The Whiteboard

6:01 PM

@Snowman and the worst part of all I've found: Need help? Tough shit, trying to get someone to work with you on something for a half hour is basically deciding you get the evil eye for the next half hour from all your colleagues from distracting the shit out of them. Best to just struggle on alone and hope for the best. Really helps collaboration

Spiderman

@Ixrec That sounds like how my office is moving towards. Except we're going to also going to have 2 people in each of the smaller cubicles.

@Snowman I hear fingernail clipping noises...

Ixrec

here we have running jokes about desk reallocations being planned and then cancelled repeatedly, and certain people wandering around looking for empty desks to claim for their latest internet

Yannis

@MarissaWilson When you hear stuff like that, ask them to define agile. That's always fun.

Robert Harvey

So agile is "desks not bolted to the ground?"

Marissa Wilson

@Yannis Haha did you notice in my survey that process you could select more than one? I've found countless developers will call whatever they do "agile" and something.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:03 PM

That's one of those just constant micro-stressors that an open office creates which people never mention; as soon as you want help from someone you are forced to make the decision of whether to earn more ire risking becoming the coworker everyone complains about being a distraction, or just sit silently struggling with something for endless hours when a coworker might be able to help you through it in 15 minutes

Ixrec

I've been working in an "agile" team for over a year and I still have no idea what agile means

enderland

@JimmyHoffa or having chaos

Yannis

@MarissaWilson I noticed. Nevertheless, I picked agile. I'm one of the cool kids.

Ixrec

@JimmyHoffa is that really unique to an open office?

enderland

"Agile" in many cases is a buzzword that basically tells management, "hey we're doing something different to facilitate your waterfall requirements"

Jimmy Hoffa

6:05 PM

@Ixrec the distraction effect is; in cube farms two people hunkering in a cube is nowhere near the distraction - it may bother one or two immediate coworkers - but in an open office it will distract everyone because without cube walls, sound carries.

Spiderman

I'm pretty agile. I used to do 8 minute miles when I had a treadmill!

Jimmy Hoffa

30 people in a room? 2 people working together in it will disrupt every one of them.

user114359

How many people in management implement Agile without ever reading the Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Ixrec

@JimmyHoffa ah you meant distracting everyone else; I thought you meant getting a reputation as a help vampire

Marissa Wilson

@AshleyNunn ps. Thank you for the backup!

user15026

6:06 PM

@MarissaWilson No problem. I know the Bridge, they get twitchy, so I figured if I backed you up, it would go down easier :)

Marissa Wilson

"Scrum" is becoming a buzzword too.

Ixrec

I'm even less clear on what scrum means

there's that thing in the morning where we all stand up and come up with one-sentence predictions about our workdays, but I'm not even sure if the word refers to that stand-up or to some other thing

enderland

@Ixrec that's a standup

Marissa Wilson

Some people are referring to standups as a "Daily scrum"

From my understanding from class (Which can be completely different from real world) it's a subtype of agile.

Spiderman

@MarissaWilson For some reason whenever I hear that, it makes me think that scrum is a sort of food, like how christians have their "daily bread". Except scrum would be more like grits I think.

user55340

6:11 PM

@ThomasOwens programmers.stackexchange.com/q/129714/40980

Marissa Wilson

@Spiderman Yeah I get the same feeling with it. It seems almost gritty

durron597

@MichaelT You don't agree with a historical lock there?

user114359

@MarissaWilson Scrum has been around longer than Agile technically. It basically means identifying stakeholders that existed before Scrum but giving them "official" names, and having a facilitator (scrum master). In other words, putting shit in a blender to get... more finely mixed shit.

user55340

@durron597 I wasn't finished flagging and editing before the lock. Notice the -1 answer is a follow up to another answer by the same user.

user114359

PHB's love it. The rest of us realize that Scrum is just putting fancy words and titles on "doing what we already know works"

durron597

6:15 PM

@MichaelT Actually it should probably be made collaborative wikilock:

May 1 at 23:06, by Robert Harvey

@durron597 "Historical Significance" is for those posts that we want to freeze-dry in time. The "collaborative post" lock is better for non-joke posts because it allows periodic maintenance on the post, in case it becomes out of date.

