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00:00 - 19:0019:00 - 00:00

7:04 PM
@Weston.h you there?
need your python wisdom
 
user20683
@Ampt HMM?
 
@Ampt It's missing a space, that's all the problem is
 
actually it needs spaces where there are none
ok, so I need to create an array of 4 byte sized hex values
 
and you got your carriage return and your newline mixed up, that'll never do.
 
from a number that could be from 0xFFFFFFFF to 0x01
@JimmyHoffa quit picking on me, I'm just the junior dev :'(
 
user55340
7:06 PM
@Ampt use perl.
 
I'm just picking on Python, and not even rationally
 
although my senior teammate just put tabs instead of spaces for the 300+ lines of code she wrote without testing...
 
user20683
@Ampt WAT
 
user20683
WAT
 
whoops
 
user55340
7:06 PM
I believe python conventions say "spaces only"
 
user20683
WAT??!!!!
 
@MichaelT we all know there's a language named white space, but only perl programmers know there's a language called white noise.
 
user20683
TABS ARE HERESY!!!! BURN THE WITCH!!!!
2
 
lmao, no no
 
user20683
yes
 
7:07 PM
she weighs as much as a duck
 
@Ampt It's ok, she probably floats
 
user20683
burn her anyway
 
user55340
You're looking for PEP 8 I believe... python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#tabs-or-spaces
 
that wasn't my problem! 4 byte sized hex values from 1 string
I can use divmod to turn 2 bytes into two 1 byte numbers
 
user55340
> Spaces are the preferred indentation method. Tabs should be used solely to remain consistent with code that is already indented with tabs. Python 3 disallows mixing the use of tabs and spaces for indentation. Python 2 code indented with a mixture of tabs and spaces should be converted to using spaces exclusively.
 
7:08 PM
but I need 4 into four 1 byte numbers
 
user55340
Bitshift and mask?
 
preferably pythonic
 
user55340
0xF3A4 & 0xFF00 >> 4 will give you 0xF3 (I think)
 
>> 8
8 bits in a byte unless I've lost all my marbles
 
user55340
I don't do too much with bits anymore.
 
user55340
7:09 PM
But yea.
 
not sure if @Weston.h is still figuring out if I should burn my teammate or not...
 
user20683
burn
 
user55340
So, 0xF3A4 & 0xFF00 >> 8 gives 0xF3. Replace the first '0xF3A4' with your variable.
 
@Ampt No, he's trying to figure out how to get you to do it
 
user20683
burn with fire, ideally Greek.
 
7:10 PM
@Weston.h @YannisRizos is on vaca
 
user20683
@JimmyHoffa until tomorrow
 
user20683
:)
 
user55340
@JimmyHoffa He was trolling M.SO this weekend...
 
@MichaelT He vacations weird.
 
@MichaelT I need to turn 0xF3D204B2 into 4 byte sized numbers
 
user55340
7:11 PM
brb, changing @MichaelT's ProgSE username to "owner". — Yannis 21 hours ago
 
so 0xF3, 0xD2, 0x04 and 0xB2
 
user55340
Mask it with 0xFF000000 and shift 24, 0x00FF0000 and shift 16, 0x0000FF00 and shift 8, and 0x000000FF.
 
I feel dirty doing bit wise operations in python but if it's what I have to do I'll do it
 
user55340
Whats dirty about it? Its what the problem is.
 
user55340
> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
 
user55340
7:14 PM
That is the one, obvious way to do it. Do it that way.
 
user55340
> If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
 
take your logic and get out of here
 
user20683
@Ampt he's right
 
user20683
you shouldn't feel dirty about doing bitwise in Python, reserve that feeling for Ruby.
 
user55340
@Weston.h Everything there is dirty.
 
7:15 PM
hey, don't talk smack about ruby
we're about to enter a long term relationship
 
user20683
fair enough
 
in which one of us will try and kill the other
 
@MichaelT I'm sorry.
 
lmfao
 
user55340
I'll give away the bride... I never wanted her.
 
7:16 PM
but think about how hip and trendy I'll be
 
user20683
@Ampt ...
 
I'll probably end up drinking PBR and listening to music by bands you've probably never heard of
 
user55340
And then when she's old and crufty... you'll go "eww, what was I ever thinking?" -- better get one thats plain and a good with the ductape, because she'll be around for a long time and keep things running.
 
My stakeholder are knowledgeable and have chosen ruby on rails as our platform
 
user55340
@Ampt I don't believe you wrote that with a straight face.
 
7:19 PM
@MichaelT If he did, he's ready for industry
 
Day 263: They have no clue that I still hate ruby
 
@Ampt Ruby eh, this is what your future holds then:
 
user20683
@Day 264: They still have no clue...in general.
 
nah, I'm sure it won't be all that bad
It'll be good to get some knowledge of the other half of the field after working with embedded systems for a while
give me a wide range of skills
 
@Ampt Other half? You mean the half that just slaps shit together, collects the fee and books it out the door?
 
7:26 PM
"Your code smells? Heres an air freshener" programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/53086/…
well they still collect the fee don't they?
 
user55340
@Ampt Better answer - odditycentral.com/funny/…
 
@Ampt That depends more than you would think
 
Why does the highlighting of names have to be red? I always look at the screen and feel like I'm in trouble
@Weston.h have you ever used getattr and setattr to override setters and getters for variables?
 
user20683
@Ampt no
 
7:42 PM
There₍₁₎ are entirely⁽⁰⁾ too⁽³⁾ few₍₂₎ side₍₃₋₄₎ notes⁽⁻¹⁾

⁽⁻¹⁾ Such as below this line
⁽⁰⁾ More than completely
⁽³⁾ Also significantly, from Russian Choo
₍₁₎ Yep
₍₂₎ between 2 and 7
                                                                      ₍₃₎ here                           ₍₄₎and here
 
user20683
@MichaelT That question is 99% positive for homework. When was the last time you saw bubblesort in a production environment?
 
