The Whiteboard

@MichaelT "Even XKCD has made a mention of it" - As if there are things XKCD hasn't mentioned

user55340

Assuming this sticks, some third answer delete votes might be in order on the anecdotes that really don't add anything to the question.

user55340

btw, @amon you might enjoy working codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/24419/12166 into your answer for that question.

user55340

1:14 AM

220

A: So obviously, P = NP

C# Your task is to write a program for SAT that appears to execute in polynomial time. "Appears" is unnecessary. I can write a program that really does execute in polynomial time to solve SAT problems. This is quite straightforward in fact. MEGA BONUS: If you write a SAT-solver that ac...

user55340

> You said polynomial runtime. You said nothing about polynomial compile time. This program forces the C# compiler to try all possible type combinations for x1, x2 and x3, and choose the unique one that exhibits no type errors. The compiler does all the work, so the runtime doesn't have to.

Oh Eric, you so tricky

2:52 AM

Considering putting in a custom PCB job to get rid of this stupid perfboard arduino shield I rigged up to control my fans. That also means that I need to figure out and finalize how I want to control them (if at all)

3:06 AM

@MichaelT such a cheater, considering he's written a lot of code in the C# type checker so he knows the algorithm inside and out and how to make it run the paths for him (I suspect all those permutations of generics are just because it doesn't go arbitrarily deep, so he had to make the permutations to force to the type checker walk the number of nested loops he needed for his example)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Its still an example of "lets make arbitrarily long compiles"

@MichaelT of course, he just turned the C# compiler into a solver is all

that's why they always say nobody knows if Agda actually works because nobody ever runs the code, they just compile it

which of course in no part takes away from the fact that Lippert's just too damned smart for the rest of us enterprise geeks

pl theorists are all just too damned smart for the rest of us. It's like they found some layer of abstraction none of us have realized yet, something beyond the top level most of us reach which I think you summed up well in talking about learning languages and building your own mental AST that you can translate across languages, I can't even conceptualize how those people look at code but I suspect it's not as you described (which is how I see it..)

Are you upset because... they talk in more abstract terms than you? This is why FP programmers have a hard time getting taken seriously.

no, I'm upset because I'm not smart enough to understand how they reach the solutions they do, I don't see myself ever being able to organically come up with the solutions I see the PL folks come up with; I have to be walked through it by someone else everytime

mumble

some day maybe I'll be smarter than I am, but right now I'm only this smart :|

3:33 AM

and getting smarter is...hard... somebody should make it easier. maybe if I go watch limitless over and over I'll learn how to make the stuff in that movie... (if you haven't seen it - awesome movie, must watch)

user55340

Honestly, most of the stuff in code golf is over my head... There's the entire realm of the deep thinkers in computing who I can only marvel at with their tricks and insight into problems. I know I'm not a wizard of crypto, or P and NP... and I'm fine with that. I've got the bits to see "yep, they did something neat there and I might puzzle it out after a bit... but at the same time, its not always practical..."

3:50 AM

@MichaelT aye, suppose the focus on practical is what makes us engineers. Sometimes though it feels like being an engineer has limited my experiences to the practical, if I had the patience for class rooms I really should have gone academic, cest la vie

user55340

There are those rare individuals who are able to straddle the theoretical and the practical... but they are rare. I've seen far too many theoretical types creating impractical things and wondering why its not used.

user55340

And you get those architecture astronauts who think that all you need is a UML diagram and the worlds problems will be solved (and they can go play golf after handing it off to an engineer).

7:44 AM

Gah, I just realized who user “Astara” is (from the How can this site be made less intimidating question). Has the dubious honour of being the only person banned from the Perl5 Porters mailing list. Has a track record of hiding occasionally valuable thoughts between tons of ranting, and having a hard time of understanding and accepting other viewpoints.

1:48 PM

you guys are making me feel dumb complaining about everything being over your heads when much of what you talk about is over my head :P

user41796

@enderland It's the 1% rule

user41796

You can't tell whether someone is 1% smarter than you or 100% smarter than you. They appear equivalent.

Well you guys are for sure more experienced than me

Either way ;)

user41796

Benefits of age

user41796

Sounds like that has the potential to be a really good next step. And if it helps you understand the core of some of the business, so much the better.

1:54 PM

yeah

absolutely

user41796

Data work can be challenging, but if you wrap your head around it then you can start finding some amazing insights into the business. That's actually the real core of data analytics.

I love it, anyways, I always like creating spreadsheets and databases are like spreadsheets on steriods :D

user41796

If it's the title that's hanging you up, I wouldn't worry about it.

