The Whiteboard

user55340

1:17 AM

user55340

Its also 'amusing' (not the best word choice, but I'm sticking with it...) to see October kick in for students.

user55340

0

Q: Kinda burned out....Tips/Suggestions appreciated

I am recently finding coding to be monotonous. When I initially started coding back in high school, I was excited and passionate about programming. I absolutely loved the feeling of finding unique solutions to a problem. Since then, I have explored different languages and programmed in them. As s...

lifestyle

user55340

1:33 AM

And... thoughts on ontopicness of an old question...

user55340

4

Q: Question about a "Benchmark" regarding Java and .NET

To get that out of the way - i am not asking about which platform is faster or try to start a flame war. Question: Why is the .NET version slower 5x in the first test ? The results i got were: .NET Test1: 48992696 Test2: 1210070 Java Test1: 9651995 Test2: 1029374 Is this strictly behind lis...

java .net performance benchmarking

user55340

If this was posted now, I'd be tempted to flag it for migration to CodeReview. Other thoughts?

Sparticus

2:27 AM

Any of you salty old wizards heard anything about spaceX as an employer?

Jimmy Hoffa

4:23 AM

I haven't heard anything, but carmack helps out I understand, so there's no possible reason to imagine it's bad

Unless I'm remembering wrong

Sparticus

5:25 AM

Thanks @JimmyHoffa. I think I'm going to aim high on this one and apply. What have I got to lose?

user55340

1:53 PM

@Sparticus With interviewing, the worst they can say is 'no'.

Jimmy Hoffa

2:22 PM

@MichaelT They could also say 'Hell no' or the formidable "Security!"

user55340

A co-worker of mine back a few employments ago had a metal band. The band's name was "Security". Confused the clubs they played at when the crowd started shouting the band's name.

Jimmy Hoffa

2:39 PM

@MichaelT That's awesome.

Jim G.

3:24 PM

Oh... So you're the guy who "Just needs a coder" to begin the next Fortune 500 company. ;) — Jim G. 1 min ago

Jimmy Hoffa

0

A: Does functional programming ignore the benefits gained from the "On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules" (data hiding)?

I'm going to strike out on a limb here and say that the concept is just not relevant in FP the way it is in OO. In my experiences with FP; which are admittedly insignificant, I tend to find one stark contrast with OO in what denotes good/common data modeling. This contrast is that in OO in gene...

The answers to that question are all missing the point in my book.

I need to do a second pass on that answer, but if any of you could tell me what you think I'd appreciate it.

@jozefg have a look at my answer right there and let me know if I'm off base, I'm trying to point to something I don't see mentioned anywhere else in the other answers

user55340

3:54 PM

My take on it - FP is a contrast to procedural coding - not OO. You can have OO procedural based (Java, C++). You can also have OO functional (CLOS, Clojure). Data hiding is a concept of OO - be it procedural or functional.

user55340

Common Lisp Object System

The Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is the facility for object-oriented programming which is part of ANSI Common Lisp. CLOS is a powerful dynamic object system which differs radically from the OOP facilities found in more static languages such as C++ or Java. CLOS was inspired by earlier Lisp object systems such as MIT Flavors and CommonLOOPS, although it is more general than either. Originally proposed as an add-on, CLOS was adopted as part of the ANSI standard for Common Lisp and has been adapted into other Lisp dialects like EuLisp or Emacs Lisp. Features The basic building blocks ...

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Iduno, I think the key is about the why you hide data: In OO you hide data because data is what describes your system behaviour, so if you don't hide it you end up with your elbow affecting your heart because they didn't hide their data from eachother, in FP your data doesn't describe your system behaviour so hiding it is no longer relevant

user55340

OO isn't only about hiding data. Its also about encapsulation of functionality. Data hiding is one of the tools used to help maintain that encapsulation.

maple_shaft

sup guys

user55340

Well, its monday...

user55340

4:05 PM

I got +100 on my open letter! The only great question on M.P.SE!

2

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I get that, I'm just speaking to the reason you hide data in OO, that reason doesn't apply in FP

maple_shaft

@MichaelT An open letter that really students who are looking for easy answers to their homework they don't understand will never read, and frankly couldn't give the slightest sh%% about

not to be disparaging

user55340

Oh, I was amused to see October start to kick in for the students.

user55340

The "I'm dealing with things in CS now that aren't fun and easy and I can do with my eyes closed..."

user55340

0

Q: Kinda burned out....Tips/Suggestions appreciated

I am recently finding coding to be monotonous. When I initially started coding back in high school, I was excited and passionate about programming. I absolutely loved the feeling of finding unique solutions to a problem. Since then, I have explored different languages and programmed in them. As s...