@ThomasOwens ^^^^

user55340

Agile wreaks too much of no strategy for source in most cases. I like the software craftsmanship response to it: manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org

Ixrec

there's a lock other than historical?

durron597

@Ixrec Robert and I were talking about this post at the time

user55340

@durron597 there are also some things like the thanks in the question I'd like to remove, but that is minor.

user114359

@MichaelT I actually like Agile when you stick to the manifesto and do not start mixing it with Scrum and other junk.

user114359

6:17 PM

Not that Agile is perfect, or I am a fanboy, of course.

durron597

@MichaelT Do you agree that collaborative community wiki lock is better than historical here?

user55340

I was working on cleaning it when I got hit with manager color prefs on a web page that stole focus / priority.

user55340

@durron597 not really - I'd tag then differently.

Marissa Wilson

@Snowman how do you feel agile scales to large companies? I've heard lots of success from smaller organizations but a lot of frustration from larger ones.

user55340

One of my %5 started projects is a bug tracking tool that is an overlay to issues on GitHub.

user55340

6:20 PM

@MarissaWilson there was a white paper on that I saw yesterday...

Ixrec

my company's pretty large and whatever form of maybe-agile we're doing is working very well for us

user114359

@MarissaWilson I think the frustration with larger organizations is likely due to misapplying it and not letting teams do their thing without micromanagement. That is my experience, anyway.

Ixrec

though we have the unfair advantage that our business manager actually buys into it and is not a PHB

enderland

well on open office formats, there are two meetings near me on speakerphone and I already have a massive headache.... though technically I don't have open office environments

user114359

I have seen it both work and not work in larger organizations at the same time (different projects)

user55340

6:21 PM

@MarissaWilson dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1018963/Articles/SpotifyScaling.pdf

Marissa Wilson

@MichaelT Now this is interesting. I get off work in 10 minutes but I'm going to read this later.

@Snowman I've also heard frustration with the emphasis on teaching, teams who already have a member that can complete a task don't want a new member to take the time to learn it and so on.

Robert Harvey

Eeek. Grooveshark has shut down.

Marissa Wilson

Rumor has it's permanent

Ixrec

@MarissaWilson our experience is the opposite; we have loads of frustration stemming from only one person knowing how something works

user55340

@MarissaWilson the teaching problem is the solution to the bus factor problem. Both impact velocity. One you can control.

enderland

6:26 PM

@MichaelT that looks interesting, i like the focus on preventing their teams from depending on other teams

user114359

@RobertHarvey Grooveshark Resurrected Out of US Jurisdiction

Spiderman

@RobertHarvey Yeah, apparently they got caught emailing employees telling them to re-upload music that had been taken down.

Yannis

@Snowman Slashdot is still around???

Marissa Wilson

I have to run for now, I'll be back later.

Ixrec

cya

user55340

6:28 PM

(Just wish the person asking the question could have asked it better - @enderland want to take a crack at it?)

user55340

-2

Q: Who is accountable of code delivery across all the features teams in Agile?

When scaling in Agile , you have agile teams organised by Functional area (Tribe in spotify) Who is accountable of code delivery and integrity at Tribe level ? Is it the SSM ? Who is accountable of the code integrity of source code updated by a feature team but belonging to an other component ...

agile

user114359

@Yannis Yeah. It is not what it used to be but still provides at least a little something of value.

user55340

It's closed no answers. Would be a candidate for aggressive edits.

Robert Harvey

People who ask these questions always assume there is "the one true, right, correct way that follows best practices."

durron597

@MichaelT It's -3 now if that interests you

user55340

6:32 PM

@RobertHarvey that's what those agile coach consultants keep saying...

Ixrec

speaking of agile, I have a question that's probably far too broad for the main site

user114359

I agree with @ThomasOwens because it is asking a question that should have an objective answer, and I agree with @MichaelT because it could be a poll of "how does your company do it?"

user55340

@durron597 if someone was to fix it, I'd be a bit happier.

Ixrec

how are you supposed to deal with a large number of tickets/work items/whatever being blocked by other teams?

we've had some sprints where literally half the tickets end up blocked

Robert Harvey

BFG-3000

user114359

6:34 PM

I think the second paragraph does not make much sense... future development teams? How about we hop in the DeLorean and find out?

user114359

What is an SSM, anyway?

user55340

@Snowman that is what consultants are selling.

André

@Ixrec, the book would say, leave it to the next sprint

I'd pick other tasks to include with low complexity

user114359

@Ixrec I agree with @André, sprints are finite in length. If you have a blocker you move your story to the next sprint and fill in the time with something from the backlog.

