. I'm not sure they'd let me get away with that though heh - everything about my coding style my boss likes a lot, he's just persnickety about ifs, he even recognizes it's pointless but he's too OCD to let it go

André

1:45 PM

I think that why I disliked Netbeans, it added the { } like you said @JimmyHoffa

Thomas Owens

@André Eclipse does that, too, by default.

I turned it off except for when I reformat my code.

So I type { and I don't get a } automatically.

But when I reformat, it adds { and } around if and for and such.

user55340

I am very much a proponent of consistent and enforceable (check style) formatting. Simple if blocks are still and always multi line with braces.

Telastyn

I disliked when Netbeans did that, but got used to it a little. MSVS2013 does it now too, though it seems to have a better algorithm.

user55340

I had too many inconsistencies in other code before.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn it's a decent algorithm for sure, but I turn that shit off pronto...

user55340

1:48 PM

It costs time when maintaining to have to wonder if there is a bug or not when indentation is inconclusive and there aren't braces.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT ok that smells like a java problem; in .NET if "indentation is inconclusive" you've got someone doing something crazy. Visual Studio does ensure consistent indentation very well, for everyone.

user55340

I've had vendor code where something looked like a bug. There were no braces. One statement was on the same line as the if. The next statement was indented one level.

user55340

Was that statement meant to be part of the if? Or not?

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