lifestyle

maple_shaft

4:10 PM

I got out of that phase after my internship

user55340

> Now, I am a second year at a University and I slowly feel my passion dying down.

maple_shaft

The first time you code something that is actually useful is like the first time you make out with the first girl you have ever loved... it is a truly amazing experience

user55340

Second year for me was where you start getting the 'real' problems. For Madison it was 302 (intro), 354 (assembly), then 352 (digital logic) and 367 (data structures) -- those were a jump in concepts from before.

user55340

The other thing is I wonder what they think they'll be doing when they get out of college? Its not like "100% do what you want and get paid."

maple_shaft

Fast forward, your married, and you look into the cold disinterested eyes of your wife as you try to kiss her, to rekindle a glimmer of a spark that you once had, only for her to push you off because you had garlic bread for dinner

thats software development as an industry

Jimmy Hoffa

4:13 PM

@maple_shaft ...not to be depressing or anything

user55340

See, being a bachelor with a cat... the worst problem I have is "your breath smells like fish" when he decides my beard needs to be cleaned.

maple_shaft

I am in a dark place right now

but I will stop

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft I know, October in Pittsburgh is like eternal night

heh

maple_shaft

Google had positions for a Front End developer, and I met all the requirements

but I didn't even get a phone interview

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft Every job google posts out there is probably applied to by basically the entire grad department at CMU

maple_shaft

4:16 PM

I never thought I was Google material, but I at least hoped I would be able to talk to somebody

Jimmy Hoffa

and all the locals with PhD's from there

Thomas Owens

Google is...weird. There are people who I know should have gotten jobs there but got rejected and people who shouldn't be working anywhere that got jobs there.

user55340

Google is very weird.

maple_shaft

You think my age played into it?

user55340

They also have a very young culture that burns you out quickly.

maple_shaft

4:16 PM

I am 30 now... I might as well be 90

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft Unlikely in Pittsburgh, there's not a lot of young applicants/employees to begin with

the majority of applicants for positions out there are 40+

maple_shaft

Well I just wanted a friggin chance

user55340

(FWIW, I sent my resume off to Google also... was advised by an old friend not even to try for Epic)

user55340

seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/…

maple_shaft

Let me go toe to toe in the gladiator ring with a young CMU buck... if I get my @$$ handed to me then so be it... I died for Ceasar

Epic products seem to suck... at least the Epic stuff we have here

user55340

4:20 PM

I knew some people who went to work there when it was a small company back in the mid 90s.

user55340

Today, its very... strange.

user55340

But yea, search for "google age discrimination" and delve into that... and be kind of glad you're not working there. It sounds like a fun place... but if you're a decade older than everyone else (ok, 30 bit hard... but 35, I wouldn't be surprised)

maple_shaft

I don't want to work there though!

I just wanted a phone interview... as a validation of where I have come to in my career

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft I hear ya, I've worked with some CMU folk who were quite good and some that had their head on backward but got the job because the CMU cred. Even still I just mean to say; every mildly intelligent to seriously intelligent person within a 40 mile radius applies for every position Google out their posts because it's well known to all to be the hands-down best place to work in the area

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa I don't get it. All I did was try and show them my latest piercing.... You're supposed to show that your friendly and interesting right?

Jimmy Hoffa

4:23 PM

You didn't get a phone interview because they got 10k resumes, and so they only called back the 3k with PhDs basically

maple_shaft

@JimmyHoffa I don't understand that

Jimmy Hoffa

(if they called back 3k, that's actually a ridiculously high number of call-backs)

user55340

@Sparticus The VP of engineering where I used to work had a piercing. Had a T-shirt that said "ask me about my piercing." And he got thrown out of a microbrewery once for showing said piercing to a waitress.

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft Google likes PhDs... why else do they structure their interviews to ask all kinds of CS Theory stuff?

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT I'm not sure I want to ask the question, but...where was the piercing?

Uh...I saw that.

user55340

4:25 PM

@ThomasOwens Prince Albert. Look that one up when you get home if you don't know.

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT OK. Yeah. That's a kick-outable offense.

maple_shaft

I can stand in the middle of market square and shout out... "I AM A SOFTWARE ENGINEER... I AM ENTERTAINING A NEW JOB!" ... and then I would cause a stampede of recruiters to trample nearby women and children on their mad rush to talk to me

there must be a huge shortage of good software engineers

user55340

Back at an iphone launch (I think it was the 3 or 3g), there were recruiters walking the line of people waiting for it (who had been camped out for a week) in SF.