Ixrec

sounds pretty close to what we usually end up doing

André

6:38 PM

As long you don't sit idle, it is fine

user114359

Even if management wants to tack on an extra week to the sprint to give you more time... that is the first step on the path to the dark side.

André

finite and fixed length

The main issue with scrum here, is that you have no proper way of time estimation during the initial work with it.

So management says "nope"

Ixrec

we do have a problem with failing to estimate most of our tickets

André

you guys to that poker thingy?

Ixrec

on the other hand, I'm not sure if it actually is a problem because we've never really had a sprint where we overcommitted

we've attempted to in the past, never seems to stick

unless "wait for someone to say a number that sounds plausible and nod in agreement" counts as scrum poker

André

6:41 PM

it promotes knowledge sharing, even if never reaches a consensus

user114359

It is easier to estimate velocity low and pull in stuff from the backlog than to overcommit and deal with the fallout

Ixrec

(usually there's only one or two people familiar enough with what exactly each ticket means to give a good estimate, which is why it goes that way)

user114359

@André I could rant for hours about poker estimation. I hate it. There is a better way. But I could fill a whole blog post with the explanation.

André

I want to work so bad with agile methodology, or even a larger team

Ah, I never used it, heard in my project management classes

Ixrec

what exactly are the alternatives to poker estimate? dictator estimation? scrum estimator? (I don't read about methodologies much)

user114359

6:43 PM

The crux of my loathing for it is this. Poker estimates complexity but we have so many hours in a sprint. There is a fundamental disconnect there. Both are valuable, but you cannot ignore the time estimation.

André

@Snowman, oh I'm so curious about your ideas, maybe you could write about it one day?

Ixrec

I'm curious how you're defining "complexity", the more I reread that sentence the harder it is for me to tell if that's exactly what we're doing or the opposite thereof

user114359

@André I have a few things I want to write about when I have the time. I actually have my own web site that I have not posted any blog entries to. What I find is some of the questions here and at SO are better served outside of the Q&A format and they keep coming up, so I want to talk about my own perspective.

André

Complexity I assume is how hard is the task to be achieved.

user114359

@Ixrec Poker/Fibonacci estimation is about just that: how complex are two stories in relation to each other? Not size, not time to implement, not how many developers could work on something simultaneously. The idea is if something is too complex, it must be split until it is a single-developer task that takes a short amount of time. But how much time? It is a mystery.

André

6:47 PM

@Snowman, cool, if you ever post anything, do tell

Ixrec

interesting, that sounds nothing at all like the estimation we do

user114359

@Ixrec then maybe you are doing it wrong. But the good way ;-)

André

Hmm, my teacher didn't explained much about complexity concept used in poker, I assumed it as size.

Ixrec

in theory our estimates simply mean "days needed to do X"

André

we were just glossing over scrum, my course is focused on PMBoK

Ixrec

6:49 PM

so I guess we probably are doing it right and using the wrong word

user114359

First, start with the Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker

user114359

According to that the numbers can represent anything. But normally they represent story points, which are a measure of complexity.

Ixrec

we're definitely misusing the terms then

for us 1 story point means approx 1 dev day of work

user114359

I think there is value in planning poker, but only as a small part of a larger process. The good thing about it is that it involves everyone on the team and gives them equal weight. Outliers in the estimation process get their own soapbox.

Ixrec

I think we used to try having them mean something else but everyone ended up estimating in terms of time anyway because nothing else made any real sense

user114359

6:52 PM

@Ixrec if your process works, you are not misusing it.

Ixrec

agreed, it's only the words we're misusing =)

and I won't bother correcting anyone

I think the problem I actually have with that sort of scrum poker thing is that it's quite time-intensive, and trying to get highly accurate/unbiased estimates out of a team when really no one knows how long anything will take

in the past we had meetings where the entire team would get in a room and throw out numbers for a while, but for various reasons we never seemed to estimate more than 3-5 tickets each meeting

now we do the estimation in subteams of 3-4 people and it goes much faster

my understanding is the goal of the estimates is simply to make sure we don't overcommit in upcoming sprints, so there's no need for them to be super-precise

user114359

Precision is an unobtainable goal anyway. The best you can hope for is your estimation errors will cancel each other out over a sprint.