I'd love to be able to get into more DBA/database work anyways, I like development but digging into data stuff is really enjoyable

the SQL I've done is really fun and I'd love the reason to do that more

user41796

Be forewarned that SQL is a gateway language into FP concepts. :-)

1:56 PM

I'm ok with that, as long as it isn't in R since I loathe that even though it has a lot of really elegant solutions

user41796

But Set theory is really just a subset of FP

past frustrations with R... ha

user41796

I haven't used R before, so I don't know much about the language

I just really don't like it, I'd be curious if @JimmyHoffa likes it or has used it, it's FP but when I learned it I hated it since it's "kinda a programming language except not"

user41796

They just announced our annual benefit enrollment updates. I'm trying to fight back the cynical part of me that's wondering what's going to happen for next year.

2:01 PM

yeah.... that's a bummer :\

@GlenH7 I thought SQL was the drug that ruined your life.

First you start selecting it, then you find out which names you like most, next thing you know you're injecting it trying to get that high when you first started, but all that happens is you end up dropping all your tables and crashing.

there's a beauty in constructing even simple queries, I can't imagine what it'd be like to be able to be fully proficient in it

user41796

@enderland I have found fully proficient to be an elusive goal

@GlenH7 in everything right? the more you learn the more you know you don't know

user41796

I used to struggle with joins across 4 or 5 tables. Now it's getting more comfortable with common table expressions and using them for recursion

2:04 PM

Unless you're Eric Lippert, then you just troll SE baiting users with your infinite knowledge.

2:21 PM

I drive 40 min each way

Driving for a commute sucks

you don't have to tell me! at least all I see is lots of

If that's what you're seeing out your windshield, I've got bad news for you.

shortcut

user41796

@Ampt I think it's a side view

2:24 PM

@GlenH7 Yeah, but you're just an amateur like me. We're going to need a professional opinion here. @MichaelT?

oh jeesh. lol

user55340

@Ampt Sky is ok - I wouldn't mind a few more clouds, but at least its not solid blue. The dividing line between sky and corn is in the center of the image. Ideally, it would work better if it was placed at a third instead.

user55340

Rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is a "rule of thumb" or guideline which applies to the process of composing visual images such as designs, films, paintings, and photographs. The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would...

user55340

Notice centered image on the left there and third'ed image on the right. And how that draws the eye into the scene a bit more allows emphasis of the entire scene rather than just the rock column in the center.

2:30 PM

Yeah, but can you answer the important question? Is it out of the front window, or the side window.

user55340

(side bit - bird photographers are boring people)

user41796

pedantry FTW

Relevant XKCD

user41796

@Ampt googling for xkcd and side window doesn't come up with much of relevance

The new crowd is heavily shaped by this guy named Eric, who's basically the Paris Hilton of the amateur plastic crazy straw design world.

Happy now?

user41796

2:36 PM

@Ampt No. But that's for other reasons.

You're on your own for that kind of happiness. And before you ask, no, I don't have any spare change to fuel your SQL injection addictions.

user55340

There we go... the photo I was looking for:

user55340

did you use the original corn one to make that?

user55340

Nope. Done by Michael Wesely - photographer who does long exposures.

2:38 PM

So he does abstract art with a camera then?

user55340

IIRC (and I may not) that was done with a specialized 'slit' camera where a thin slit was exposed at one time - and moved across the film.

user55340

So morning is on the left afternoon on the right.

user55340

He's better known for photos like:

user55340

That looks like a multiple exposure shot to me, not just a long one.

user55340

2:40 PM

graphicine.com/?p=1126

user55340

> Wesely setup his custom made cameras in four locations around the museum construction site and photographed the destruction and re-building of the MoMa until 2004 – leaving the shutter open for up to 34 months!

user55340

Its one exposure.

user55340

Also, note the continuous sun in the sky - you can see the cloudy days.

user55340

What happened was the facade of a building was built at some point, blocking the sun there.

user55340

The squiggles on the bottom are were cars are likely to park.