Sparticus

@maple_shaft man you're making me even more nervous about this whole software industry, and im about t minus 5 weeks from getting into the thick of it

user55340

@maple_shaft There are, and in general, only the big companies can get the visas or that process.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:29 PM

@maple_shaft Two huge shortages in Pittsburgh: Good engineers, also good jobs for them though

which is why google posting there probably get's everyone anywhere there applying

Hell, when google posts they cause a stampede from across the country

@MichaelT "vias" ?

user55340

@Sparticus Jamf in Eau Claire whent from 5 employees to 110 in 3 years.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Fixed.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus Graduating shortly?

maple_shaft

@Sparticus Being well sought after is a good thing, trust me

you are practically guaranteed a job, not a good one, but a job where you can live more than comfortably

user55340

Just looking at things - if you're willing to move to Minneapolis, there appear to be lots of openings there.

user55340

4:32 PM

(that keeps in you in the midwest). I'm sure Chicago isn't bad either for openings - though thats likely more financial.

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft Worst case scenario: The job is somewhere of low-desirability like Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, et al.

@MichaelT Yeah lots of financial there, I had looked there in the past when I was thinking about moving there to be closer to my wife's family (holy crap I'm glad that didn't happen)

user55340

There are lots of little biotechs that need a programmer on the I-90/94 corridor - though those are harder to spot.

maple_shaft

@JimmyHoffa where do you live now?

user55340

And then sometimes you luck out with a small consulting shop (like I did).

Jimmy Hoffa

If I had it to do from scratch I would look A) In Europe, B) In Europe, C) In Europe (D: Here, E: Charlotte, NC)

@maple_shaft Denver

Sparticus

4:35 PM

@JimmyHoffa graduating in may but the big career fair is in 2 weeks and most interviews happen about 1-2 weeks after than and then another 2-3 weeks and most people have offers

Jimmy Hoffa

Unfortunately I'm excluded from my A, B, and C choices due to not having a degree. @Sparticus should be wise and take advantage of his degree to get to a country that treats it's workers properly

Sparticus

@MichaelT I was looking at a job out in california actually

@JimmyHoffa which countries would those be???

user55340

@Sparticus its a good place to get some experience.

Sparticus

California might as well be a different country so if I'm putting companies out there on the list I'll apply abroad as well

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus Germany has a law requiring natural sunlight visible to all office employees

so office workers all have window views one way or another

user55340

4:36 PM

> Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa ever see the typical Silicon Valley office building?

Jimmy Hoffa

The average/expected PTO vacation in most of Europe/the UK are 2 months a year. You're lucky to start with 2 weeks and really lucky to get 3 weeks in US

@MichaelT Can't say I have

maple_shaft

@JimmyHoffa I get a little over 4 weeks PTO a year

one good benefit of my job

user55340

goo.gl/maps/4YgIi

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft That is nice. How nice would 3-6 months of paid paternity leave be as well as 2 months vaca instead of 1?

user55340

4:38 PM

Those are all windows.

maple_shaft

@JimmyHoffa pretty friggin awesome.

user55340

As long as you don't work in the defense contractor industry, you've got fairly windowed buildings.

enderland

do you guys want this question?

maple_shaft

I am taking 4 weeks for my son... who is due in 37 days

enderland

5

Q: How to code review without offending other developers

I work on a team that does frequent code reviews. But it seems like more of a formality than anything. No one really points out problems in the code for fear of offending other developers. The few times I've tried to ask for changes were met with very defensive and reluctant attitudes. This is of...

professionalism

seems more appropriate here than at Workplace

Jimmy Hoffa

4:39 PM

@MichaelT That's nice, but how many of those buildings have a ring of manager offices surrounding it instead of cubes ringing it with offices inside?

@maple_shaft Congrats!

maple_shaft

@enderland I like it!

send it over

@JimmyHoffa ty

Jimmy Hoffa

I just saw looked over, read this, and thought to myself: No no, way more than 6 of them are crazy...

enderland

done @maple_shaft

well flagged at least :)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I had a direct view of the outside in every cube I was at that campus. At most, the sunlight was 4 cubes down a hallway away (the hallways were always arranged allow light down them).

enderland

I don't have full dictatorship privaleges yet

Jimmy Hoffa

4:41 PM

@MichaelT That's nice. Still, how much nicer for that to be the legal requirement? It's a culture shift.

Sparticus

I have a view out the window if I look out the door to my cube, so I've got that going for me

but I want to do something with my career

user55340

The 'flip' side of that was actually having an office. I'd have even more sunlight if I was in a cube instead.

Sparticus

my big problem is that I don't know what that is

user55340

Here's Juniper Networks - goo.gl/maps/91wHU

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus Spend the first ~3-5 years making sure you have a career before worrying about what to do with it.

user55340

4:43 PM

And look at that and consider you can't have that many managers in the building.

maple_shaft

@enderland I flagged as well giving the mods my consent, if I didn't they would just turn around and ask one of us again

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus There's plenty of time for that second part, a great many never make it over that first part (not saying you won't, but don't think it's easy)

enderland

@maple_shaft yeah I actually dropped a link to your chat in the flag ;)

maple_shaft

Good thinking

enderland

in The Water Cooler, Oct 3 at 17:19, by Chad

Enderland for TWP Dictator!