Ixrec

exactly

Duga

7:07 PM

This might work better as a topic on security.stackexchange.com (for details of language or stack comparisons - in which case please give nature of business and where in the business or software stack you wish to make a comparison) or programmers.stackexchange.com (for how to arrange for a persuasive professional argument for use of technology when you have been faced with "it's not secure" as a stonewall). — Neil Slater 13 secs ago

user114359

Come on @Duga, you are sleeping on the job again!

Duga

@NeilSlater Please see How do I explain ${something} to ${someone}?. These questions tend to be downvoted and closed at Programmers.SE for being "primarily opinion-based." — Snowman 55 secs ago

André

Basically "new kid on the block" situation

user55340

@Snowman could also grab the epic "it isn't secure" question.

user55340

109

Q: Why does the US government disallow dynamic languages for secure projects?

I know some people that are currently working on a project for the US military (low security level, non-combat human resources type data). An initial state of the project code was submitted to the military for review, and they ran the program through some sort of security analyzer tool. It retur...

code-security dynamic-languages government

user114359

7:19 PM

@MichaelT I have used dynamic languages on military projects before. Granted it predated the question you linked by several years and I cannot share any more details... but it seems off.

user114359

If someone can hack into SIPRNET then who cares what programming language you used? Someone already has access to systems with extremely sensitive data on them.

enderland

@MichaelT I'm not 100% sure what that person is actually wanting to focus on, or I'd give it a shot

André

> The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network

that sounds so.. 007'ish

user55340

@Snowman I was speaking specifically to ruby asked in the question. It allows for lots of spooky action at a distance code that static analysis cannot identify b

user114359

@André yes, it is a real thing. Essentially a second internet accessible only at secure U.S. government locations. Why do you think we have NIST and NSA? They figure out what protocols and encryption methods can secure that network among others.

Duga

7:24 PM

This should be asked on programmers.stackexchange.com, in my opinion. — Ismael Miguel 52 secs ago

user55340

@Snowman if you want, I could give you a module for ruby... You write hello world for it, include my module and watch strange things happen.

Duga

@IsmaelMiguel No, it shouldn't. This would be closed as primarily opinion based on Programmers. See What goes on Programmers.SE? A guide for Stack Overflow — durron597 57 secs ago

user55340

Then you run a static analysis on it... Wait you can find cleanup, and optimization hints from them, but not something that will see if I'm doing something dangerous...

André

no wonder that Wordspress sites suddenly starts to send thousands of spam overnight.

user55340

Like rewriting String so that if the field is named credit card number or password and is assigned or changed , it sends me all the variables in scope in an email.

user114359

7:29 PM

@André WordPress is written in PHP last time I checked.

user114359

I really should learn Ruby

André

@Snowman, I'm aware, I'm just musing that you can do the same or similar with PHP since is also dynamic

user55340

Ruby has some neat parts. Perl and Python are more useful for scripts. And there are better web frameworks than rails.

user55340

@André ruby allows for meta programming that php doesn't.

user114359

I don't doubt that dynamic languages are less secure, my point is if you are already on a network segregated from the internet it is less of a problem. I would be more concerned about guys like Manning stealing a DVD full of secrets than a rogue script emailing stuff offsite... and failing.

user55340

7:33 PM

It's not just dynamic that is at issue. Dynamic means hard to do static analysis. Meta programming means rewriting things you shouldn't. The combination is bad.

durron597

@Unihedron You gotta include the youtube video if you're going to say that — durron597 1 min ago

user55340

@Snowman I can show you code in Ruby you can't reason about. I don't care what the network is - if you can't tell me what it does that is bad.

user114359

@MichaelT which is why it would fail code review and be rewritten.

user55340

I'm a contractor who is giving you 50k lines of Ruby or Java. Are you going to review it all?

durron597

@Snowman @enderland nytimes.com/2015/05/08/us/…

user114359

7:38 PM

In my experience, non-COTS software is written with government employees to oversee development. COTS for these types of situations has guarantees and audits. I am not saying these procedures are always in place or even work, only that this should be a solved problem.

user55340

Ruby Conf 2011 Keeping Ruby Reasonable by Joshua Ballanco

►

user55340

Watch that video and consider if you can keep if secure.

user55340

I'm saying, working in the government now, I'd happily pay a premium to have it written in Java or C# so I can look at the code and know what it does.

durron597

@MichaelT Is this the stuff about how ruby's parsers instantiate complex objects?