A: FAQ sidebar for per site metas

2:43 PM

That's.... insane.

he's got to have on hell of a good way to get the camera into the same position every time...

user55340

@Ampt Its "only" 3 stops of light from a 1 day long exposure to a 1 week long exposure... and another 2 stops for a month... and a couple more for a year.

user55340

Got it about that landscape photo: wesely.org/wesely/gruppe.php?var=americanlandscape

user55340

>
Using a custom self-built camera with a horizontal slit as an opening, instead of the customary round opening, Michael Wesely photographed the same famous landscape formations that renowned landscape photographers like Edward Weston and Anselm Adams made so famous. These are so well known that it hardly seemed possible to create something new with these spectacular subjects. This was even more an issue, because they have also been photographed to death in innumerous picture books and Hollywood films. In Wesely`s work however, these prominent scenes, photographed a million times already, a…

user55340

One of the best books on concepts for photography of landscapes that I've found is "Drawing Scenery Seacapes and Landscapes" by Jack Hamm (yes, drawing - it lets you do the idealized landscape rather than whats in front of you, allowing you to think about the ideal)

user55340

2:51 PM

There's also a nice bit about how the eye moves through the frame to think about: books.google.com/…

user55340

0

So, this can be enabled on a per-side basis... The only downside I see is that by default the meta homepage sidebar features chat: The bulk of meta sites are relatively quiet, with chat being a somewhat more informal place to introduce yourself to the regulars. However, on sites where meta doe...

user55340

@Phrancis Time to migrate all of Stack Overflow to Code Review!

user55340

@amon you could always to the Trabb Pardo-Knuth algorithm in lolcode and and see how that gets reviewed.

user55340

Trabb Pardo–Knuth algorithm

The Trabb Pardo–Knuth algorithm is a program introduced by Donald Knuth and Luis Trabb Pardo to illustrate the evolution of computer programming languages. In their 1977 work "The Early Development of Programming Languages", Trabb Pardo and Knuth introduced a trivial program which involved arrays, indexing, mathematical functions, subroutines, I/O, conditionals and iteration. They then wrote implementations of the algorithm in several early programming languages to show how such concepts were expressed. The simpler Hello world program has been used for much the same purpose. == The algorithm... ==

That would be fun, but is incredibly painful – I'm not sure whether Lolcode currently even has arrays.

3:03 PM

what language is lolcode interpreted in?

probably hack arrays in there using the compiler/interpreter language

user55340

@amon of course it does... its a BUKKIT.

user55340

> <varname> R <value> assigns a value to a variable. LOLCODE supports the following data types: NOOB (untyped — this value is help by a variable before it is initialized), NUMBR (integer), NUMBAR (floating-point), YARN (string) и TROOF (boolean). BUKKIT type is reserved for arrays. Types can be cast implicitly.

user55340

And just think of the head scratching that will go on over there over it... of either their own, or their cat.

user55340

Anyways... I'm heading north today. Yesterday was rain. Tommorow is rain. That does things to fall colors... want to see if any is left before I stick to southerly loops.

user41796

3:12 PM

@MichaelT good luck

user55340

@GlenH7 If you want to make a request for the FAQ sidebar...

Q: FAQ Sidebar on Programmers Meta

@MichaelT Many blessings upon your journey.

user41796

@MichaelT I'll try to work it in while the code is compiling. :-)

Malachi

@MichaelT lol funny

user55340

yr.no/place/United_States/Wisconsin/Ladysmith/… - still good for today, I think... high clouds might have difficulty... but only one way to find out.

user55340

3:15 PM

Further north east is a bit more clear... again... need to find out: yr.no/place/United_States/Wisconsin/Rhinelander/…

Phrancis

@MichaelT YES! And then we can cast lots of VTCs!

user41796

3:28 PM

0

Per the MSE question: faq-sidebar-for-per-site-metas this is to request a FAQ sidebar instead of the chat sidebar on Programmers Meta. So instead of: We would have a listing of the questions from faq instead. And it would look kind of like this*: *Note that this example is from MSE, not M...

feature-request

Robert Harvey

20

Q: Can a Night Elf swim naked in a volcano?

One of my friends came to me with a question that is making my head hurt. According to the Warcraft RPG 2nd Edition Core Rulebook - a supplement for the D&D 3.5 rules, regarding the Warcraft World - Night Elves can have levels on a special racial class, which have only 3 levels. Night Elves tha...

dnd-3.5e warcraft-rpg

user41796

@RobertHarvey My first reaction was "sure, let 'em skinny-dip." And then I saw the bit about volcanoes....

Racial resistances OP

Also, Tomcat + Jira OP. Plz nerf mods

what happened to this channel. naked elves, walruses, lolcode...

user41796

Still not The Bridge, fortunately.

3:36 PM

It really all started going down since we added another blue name to this room (Glances at enderland)

user41796

Might've been when we added another room owner

No, I assure you that the room quality declined far before that happened. It just so happened to reach a low enough level to allow me to be considered as room owner.

pretty sure it's been steadily going downhill the entire time I've ever been here. Wait. oops

3:56 PM

So... should I have a 3rd coffee or not

user41796

Yes!

that's the dilemna of the day

user41796

Not anymore; problem has been solved for you -- Yes!

holy crap it's hot

kinda forgot that it comes out hot

there goes every tastebud on my tongue

user41796

ProTip: When you move the service to a new port, you need to change the firewall rules to allow it through.