Jimmy Hoffa

4:44 PM

Besides, you can't have any idea what you actually want from your career until you've tried some things.

enderland

this has a few stars, maybe it'll happen :-)

user55340

Getting a job in California for awhile gives you 'cred' if you want to move somewhere else.

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa agreed, agreed. I do have my current job to fall back on though, so I'm not worried about getting out of college and not having a job

so I'm in a poisition of want rather than a position of need

maple_shaft

Real quick guys... I wanted to try planning poker here for a meeting I have in 15 minutes... I have a deck...

Sparticus

but I don't want to become complacent either

maple_shaft

4:46 PM

do the higher numbers mean low effort or is that opposite... because 100 is a rocket and 0 is a foot?

Jimmy Hoffa

Well be wise and want to move to Europe ;P I mean c'mon, 2 months vacation! How can you turn that down? Good luck finding that in america, ours are only going to continue shrinnking so by the time you have the honor of a 3 week vaca those will have become extinct

Sparticus

higher numbers = more effort

user55340

High number = harder

user55340

Planning poker

Planning poker, also called Scrum poker, is a consensus-based technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of user stories in software development. In planning poker, members of the group make estimates by playing numbered cards face-down to the table, instead of speaking them aloud. The cards are revealed, and the estimates are then discussed. By hiding the figures in this way, the group can avoid the cognitive bias of anchoring, where the first number spoken aloud sets a precedent for subsequent estimates. Planning poker is a variation of the Wideband Delph...

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft 100 is a "spike", it doesn't mean high effort it means unestimable

enderland

4:46 PM

that's... awesome

Sparticus

its usually measured in story-points which are a made up number where 5 or 8 is some benchmark that the team comes up with

user55340

> One commercially-available deck uses the sequence: 0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, and optionally a ? (unsure) and a coffee cup (I need a break). Some organizations use standard playing cards of Ace, 2, 3, 5, 8 and King. Where King means: "this item is too big or too complicated to estimate." "Throwing a King" ends discussion of the item for the current sprint.

Jimmy Hoffa

(generally, some will actually say 100 is an estimate and have a separate card for spike, but I've never seen anything over 40 taken seriously)

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa that's how my deck works. ? = spike and if you're estimating in the 40's its usually a sign that it should be a spike

user55340

100 = "this is months or an entire project of its own" if you take 100 to mean a real estimate.

Sparticus

4:48 PM

@MichaelT I would disagree on that one. 100 here is 100 ideal work days, which is under a month because we have 5 devs

maple_shaft

We really can't do agile here... its just... not... possible... so we may need to break down to FTE hours

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus Yeah, 40's are on the fence, I've seen some called spike some called proper, but I've never seen a 100 taken seriously to mean anything other than "We need to revisit this to break it down)

Sparticus

@maple_shaft if it helps, on my teams we usually just turn the cards into hours or days

none of that story point nonsense

so throwing an 8 would be 8 total man hours

(for small projects)

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft That's unfortunate, your best bet is to fight and froth and bite until people agree to meet you at least this far: No hour estimates until after story point estimates, and that you guys can estimate the hours to the story points not the tasks

Sparticus

or 8 would be 8 uninterrupted work day (for larger projects)

Jimmy Hoffa

4:50 PM

so do normal planning poker, then later look at things and decide 13 story points is 16-24 hours or whatever, but not that "task A is X hours"

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa do you feel that going user story -> story points -> hours is better than user story -> hours? Serious question

maple_shaft

@JimmyHoffa Good plan

How big of a disparity is acceptable?

in story points?

Jimmy Hoffa

the hours estimates before story points will just wreck your point estimates because people won't be thinking about size and risk, they'll be thinking about what they know rather than what they don't, that's why hour estimates are always shit.

user55340

@Sparticus Yep. Don't give a single number as an estimate. Thats bad - you'll always miss it.

Sparticus

oooh you're saying 13 story points becomes a range

ok ok

user55340

4:52 PM

Note also the fibonacci sequence in the numbers.

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft Every group's different, some groups I worked with tended to always be 2's, 3's, up to 13's, others have a lot of 8's, 13's, and 20's etc. The important thing is that the relative sizing between them is consistent, not how broad-spread it is or where in the spectrum much of it ends up

Sparticus

@MichaelT the larger your estimate is, the more innacurate

user55340

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20 (ok that should be 21).