user114359

@MichaelT over 48 minutes...

user55340

7:42 PM

This is about how you can change every variable in the scope of a closure passed around.

user55340

How many hoops you have to go through to make it something I can't change easily.

user114359

@MichaelT I agree, I definitely prefer static-typed languages that do not allow dynamic programming. If I do have to script something other than a shell script it will be a short Perl or PHP script.

user55340

Not dynamic programming - meta programming.

user55340

Perl can scare the bejesus out of me, but it's up front about it in a use block at the top or a tie.

user114359

good point, that is a lot more complex.

user55340

7:44 PM

I can't change how every string defined toUpper with a quick line of code b

user114359

There is a reason why Intel and AMD came up with this

Duga

Still on hold after my edit.. Should I post it on programmers.stackexchange.com instead? — Alex Man 26 secs ago

user114359

8:11 PM

After that edit, should it be migrated here? I am not sure. It looks like it needs a little more work, but could be close:

user114359

0

Q: OSX MVC set-up (Swift)

I've been trying my hand at a simple OSX Swift application, but since most resources show simple techniques for setting up Swift iOS apps, and the OSX NS* classes seem to operate a bit differently, I've been struggling. I'd like to set up an application somewhat like here, but besides utilizing ...

objective-c swift core-data model-view-controller xcode6

user55340

Dunno. I'm on the fence. The question to be resolved: is it on topic on SO?

enderland

@MichaelT that ruby video is really interesting

durron597

@Snowman @RobertHarvey? Thoughts?

user114359

It seems to be more of a design review to me, with a dash of resource requests.

durron597

8:19 PM

@Snowman Agreed

Does Code Review do Design Review?

user55340

@enderland it is. I quite enjoyed it when I watched it.

user114359

@durron597 No. Programmers does design review.

Duga

This is almost on-topic for Programmers. You would need to edit out the resource requests and turn this more into a design review. Do not ask it again at Programmers, however. You can flag it for migration and a moderator will move it. Please do not cross-post. — Snowman 56 secs ago

enderland

@durron597 yes, somewhat, though without working code they won't

user114359

19

Q: Design Review: on-topic or not?

There is a gray area between Programmers & Code Review regarding design reviews. Code Review's on-topic page explicitly calls out design reviews as off-topic. However, if your question is not about a particular piece of code and instead is a generally applicable question about … Hi...

discussion on-topic-definition design review

user55340

8:20 PM

I got it (and related refs) from ars technica comments.

durron597

> My concern for this type of question is that most of them may be more suited to a discussion environment.

user55340

Related blog post: funcall.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-class-environments.html?m=1

user114359

@durron597 Which is why they need to be scoped and worded correctly. As always, does this problem apply to other programmers is the key question. Is this a common design issue is another one.

durron597

@Snowman aye

Duga

@Yannis good point, I forgot about that. I still stand by my assessment that a little more editing is required, however. It would be beneficial to read Design Review: on-topic or not? before asking this question on Programmers. — Snowman 48 secs ago

user55340

8:27 PM

@enderland so, if someone gave you some arbitrary Ruby library... Do you trust it? Would you still trust your code?

enderland

@MichaelT haha.... :|

user55340

In many languages you can simulate first class environments. rosettacode.org/wiki/First_class_environments

user55340

Note perl has the safe module which gives you the environment but also protects it.

user55340

@WorldEngineer this post- do you still think it's a good historical lock?

user55340

28

Q: What are some easter eggs that went wrong?

What are some easter eggs that went wrong and resulted in unintended consequences, e.g programmer(s) being fired, monetary losses, even human life loss, etc? Please share.

history easter-eggs

durron597

8:42 PM

@MichaelT As opposed to what? A deletion?

user55340

Yep. Low view. Entirely meh answers.

user114359

There is nothing of value in that question or its answers.

durron597

@Snowman I think it's a good duplicate target in case anyone feels clever

Easier than having to explain it in the comments

user55340

In four years, it hasn't been a dup target or mentioned in comments.

enderland

Jesus christ, i hate these uptight mods. — Click Upvote Apr 14 '11 at 7:14

user114359

8:47 PM

If a similar question were asked today it would be both primarily opinion-based as well as off-topic as an opinion poll.

durron597

Omg easter-eggs

2 questions but still

They're both open

user55340

Three - it doesn't count / show locked.