4:02 PM

do we need a warning label

@enderland Just another sure sign that this place is going down the tubes.

I vote we just migrate this room to CodeReview

6:03 PM

DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

user20683

@whatsisname He's gone now

but the sweat will always remain

user20683

@whatsisname ewww

6:34 PM

Double ewww.... Ballmer sweat is nothing to joke about.

user41796

ProTip: When your SYNs aren't getting ACK'd, double check the Windows Firewall settings.

@GlenH7 ACK

oh sorry, I thought you were requesting a SYN

user41796

Yeah, you don't want to know how much time I've wasted on that today

user20683

6:52 PM

@Ampt I hear it can eat through Chrome

user20683

TIL: At 196 Decibels, there is no noise, only Boom

What is up with everyone skipping numbers all willy nilly now. First we skip the GTX800 series desktop processors with nvidia, and now windows is skipping 9 and going straight to 10

user20683

7:10 PM

@Ampt Because version numbering doesn't actually mean jack

@WorldEngineer LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEEEAR YOOOU LALALALAALALLA

7:24 PM

wut

7:39 PM

so

windows 910 will have a bunch of 'updates' to the command prompt

none of which will fix that god-forsakenly brain-dead tab completion behavior

or the other stuff that makes it miserable

good work MS

Ctrl+V will paste into command prompt though.

That was the only thing that ever really bothered me about it.

7:59 PM

@whatsisname did you know that pressing tab multiple times takes you through the available options?

instead of unix style where it lists all the options, it just goes through them alphabetically

I thought it was really terrible too until I saw that

the unix style is 9000x better

plus, when you tab complete in windows' command prompt, it thrashes anything after the file name you complete

eh, idk about 9000. I definitely like seeing the list, but so long as I know what's there it's not too bad.

Ok, yeah, that part does suck.

unix doesn't just list all the options, it completes whatever you have until there is a difference

8:18 PM

no, internal

Q: keyboard layer for easier cursor movement?

ah, ok. Best of luck to you :)

gnat

8:47 PM

-1

I am happy with my QWERTZ keyboard layout for typing characters: I touch type, keeping the pointing fingers on "F" and "J" and the eyes on the screen. But I am not happy with Pos1 End Return Backspace Del Cursor Down, Up, Left, Right Page Up/Down There are a lot of alternative keyboard layou...

keyboard touch-typing keyboard-layout

^^^ great question... in a sense, it reveals tags in a desperate need to cleanup!

Robert Harvey

9:17 PM

famo.us -- Yet another Javascript Frontend Framework.

I was about to type the tags out for easy reference, but I see that it automatically links them when it one-boxes them! Neat!

@RobertHarvey Funny, I thought that would come out to be YAJFF

www.YAJFF.deargodno

> Choosing a development platform is more than just a technical decision—it's a career decision. Whether you're a seasoned developer expanding your skills, a designer looking to bring your ideas to life, or just learning to code, we're building Famo.us for you.

Aug 28 at 21:02, by MichaelT

> Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad: Cobol, PL/I, Pascal, Ada, C++. The good languages have been those that were designed for their own creators: C, Perl, Smalltalk, Lisp. — Paul Graham

s/language/framework/g

var Engine = require('famous/core/Engine');
var Surface = require('famous/core/Surface');

var mainContext = Engine.createContext();

var firstSurface = new Surface({
  content: 'hello world'
});

mainContext.add(firstSurface);

All that for a hello world

and guess what it prints out: <h1>hello world</h1>

what a joke.

> Styling surfaces in Famo.us is just like writing CSS, except the properties are written using camelCase instead of dashes.

because changing paradigms for no reason is what javascript frameworks are all about!

I'm not seeing how it's different than jquery.

jquery has had the css bit for a while now.

what part of

open source 3D layout engine fully integrated with a 3D physics animation engine that can render to DOM, Canvas, or WebGL.

didn't you understand Matt.

lmao

I guess I'm not to the 3d part yet.

I'm joking that it's complete marketing BS. when was the last time you said "You know what would make this website better? If it was in 3d!"

want to put a box in the middle of your screen? Great, import these two dependencies to make a screen, then this one to make a box, then this other one to transform it into the color and size that you want!

9:32 PM

My first thought was the positioning was kind of a novel way to do it, because it feels like Java Swing. But then I remembered how much I prefer CSS and it would probably be a pain to do a layout around the objects.

for real. Nothing like trying to position your elements by pixel while accommodating for a million different screen sizes/resolutions

oh look, it's the observer pattern built in. handy for when you want to create the worlds slowest, least-debuggable javascript!