Sparticus

so Fibonacci works perfectly to represent that

Jimmy Hoffa

if everything ends up 8's regardless of size then you've got a problem, so long as things that are obviously larger end up in obviously bigger numbers etc you're fine

user55340

4:53 PM

The thing is you don't want people arguing if its a 5 or a 6.

Sparticus

fogbugz (we use that in senior design) uses a true fibonacci sequence

enderland

@MichaelT it's always a 6, obviously

Sparticus

@enderland quit being a part of the problem, man

Jimmy Hoffa

Nice weather we're having.

enderland

:)

user55340

4:54 PM

I still like the "what do we do next" monopoly money approach.

user55340

You do story points, give monopoly money to the business owners and they put it on the projects too.

maple_shaft

Thanks guys... going to my meeting now

user55340

$ / sp --> roi.

user55340

If someone puts $100 on a 5, thats $20/sp. If someone has $50 on a 2, thats $25. Do the 2 first.

Sparticus

@maple_shaft good luck!

@MichaelT that's really neat. I like that one

user55340

4:56 PM

Former employer had 3+ hour long meetings where the business owners debated what went into the next release.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus Yes. Hours get's people thinking in real graspable concepts which often causes them to avoid a great many of the finer points of the tasks as well as ignoring the risks of the tasks. This is why hours estimates are typically given "buffer" by the estimator, because they know they're missing something but don't know what, and then doubled by the stakeholders because they know even the estimators buffer isn't enough, but it's all very arbitrary since it's an unknown thing

estimated using a known thing

user55340

One time we gave them each $500 in monopoly money and put down index cards with each project and the story points for them. Devs collectively had $100 (for us to address backend things).

Sparticus

@MichaelT that was silly. This was your chance to give yourself all the money and choose what ever the hell you want.

user55340

Anything not done this round kept 10% of its value for the next round.

Jimmy Hoffa

Using the arbitrariness of relativity between tasks is easier for people to imagine as well as being easier for them to accurately estimate because it keeps them from thinking about hard-graspable facts about the task, and has them more thinking about the general concept of the task from a high-level abstraction

user55340

4:59 PM

So, if there was $100 down on the project that was a 13 and not done this round, next round it started with a $10 credit.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT But what you didnt' know is the stakeholders were MBA's, so they just started an exchange amongst themselves, started accrueing interest and before you knew it the devs were in monopoly debt to their eyeballs and they had to hock all of their backend stories just to pay for the things that the stakeholders would lend them a downpayment for

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa you missed the part where the stakeholders got a government bail-out

user55340

@JimmyHoffa There were, and they did swap money between each other... but we got our priorities without a 3h meeting.

user41796

collider lemming:

user41796

1

Q: How concerned should a new programmer be with the various licenses (GPL, Apache, etc)

I'm pretty new to programming, and I've just started using GitHub to store and hold my source code (I keep losing stuff stored locally). As it stands all that's in there right now are source code files, nothing more, but I expect that to change as time goes on and I get better at this. Given that...

licensing

psr

5:05 PM

@maple_shaft Congrats! First child?

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Of course it didn't take a 3h meeting, they're MBAs, when they were structuring the exchange and saying fancy words like Pre-qualified Butterflying Default Dividend they were also doing the other MBA favorite task, they stole all your money when you weren't looking.

user55340

(hmm... 21 questions with 4 close votes on 'em...)

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa I sense a great distrust in the force.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Sparticus I sense a force named MBA is not on anyone's side other than it's own

user41796

speaking of MBAs, what does it say when I'm more interested in hunting down a bug than I am in breaking out requirements into product backlog items?

Sparticus

5:18 PM

@GlenH7 you're a normal, well adjusted human being?

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 It means you're a software developer and not a BA? Alternatively it means your requirements planning process is utterly miserable, but that's hardly uncommon

user41796

yes, to all the above.

gnat

@enderland Not bad. Here, it would be a duplicate of this one or of either of listed as linked in it)...

57

Q: How can I tactfully suggest improvements to others' badly designed code during review?

I'm a great believer in clean code and code craftsmanship, though I'm currently at a job where this isn't regarded as a top priority. I sometimes find myself in a situation where a peer's code is riddled with messy design and very little concern for future maintenance, though it's functional and ...

code-quality code-reviews software-craftsmanship colleagues

user41796

This particular project that I have to write the PBIs for has been a real pain for me

Sparticus

PBI #1: Get Glen more vacation time

PBI #2: Give Glen a raise

Idk, this seems pretty easy so far

user41796

5:21 PM

@gnat I see a difference between the P.SE version as an "individual issue" whereas the one from TW is more of a team issue.

user41796

@Sparticus All that and a decent workstation would be nice

Sparticus

As a developer, my faith in Glen's programming abilities would be greatly improved if Glen's pay were to be doubled, allowing me to review Glens code faster.