durron597

The CV queue is getting big again

enderland

woah I viewd a post of those and it had two answers sorted wrong, unless somone just downvoted one ;)

durron597

@enderland Come on get your 525 rep I believe in you

user114359

8:57 PM

@durron597 514 rep now:

user114359

enderland, Midwest USA

2.5k 9 21

agile sql user-interface development-process coding-style project-management qa

durron597

@Snowman Yeah I upvoted one of his answers ;)

user114359

Be careful...

user114359

318

Q: What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

I just noticed that I lost a bunch of points from my reputation score on Stack Overflow, and I used the "reputation" tab on my user profile page to try and track down the cause. During my investigation, I noticed there was an unusual event of type "reversal". In the normal place of a question ti...

support faq reputation voting serial-voting

durron597

@Snowman I upvoted one of his answers.

user114359

9:01 PM

I know, but he probably deserved it. He does write good answers.

enderland

9:18 PM

I don't think I realized how little actual programming people do in CS/CptE degrees until today

user55340

Depends on when they are done.

user55340

And where.

durron597

Another Amazon recruiter emailed me today. These guys are relentless

Ixrec

mine had quite a bit of programming, probably partly due to my elective choices

user55340

My cs degree had data structures (80% code), OS (75% code), mips assembly (lots), compilers (lots and lots), ai (fair bit)

durron597

9:24 PM

Mine really focused on algorithms

user55340

Theory and numerical methods were light on code for obvious reasons.

Ixrec

I had all of those, minus compilers and plus a "programming languages" and a "numerical algorithms" class

durron597

fall freshman CS was in OCaml.

user55340

Programming languages was four programs - same one on C, Java, ML and prolog.

durron597

It seems to me that Haskell has overtaken OCaml as the lead FP language. Why is that? (Would this make a good main site question?)

Ixrec

9:26 PM

for me it was Java, Lisp, Prolog, not the same programs but a lot of simple ones in each

it was also a required course; I was quite pleased that everyone in the major was required to do at least a little functional coding

user55340

@Ixrec did you by chance go to uw Madison?

durron597

Yeah, Haskell is more popular than Lisp and Scheme these days too

Ixrec

nope, UC Davis

@durron597 I assume it'd be "primarily opinion-based" on the main site, though I'd love to know too

user55340

That program you describe is remarkably similar to the one I had.

durron597

@Ixrec Well, I'll try.

Ixrec

9:28 PM

good luck

@MichaelT I also had a "scripting languages" elective which was basically "let's learn Python and R"

I think that covers all the actual programming I did as part of the major

durron597

If it's bad I'll kill it myself, don't waste CVs on it.

0

Q: What aspects of Haskell led to it's rise in popularity?

20 years ago, the Functional Programming world was all about Lisp and Scheme. When I went to college in 2001, my Fall Semester Freshman CS 101 course was taught in OCaml. However, these days the people that talk about FP always seem to be talking about Haskell. What is it about Haskell that ha...

programming-languages functional-programming language-features

Just let me know

Ixrec

it's -> its

durron597

@Ixrec yup.

Yannis

> What is it about Haskell that has led to it's rise in popularity in the FP world? What does it have that other FP languages don't have?

Jimmy Hoffa

durron597

@JimmyHoffa I've created a question just for you ^^^

Ixrec

9:34 PM

speaking of Haskell, I read through all of learnyouahaskell the other day (some of you might've noticed the Q I asked on the main site afterward)

and while Lisp always gave me the impression of a really cool language I'd never actually use, Haskell feels like something I might actually write a serious program in someday

if I only I had enough free time to code...

durron597

@Ixrec But why, though?

user55340

Now we just need @Yannis to answer it and single handily finish the tag cleanup.

durron597

@MichaelT @Yannis is too busy being the first to 2k rep on mythology.se

Ixrec

I think the main reason is that with Lisp, coding eventually turns into a game of "match the parenthesis"

2

durron597

@Ixrec The same is true in scheme

Ixrec

9:38 PM

while Haskell has waaaaay more options for varying up syntax to make it more readable/intuitive/etc

durron597

And OCaml, honestly.

