The Whiteboard

whatsisname

5:00 PM

it's all bad

Jimmy Hoffa

yeah likely so

ugh, it builds fine but making the menu shit actually show up is giving me an episode

Feeling like time to give up on this

Don't forget the time you spend finding the chart to look up what you save. And the time spent reading this reminder about the time spent. And the time trying to figure out if either of those actually make sense. Remember, every second counts toward your life total, including these right now.

Ampt

@durron597 why would you link to a dead site like that? might as well send him to geocities.

durron597

We don't accept code troubleshooting questions here, sorry. No, we don't know where you can ask it, in its present form. — Robert Harvey 1 min ago

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa I was trying to figure out why the boxes with the biggest savings were greyed out before I realized I was trying to cut 50 hours out of my daily routine.

Although some of those combos do work... you can take a day off of something you do weekly - that saves you 1 year over 5 years

same with shaving 6 hours out of your daily routine - now you've saved 195 weeks, or ~39 months.

granted, you're probably out of a job...

user55340

5:15 PM

@durron597 apparently you already cast a vote on it this round. programmers.stackexchange.com/review/close/109338

Jorge Campos

Hello guys, i've received a code here to review and it came with something that I never seen before...

an interface with a method that receives an absctract class as a parameter ?!

why would one need such a thing?

user41796

@JorgeCampos What language? C#? Java?

Jorge Campos

Java

user41796

Can you specify an interface for a method parameter in Java?

Jorge Campos

Yes, you can

user41796

5:20 PM

Hmmm, not sure then. My initial thought would have been that they are using the abstract class as a workaround for using an interface

rolfl

@JorgeCampos At a basic level, because the abstract class declares the methods you need to use in the interface method you are declaring.

user41796

If I had to venture a guess, it sounds like they are trying to create one set of classes that have a method which can receive another set of classes and you're guaranteed some sort of operation to occur

Jorge Campos

I've guessed that, but the parameter is typed and worst to Object: SomeType process(List<String> sequence, SomeOtherType theta, AbstractSomething<Object> param);

rolfl

The Java API is normally pretty good at not making the API's for library "things" an abstract class, but in real life, the code normally ends up a bit more messy, and the API can be defined on the abstract class, not the interface.

user41796

Anything implementing iFoo will have a method AcceptBar(abstractBar), and anything that inherits from abstractBar can be passed into AcceptBar(). So you're guaranteed to that iFoos can operate on the abstractBar set.

rolfl

5:25 PM

One of the places where abstract classes are used a lot in methods, though is in the Swing API: for example: JComponent is an abstract class, and the API definition: docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/JComponent.html

Jorge Campos

tis messy, I will return the code and ask the developer to create an interface that AbstractSomething should implement and then use it as a parameter and also without the <Object> typed or some other defined type

rolfl

@JorgeCampos The generic component is probably a lot harder to refactor.

I have to question why it is AbstractSomething<Object> instead of AbstractSomething<?> though

user114359

@durron597 I had 9 CVs left, I just dumped them all on the worst of the questions from the past 24 hours. Out of delete votes, too.

rolfl

it is seldom that you have only Object types in a generic-typed class.

Jorge Campos

@rolfl even on the swing api the methods pass the interface component that jcomponent implements not the abstract class.

Thomas Owens

5:31 PM

bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6585992

ORACLE! FIX YOUR CRAP!~

user41796

@JorgeCampos At a minimum, the code is doing a poor job of reflecting its intent. That alone is a good reason to send it back and ask the developer to clarify things.

Jorge Campos

@rolfl "AbstractSomething<?>" even if that was the case i don't think it is a good pratice since such make things out of control... except for codes with reflection of course

@GlenH7 yeah you are totally right and I just did that!

Thank you guys!

rolfl

@JorgeCampos But you have to contextualize it too.... is he doing that because that's what he's being passed, or because that's what he thinks he needs?

(assuming it is a "he").

Jorge Campos

by the look of the code it is because he thinks he needs.

rolfl

OK, then. it seems like your code review process is somewhat brutal, but regardless... you should be talking with the developer, not with us.

we can only guess.

durron597

5:39 PM

@ThomasOwens They don't support Java 6 anymore. That is never getting fixed in the current version.

Thomas Owens

@durron597 I don't see evidence that it was fixed in 7 or 8, though.

The bug is still open.

durron597

@Snowman pfeh. I was hoping that a mod could take out the trash so we could spend ours on tougher stuff.

Jorge Campos

yes... I came to ask about the abstract as a parameter just this because it was not an usual thing to see. But the code is really messy even if that was not the case I would have return it anyway... the guy have created a method the return a hashmap with the equals implementation and hash implementation and the hash is returning: "".hashCode()

durron597

@ThomasOwens It doesn't matter, does it? Because you are not allowed to advance to 7

Thomas Owens

Of course, our customer is running Java 6 Update 45. But the defect is still open, so they need to close it.

What makes it worse is that one of the known workarounds goes away in Java 7 and later.

So if it's not resolved properly, you can't change to MToolkit.

rolfl

5:42 PM

@JorgeCampos That's a whole different sort of problem.... you should worry about "basic" things like that before the more complicated issues of generics, and so on.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Have you been able to reproduce the problem in Java 7?

Thomas Owens

@durron597 Not yet. I need to find a machine running Java 7, first.

But I intend to in the next couple of days.

Either way, if it's fixed in Java 7, then they should close that bug and say that it's no longer an issue in Java 7 (or 8).