Acceptance Criteria: Glen's pay is doubled

Jimmy Hoffa

Oh shit more every day, now 7 Americans are crazy, we're going to be overrun any minute!

Sparticus

@JimmyHoffa how many congressmen are there again? I know that n is at least that many

user55340

438 IIRC...

user55340

5:25 PM

(435... hmm...where are the other 3 votes then?)

Jimmy Hoffa

Some weather we're having, eh?

user55340

Must be something like puerto rico, DC and guam...

user55340

Nope, just DC gets 3.

user55340

(538 is the election blog = number of electoral votes. Votes = congress # + senate # + 3 for DC.

Sparticus

@MichaelT I feel like that should be stats on some weapon in DnD

Mace of Power (+3 votes for DC)

user55340

5:30 PM

@JimmyHoffa You got snow there now?

user41796

SD picked up a ton of snow recently - just last week, I think.

user55340

I wonder what the snow plow for interstate highways is covered under.

user55340

I mean, I know that (for example) National Parks (closed) are under park plowing (wonder about Rushmore).

user55340

And some of the neighbouring communities get free plowing based on that.

user55340

But for the interstate, does the federal government "contract" with the states to keep it plowed? Or is it 100% state?

enderland

5:34 PM

@GlenH7 I brought in some stuff from home at mine, using my personal keyboard/mouse

Sparticus

@MichaelT its usually 100% state (at least I think so. Nothing about the government shut down has changed anything over here)

user55340

Hmm... found some info on sidewalks fhwa.dot.gov/preservation/082708.cfm

Sparticus

If you find out that I'm gonna be out of a job shortly, would you let me know?

user55340

interstate is a small percentage of plowing...

user55340

I'm just curious if its "states pick up the tab 100%" or "federal pays the state to pick up the tab"

Sparticus

5:38 PM

@MichaelT good question

user41796

@enderland I have toyed with purchasing an SSD of my own to use in my work laptop. Kind of a dilemma for me - I know how much it will speed things up, but I really believe the company should be covering things like that.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Nope, all melted, even on the mountains in the front range now

@GlenH7 I simply refuse to do for a company what it won't do for itself. It's not just principle, but it's about precedent: Company's are truly attentive to employee precedent, and the ones you set are going to be the ones expected.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I'm grateful for the pleasant weather we've been having.

enderland

@GlenH7 I offered to personally pay for an upgrade when I recently got a new work machine - got rejected

user41796

@JimmyHoffa That's exactly what's been holding me back. There have been hints of this place being like that.

enderland

5:43 PM

@JimmyHoffa I'm this way too but I'm not going to willingly use a shitty mouse/keyboard just because of that

user41796

@enderland Part of the challenge is the intellectual property issues associated with allowing an employee to pay for resources that are used to further the company. They don't have as ironclad of a claim against your work when you do that. But I think there's a line between an SSD versus keyboard / mouse.

user55340

Blamo!

user55340

Offline for maintenance, and no silly pictures.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Don't risk it, besides, another truth I strongly believe: Company's learn best from pain. They lack emotions unlike people, so the carrot and the stick are your only means of changing/improving them.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa - pain is good.

enderland

5:45 PM

@GlenH7 yeah there absolutely is. SSD becomes a bit more difficult for them too because they need encryption and all those bells/whistles

@JimmyHoffa heh. I suspect there will come a point when I choose to leave my current employer - though the dead sea effect is more of a factor to me than silly IT policies

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Its the only way my former employer has a chance of changing. When things are good, they have no reason to make it better.

Sparticus

@GlenH7 How about that game?

user41796

@enderland And then the image has to be transferred over. I now I have personal property which contains their license key to Win 7

Sparticus

@enderland dead sea effect?

enderland

@GlenH7 yeah, exactly

user55340

5:46 PM

@Sparticus brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/…

enderland

@Sparticus brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/…

user41796

@Sparticus much better now

enderland

@MichaelT lol

user55340

@enderland Do not contest my google fu.

enderland

my employer hires people not based on their overall competence but based on... other factors I don't understand

user55340

5:47 PM

Btw, this is a fun read too - brucefwebster.com/2008/06/16/anatomy-of-a-runaway-it-project

Sparticus

We're back up!

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I think in this vein one of my favorites was the one about the communication barrier thermal bubble or whatever you linked some time back

gnat

@GlenH7 yeah. One of the "linked" questions makes a better fit as it's more "team tilted"...

6

Q: How do you deal with discovering bad and false code in your team?

Every year in january we process a big task with our system. While the performance during the task was above average the maintaince follow up is currently having a lot of trouble with jobs running too long and out of their respective time schedule. Therefore I am tasked with the optimization of t...

teamwork code-reviews bug bad-code

user55340

@JimmyHoffa brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/…

Sparticus

@enderland I'm apparently losing all of my marbles.