83 lines of javascript to make a web page with a header, footer, and two red boxes in the middle

ffs

who makes this and then thinks "I'm going to share it with the world!"

I make stuff like this at least once a day, but I make sure to flush afterwards.

School project?

Oh no, they're 100% serious

It doesn't look like they used it for their website though.

17 mins ago, by Ampt

Aug 28 at 21:02, by MichaelT

> Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad: Cobol, PL/I, Pascal, Ada, C++. The good languages have been those that were designed for their own creators: C, Perl, Smalltalk, Lisp. — Paul Graham

also see: Dog fooding, javascript frameworks, rockstar developers and other people to whom the rules apply

9:40 PM

yeah dogfooding.

</rant> Alright, I closed that tab. Couldn't take it anymore

I was about to go rambo on this company

Never heard it called dogfooding before.

believe it or not that's the widely accepted term for it

"Famo.us is the only JavaScript framework that includes an open source 3D layout engine fully integrated with a 3D physics animation engine that can render to DOM, Canvas, or WebGL."

Anyone who thinks the world needs such a thing is someone that should be banned from the internet for life

Robert Harvey

Well, that provoked an interesting discussion.

9:46 PM

also what is up with these style webpages being so popular

@RobertHarvey sorry, got a little carried away

where you have to scroll 9001 times down to see all the info

@whatsisname marketing said it tested better with consumers.

is it some sort of table nonsense that is causing this

@RobertHarvey you weren't... uh.... involved with making this... right?

Lambda the Ultimate - Programming Languages Weblog: sml-family.org

9:50 PM

I think as more graphic designers get into web design it pushes people to try and make more creative websites to compete with each other.

Marketing people see pretty photography websites and think they can use a similar format for business websites.

Then news sites get away with it for ad views.

Stack Exchange

10:09 PM

posted on September 30, 2014

In his blog, Bob Harper, in joint effort with Dave MacQueen and Lars Bergstrom, announces the launch of sml-family.org: The Standard ML Family project provides a home for online versions of various formal definitions of Standard ML, including the "Definition of Standard ML, Revised" (Standard ML 97). The site also supports coordination between different implementations of the Standard ML (SML…

Q: Custom Sync process and how to prevent Man in the middle attacks and sql injection

This question was mentioned over on the Code Review chat room, and it has piques my curiosity..... are such questions 'on topic' here? Since it has survived as long as it has, I figure maybe?

-1

I have a custom sync process where I need to ensure that there's no possibility of SQL injection. For background, the device stores records in a Sqlite database, whereas our central server is Sql Server 2012. Currently, our sync records are comprised of these fields: PrimaryKey, TableName, ...

synchronization sqlite tsql sql-injection

I don't have the rep to see the close-vote tally, if any.... so I am not sure where it is in that regard.

Question: as a mod on Code Review, I often get flags saying a question is possibly worth migrating to programmers (normally they are not), but seeing the above makes me question my instincts on it.... so, are questions like that on topic?

@rolfl To me, it seems to be on-topic: a conceptual (i.e. “whiteboard-style”) question about programming, algorithms, or software development (in this case: DB setup). Yes, it's batshit insane, and possible a bit too broad, but I have seen far worse questions here. Currently, there are no close votes on that question.

But under the “don't migrate crap”-doctrine, such a question should not have been migrated over here.

Questions as broad as that would not survive on Code Review (no code), so it is not likely that such questions would be flagged for migration.... which is a good thing.... and it leads on to the reality, that ....

since questions like that never come up on Code Review I have not had to investigate the scopiness of Programmers from that perspective.

I just have to 'expand' my concept of what's on scope in some ways, but not others. I can do that.

10:24 PM

Questions without code are perfectly in order for Programmers. Consider re-reading the /help/on-topic page if you have some time; it's much shorter than CR's.

I know questions without code are good here, I just didn't realize it was quite so open to "help me build my workflow" type questions.

That question is, I would say, "extremely" broad.

Well, so far you've only hear my viewpoint, which is a bit more forgiving than, say, @gnat's :)

The lack of downvotes, and close votes in general on that question, is more than just your viewpoint ;-)\

The -1 was mine.... (yeah, I can vote).

Q: App Development minimal knowledge

0

I want to create some mobile and web applications quickly. I am aware of the 'full stack' but I do not know any of its associated technologies. If I were to use 'back-end as a service' what is left for me to do in deploying an app besides simply coding it?

app

destroy it