Ixrec

that, and Haskell has an actual type system

i.e. it'll give compiler errors if you put a list where a function should be or a float where an int should be

durron597

@Ixrec That's good

Ixrec

does that apply to OCaml too? I know nothing about the ml's

durron597

@Ixrec I don't remember, I haven't coded in OCaml since 2001 ;)

Ixrec

9:45 PM

lol

user20683

@Ixrec Ocaml has type inference yes

user20683

@durron597 currently dupe hunting your question. So far you're passing.

durron597

@WorldEngineer Sweet

user20683

@durron597 the problem is that it doesn't feel like you should be. I could have sworn I've seen something very similar before.

durron597

@WorldEngineer Maybe it got deleted :)

user20683

9:48 PM

@durron597 unlikely

Telastyn

My CS program makes students write maybe 5kloc over 4 years in Java. I expect none of the students will actually get jobs, but fear they will.

durron597

I mean, maybe you're thinking about this: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/18838/…

but my question is decidedly different

Telastyn

There was a question asking why it's type system is cool.

durron597

There's also this:

25

Q: Choosing a functional programming language

I have read a lot of threads about functional programming languages lately (almost in the past year, in fact). I would really like to pick one and learn it thoroughly. Last [course] semester, I have been introduced to Scheme. I loved it. Loved the extreme simplicity of syntax, the homoiconicity ...

functional-programming language-choice

Telastyn

I might answer once I'm near a real computer and there's no answers.

In short, it best caters to weirdos in a world inhabited by weirdos.

user20683

9:51 PM

The best people to answer the question are either Jon Purdy or Norman Ramsay.

gnat

28

Q: Scheme vs Haskell for an Introduction to Functional Programming?

I am comfortable with programming in C and C#, and will explore C++ in the future. I may be interested in exploring functional programming as a different programming paradigm. I am doing this for fun, my job does not involve computer programming, and am somewhat inspired by the use of functional ...

haskell functional-programming scheme

user20683

Jon Purdy because he works with Haskell (or did) at his actual job and Norman Ramsay because he is a Haskell enthusiast who is also a university prof.

durron597

I don't want help choosing a language to learn, I just want to know why experts like it more

Which is similar but not the same

Again, I don't want anybody without a diamond to waste a CV, I'm happy to kill it on my own if we agree it's a dup

user20683

65

A: Haskell or Standard ML for beginners?

Much as I love Haskell, here are the reasons I would prefer SML for a class in discrete math and data structures (and most other beginners' classes): Time and space costs of Haskell programs can be very hard to predict, even for experts. SML offers much more limited ways to blow the machine. S...

user20683

not a dupe but related

durron597

9:57 PM

Feel free to add as a comment; but I'm not asking what beginners should choose, I asking why do experts prefer xyz

user20683

@durron597 programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/71287/…

user20683

I think that's the one I might have been thinking of

user20683

I don't recall

durron597

I know why people like Clojure and Scala, they want FP plus they like the JVM, that's not too interesting to me. Though I guess it would be interesting to others.

Ixrec

wow, I completely forgot about Clojure

Telastyn

10:02 PM

That happens a lot.

Ixrec

@Telastyn really?

Telastyn

That people forget about clojure? Sure.

Robert Harvey

10:24 PM

What do you guys think of these boot camps that take several weeks to several months, and presumably graduate competent front-end and full-stack developers?

hackreactor.com

learn.modern-developer.com

Ixrec

that doesn't sound like a loaded question at all

Robert Harvey

I didn't load it. How did I load it? That's their claims, not mine.

>
The biggest, most widespread, most documented, and most demoralizing problem with programming bootcamps and online learn-to-code programs (including MOOCs) is that many—perhaps most—of their graduates lack adequate proficiency and adequate knowledge and programming skills; some even lack basic competence. Many employers and experienced programmers alike regard such 'crash-course' graduates as unqualified and unprepared for real-world programming jobs. We ensure you graduate with in-depth and expert-level understanding and masterful use of all the technologies and concepts that matter in y…

That's from modern-developer.com.

user55340

@RobertHarvey on my way out... I can dig up more about it...

user55340

4

Q: How can web development bootcamps deliver on their promise?

I came across the concept of web development bootcamps, these 9-10 week intensive crash courses claim to teach beginners web development and help them get 80k starting salary jobs. Many of you might have heard of these. Is what the bootcamps promise feasible? Is it possible for web technologies ...

web-development ruby ruby-on-rails web

Robert Harvey

To be clear, these programs claim to be intensive courses that require you to build real applications and dive deeply into the technologies.

Robert Harvey

10:48 PM

@durron597 There's a .NET version of Clojure available.

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