I thought the dead sea effect literally referred to the dead sea......

user41796

5:50 PM

@gnat All of the suggestions that come to mind from the question title would be too easily taken the wrong way. Surely though, I merely jest.

user55340

@Sparticus Only if the middle east is the middle west... IIRC, he's a Vikings fan.

Jimmy Hoffa

That is one of the biggest hurdles to correct for in my experience because a lot of truth mixed with competency has allowed me to get pretty great results from company's in the past, but there's nothing one can do to get truth through those barriers at all really

and so much of what a company does hinges on what that top layer allows/decides

enderland

@MichaelT it's funny because those two articles perfectly describe a project I'm aware of (but not part of) right now for my company

user55340

@enderland All three of them describe the project I used to be on in / department I was part of.

user55340

They're having rapid evaporation now.

enderland

5:55 PM

@MichaelT yeah, and I'm almost positive the themocline is a million times worse when you have India involved, because the cultural factors to "not report mistakes" is so much more

user41796

@enderland never report mistakes and never reveal that 1/3rd of the staff has turned over since the project started.

enderland

@GlenH7 only 1/3rd? lucky bastard! ;)

user41796

technically, they were part of the same corporate structure that I was. So I think that tamped the turnover down a bit. But it was still pretty miserable at the time.

enderland

I suppose part of the problem in IT/dev work is that you can get a working prototype together which can convince management that the system is "almost done!".... minus some really-hard-to-implement-functionality or bug fixes

user41796

@enderland You mean like the time where we did UI driven development and the framework we used for the UI mock-ups had a completely different set of widgets from the actual UI framework we were going to use?

enderland

6:05 PM

@GlenH7 yeah that sounds like a really good example. It's just a few hours work to implement the new UI right???

user41796

@enderland Not a problem!!! Especially since we didn't have hundreds of client time invested in the minute UI details that couldn't carry through.

enderland

oops. Sometimes I'm convinced I should go into management of IT just because all these problems seem so damn obvious yet none of the managers ever act as if they are

but... maybe there's a trap there which causes me to lose my ability to think

user41796

My previous gig was a dead sea place. Issues like that become endemic, and even if the quality folk go into management, they can't turn the tides. There's just too much inertia

user55340

6:22 PM

@GlenH7 oldweb.ct.infn.it/cactus/peter_principle_sup_material.html

user55340

Actually, quality people promoted into management is part of the problem.

enderland

@MichaelT dont remind me. I want a technical job which has similar pay to management, but, I'm not convinced it's possible

maybe I'll have a frank discussion on this topic with some managers here sometime

user55340

There is actual studies + math about random promotions being more effective at increasing workplace efficiency.

user55340

lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0907.0455

user55340

> Within a game theory-like approach, we explore different promotion strategies and we find, counterintuitively, that in order to avoid such an effect the best ways for improving the efficiency of a given organization are either to promote each time an agent at random or to promote randomly the best and the worst members in terms of competence.

enderland

6:37 PM

sad. but I guess whenever an org adopts the "only way to get promoted or increased pay is through a management track" that happens

Sparticus

so promotions should be random? Man I might actually get promoted now

gnat

@MichaelT random promotions, wow. Why does this remind me of simulated annealing? :) "Simulated annealing may be modeled as a random walk..."

Simulated annealing

Simulated annealing (SA) is a generic probabilistic metaheuristic for the global optimization problem of locating a good approximation to the global optimum of a given function in a large search space. It is often used when the search space is discrete (e.g., all tours that visit a given set of cities). For certain problems, simulated annealing may be more efficient than exhaustive enumeration — provided that the goal is merely to find an acceptably good solution in a fixed amount of time, rather than the best possible solution. The name and inspiration come from annealing in metallurg...

enderland

@gnat you'd be surprised how much research there is into heuristic optimization algorithms

well, maybe not if you are familiar with optimization :)

gnat

6:52 PM

@enderland optimization I am familiar with, didn't involve stuff like that, I just happened to read Skienna this spring. Was kind of an eye-opener on that :)

enderland

(my thesis research was a heuristic optimization algorithm)

Sparticus

The way that familiar is italicized makes me a little worried @gnat. Were you in love with optimization?? "Oh, QuickSort. Your O(n) time makes me quiver but I just can't look past your worst case. I'm sorry... we can't be together..."

2

gnat

7:08 PM

8

A: Performance optimization strategies of last resort

First of all, as mentioned in several prior answers, learn what bites your performance - is it memory or processor or network or database or something else. Depending on that... ...if it's memory - find one of the books written long time ago by Knuth, one of "The Art of Computer Programming" se...

@Sparticus at one of the past jobs, mgmt has forbidden to commit code to master repo unless we provided a proof that it runs at theoretical minimum limit. I learned a tweak or two back then

Sparticus

Must not have committed much code. Theoretical maximum limit?