@Weston.h The time he saw the environment come crashing to it's knees
 
you mean I shouldn't be usig bubblesort?
.... brb
 
user20683
@Ampt You should be using quick or merge typically. Python's sort is a mix of merge and insertion known as "timsort".
 
I can't be helped, I stumbled across this in a profile: ⁰ ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹ ⁺ ⁻ ⁼ ⁽ ⁾ ₀ ₁ ₂ ₃ ₄ ₅ ₆ ₇ ₈ ₉ ₊ ₋ ₌ ₍ ₎
 
7:44 PM
@Weston.h I was being facetious. I typically don't have to deal with algorithms that much with what I'm doing
and if I do I'll use a premade one who's big O time meets what I need
 
@Weston.h I thought python used sleep sort...
 
on the whole I'm much more often limited by space than processing power though
@JimmyHoffa you see those braces? You think that's python?
You're next on the witch list
Going through the linked 4chan thread from that article. Bout to lose it in my cube and reaffirm my coworkers suspicions that I am, in fact, insane.
 
@GlenH7 you're an engineer
There's sound concentrator devices that let you like target a sound to a spot, no? Is that a real thing?
 
user55340
@Weston.h But bubblesort is so elegant!
 
user55340
 
user55340
7:59 PM
Though, it isnt in modern production environments, I did deal with tapes long ago... and given the constraints of a tape, it wasn't bad (locality of access).
 
@MichaelT Did they ever do a parallel drum tape system? 8 drums on the same motor so they rotate together, they all read a bit and the system get's one byte per read and one byte per write
(or 4 or whatever size)
 
user55340
@JimmyHoffa Possibly... thou realize that the precision needed to do that could be difficult. The tolerances for speed and positioning weren't quite were they are today.
 
That's what I was thinking, but then they managed to keep the tolerances consistent on a single tape so instructions could be consistently seeked
having all 8 on the same drive motor could keep the consistency much tighter
 
user55340
 
user55340
Old memory.
 
user55340
8:13 PM
More on it at Wikipedia...
 
user55340
{| align="right" || |} Delay line memory was a form of computer memory used on some of the earliest digital computers. Like many modern forms of electronic computer memory, delay line memory was a refreshable memory, but as opposed to modern random-access memory, delay line memory was sequential-access. Analog delay line technology has been used since the 1920s to delay the propagation of analog signals. When a delay line is used as a memory device, an amplifier and a pulse shaper are connected between the output of the delay line and the input. The memory capacity is determined by di...
 
I never knew remington and rand were tied together
I know them independently, but I know rand for far more technically complex and scientific things
 
user55340
Drum memory lost out to core memory.... they could never get the speed that cores offered.
 
user55340
> Drums were displaced as the primary computer memory by core memory which was faster (no moving parts), less expensive and more dense. For the same reasons, drums were displaced as secondary storage by hard disk drives.
 
user55340
So, I doubt it was ever considered to try to make a less dense, more expensive but faster one.
 
8:16 PM
@MichaelT Yes, but that doesn't mean drum memory didn't last long enough for them to try and get creative, it was the standard memory for quite a while no?
on the order of 2 decades
 
user55340
Lasted until the 80s in the PDP line...
 
user55340
The thing is, there wasn't research being done on it. It was known that it could never beat cores for memory density or access speed within the foreseeable future. Trying to make a RAID memory had the key failing at the 'I' part in those days.
 
@MichaelT I thought they didn't have core memory until the mid 70s
> Although core memory had been superseded by semiconductor memory by the end of the 1970s
nevermind, you're referring to something I'd not even heard of
semiconductor memory came in to play in the mid 70s, "core" memory is a much older thing I never knew existed... pretty interesting
 
user55340
 
user55340
Thats 4kb of core (64b x 64 b) in a 10cm x10cm area.
 
8:24 PM
a veritable ton of data for the time surely
 
user55340
Yep. They're talking about drum memory being 7kb... and that was for something that needed a motor and servicing.
 
user55340
Core memory was being worked on in the late 40s and made available in the early to mid 50s.
 
@MichaelT I'm just imagining old ladies with these tiny magnets and tiny copper strands threading that thing together like they're knitting, and this is probably not entirely far off from the truth. Surely those were made (painstakingly) by hand, and at the time a seamstress or jeweler would be the type of person to do such precision work. Though there were probably a whole selection of people with similar manual precision skills in the electronics and computer industry of the time
thinking about it, there were probably lots of precision manual jobs in electronics back then of all sorts, so perhaps they had specialists for it rather than people from other manual precision fields
 
user55340
> Forrester's coincident-current system required one of the wires to be run at 45 degrees to the cores, which proved impossible to wire by machine, so that core arrays had to be assembled under microscopes by workers with fine motor control. Initially, garment workers were used. By the late 1950s industrial plants had been set up in the Far East to build core. Inside, hundreds of workers strung cores for low pay.
 
user20683
@MichaelT so same as today -lasers and hexane
 
8:35 PM
@MichaelT Hah cool, I was spot on, garment workers. Seriously though, in the electronics industry of the time surely there were tons of similarly manual precision tasks that needed doing, I guess specialists didn't exist simply as an affect of the sheer tiny size of the electronics industry
 
 
2 hours later…
10:37 PM
Dijkstra is an awesome writer
 
user20683
11:05 PM
@JimmyHoffa Most of the great CS people were/are
 
user20683
It's one of the reasons I find poor writing in the profession to be so offensive. Yes, I know they were academics...so?
 
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