Theoretically you should have been overclocking ever processor to get that extra couple nanoseconds

gnat

@Sparticus min time (processor ticks) / max speed

user55340

@gnat I've glanced at that before... one of my ancient computing problems that I've wracked my brain on for awhile.

gnat

@MichaelT lucky you. This sort stuff sounds like fun

user20683

@MichaelT Should I bother including a link to my Programmers profile on my resume? I know it's a dead horse but I feel like it's important in my particular case.

user55340

7:13 PM

Well.... Its a board / paper game that I read about LONG ago... now the only documentation of the game is the bit i wrote on it (I can't find the original source). everything2.com/title/Octo

user55340

  ABCDEFGH
 +--------+
1|ggggfffh|1
2|dddggefh|2
3|dadgeefh|3
4|aadgeffh|4
5|addeefch|5
6|aaabeech|6
7|babbbcch|7
8|bbbcccch|8
 +--------+
  ABCDEFGH

user55340

I'm trying to make a computer generated board like that.

user55340

8 sections of 8 contiguous squares.

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Absolutely.

user55340

You're trying to find the other person's board.

user55340

7:15 PM

The question is, how do you generate that board? (I know I've mentioned this before). Simmulated annealing was one possibility.

user55340

@WorldEngineer Given sufficient rep and nothing embarrassing, yes.

user20683

I can't really recall anything too terrible

user20683

I mean the top two upvoted answers are a little thin but they aren't really listed on my careers page anyway

user20683

and they aren't inherently "bad"

user20683

@MichaelT I've got this weird feeling like I know what the solution is to generating Octo but I can't put my finger on it

user20683

7:18 PM

something to do with generation of cliques in a graph

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Having your rep / anything decent to show considering you're a fresh grad is basically good. Any decent engineer would expect to see a lot of garbage from you being green, so you can't really disappoint

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Fair enough and most of my garbage is at least backed up by some kind of cogent argument

gnat

@WorldEngineer just follow the wise (and my flag on it:)...

86

A: Where and how to mention Stackoverflow participation in the résumé?

Your participation in Stack Overflow (or indeed any Stack Exchange site) should come under your "interests". Yes, it is related to your work, but it's not your work (unless you happen to be employed by Stack Exchange). If you do decide to put your SO profile on your CV then it would be a good id...

user20683

@gnat tried Real Name, was roundly disliked for it

user55340

I remember trying to do a rule based approach for it on paper... I was on a bus to Monterey Aquarium as a team event at SGI. That would have been '97.

gnat

7:24 PM

@WorldEngineer if you worry about real name vs user name, just cut the profile URL to the user id - http://programmers.stackexchange.com/users/28988

user20683

@gnat what I figured

user20683

might just use my Careers page

user20683

since it's in my real name and all that

gnat

@WorldEngineer another option would be to have Careers profile with whatever name you prefer (which in turn refers to your SE accounts) and link to it - I just checked, I am using careers profile link in resume

@WorldEngineer I think that's the way to go...

user20683

@gnat I can taylor it to be fairly short as well wdhopkins so that I'm not stuck with this massive thing that screws up my LaTeX

gnat

7:28 PM

6

A: How does one get more hits on careers (SEO for careers?)

Well to me SO Careers profile seems to be most SEO-friendly of all other online profiles I've been using so far (there was half dozen at least). Without knowing actual mechanics of how it works I wouldn't bet on that but anyway "it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck" to me. Note by the ...

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat what's 802.11 "AC" ??

gnat

@JimmyHoffa codec

just figured... could be some impact if I ever decide to remove my MSO account. Not as much as when Mark left, but, hey, 100+ offered bounties and 16K votes are... noticeable

user20683

@gnat for what it's worth, you'd be missed.

user20683

even if we don't always see eye to eye

user55340

7:49 PM

@WorldEngineer Do note he's referring to his MSO account, not P.SE account.

user20683

@MichaelT ah

user20683

I'd still miss him

user55340

(I'm still trying to figure out that guy's obsession with false)

user55340

-1

Q: What are the advantages of converting empty strings to evaluate to true as compared to false?

When converting a string to a boolean, what are the advantages of having a programming language evaluate an empty string as true and what are the advantages of having it evaluate it to false?

programming-languages language-design language-features boolean

user55340

-1

Q: Is there any reason zero should still equal false in a new programming language?

I understand that 0 is false because math established that a long time ago and C established it in the programming world, as talked about here. However, other than following established conventions, is there any reason a new programming language shouldn't make 0 equal to true? It seems like it ...

language-design programming-logic boolean

user20683

7:59 PM

@MichaelT The answer has to do with how much you like rocks.

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