That's just good defect management.

rolfl

@ThomasOwens given that Java 7 is end-of-life as well, you should consider Java 8.... java.com/en/download/faq/java_7.xml

Thomas Owens

@rolfl Yeah, I know.

But getting people to update is a pain in the ass.

rolfl

I had similar problems (last decade) and I fixed them by going to cygwin-X from MingW, or the other way around, or something.

or was it hummingbird.... I forget.

The mouse-in-the-wrong-place-for-menu's was a PITA.

Thomas Owens

5:52 PM

So is it really a Java bug?

Because I'm not convinced that it is, since my application works perfectly if Exceed if used.

durron597

@ThomasOwens the front page has 7 open, negatively voted questions. Could you please swing your modhammer

I put this as a programming question in my mind... So I posted to the programming stack exchange. — Groax 50 secs ago

Sigh....

user41796

@durron597 We need to be down voting those too. -4 and they drop off of the front page.

durron597

@GlenH7 I've downvoted all of them.

Thomas Owens

There.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Thank you!!

Thomas Owens

6:02 PM

You know, the requirements that I was given never said the application had to work over X11 forwarding. There are no constraints as to what X servers would be used.

That brings up a valid point. We don't control the customer environment at all. And we can only test under the constraints that they give us.

Duga

I suspect this question would be more suited to the programmers site. If other people agree perhaps it can be migrated. — shuttle87 just now

Thomas Owens

6:24 PM

Can someone tell me why I, as a moderator, should delete questions that are negatively voted to the point of not showing up on the homepage and will be relatively quickly collected by the roomba?

user41796

@ThomasOwens because you can?

user41796

Or they offend your sensibilities?

Ampt

because you're better than that half assed machine?

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Except they go to the flag queue and I have to read them.

Ampt

because you don't want the roomba to start getting any ideas, a-la skynet

Thomas Owens

6:24 PM

Why not save my brain cells?

user41796

Or you're frustrated at something at work and use it as a way to right some of the wrongs of the world?

Thomas Owens

THINK OF THE MODERATOR'S BRAIN CELLS!

YOU'RE KILLING THEM!

Ampt

FLAG ALL THE THINGS

user41796

@ThomasOwens Yeah, the auto generated flag from a close without comment is a bit annoying.

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 Hm

Never seen that flag.

user41796

6:26 PM

I have had it pop up a few times on Engineering

Thomas Owens

I think that's one that gets kicked to the mod queue if it isn't handled in the review queue.

user55340

I've heard about it. Might either be beta or between me and gnat you don't see it because they all have comments.

Thomas Owens

And you guys are amazing in the review queue.

user114359

I am sure @ThomasOwens would love this:

user114359

@Snowman WE NEED TO FLAG THESE FOR MOD ATTENTION (WITH FLAG MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS) — gnat 1 min ago

user55340

6:38 PM

@ThomasOwens deleting questions that can't be saved on the front page refunds votes on then. It keeps people from asking why all the questions are down voted and closed.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens fire and motion

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT But does that actually require moderator intervention? I'm rather torn. It has positives, but I'm not sure it warrants a flag.

Jimmy Hoffa

at this point I simply must get this stupid damned visual studio extension working; I've gone to the point of actually using a .NET shell to parse out the embedded resource in an assembly, and dredged up a an old VC tool for decompiling the thing into a header... there's simply no going back at this point

user55340

If it is consuming the time of the community unnecessarily, possibly.

user55340

Fostering unneeded discussion on tangents in comments is such a case.

user55340

6:46 PM

People fixing code in comments is too.

durron597

7:10 PM

@MichaelT It refunds downvotes or close votes?

@MichaelT This does still not appear to be a thing

user55340

Down.

maple_shaft

7:23 PM

#gnatisatroll

4

@durron597 I talked to the Google recruiter and went over the video he sent me

I havent responded back yet

It s not that I am worried how I will do on the interview. I think it might be challenging in that weird kind of academic way. I guess I just kind of felt disillusioned by the interview

process

Jimmy Hoffa

@maple_shaft I think this is just a rough time of the year for his people...

durron597

@JimmyHoffa downvote bots can have a rough time of year?

@maple_shaft by google's process? or by interviewing in general?

My understanding is that the phone screen is quite easy. It was certainly easy for me

maple_shaft

@durron597 Googles process. It shed some things about the culture that I felt like werent a fit for me

durron597

It's the on-site that's a real killer.

@maple_shaft Interesting. I'm curious, could you elaborate?

maple_shaft

The over emphasis on judging candidates over problem solving skills and hard computer science principles

I feel that is like 25% of the value I have to bring to a team

I am more of a generalist

durron597

7:30 PM

@maple_shaft Honestly, the latter isn't really that important either

maple_shaft

and I am good at dealing with people. I talk to the customers so the god damn engineers don't have to... WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!

durron597

The only thing they actually seem to care about is "can you solve programming problems really, really, really well?"

maple_shaft

prett ymuch

crap!

late

bye

durron597

Complete tangent shift - anyone have experience using Bitbucket and Eclipse for the same project?

Thomas Owens

7:44 PM

@durron597 What does the code repository location have to do with the IDE? Just curious where this is going.

durron597

@ThomasOwens prompt@mycomputer$ git push remote branch asks me for a password and works

eclipse "add remote" authentication fails.

Both are using an https URI

Thomas Owens

Ah. OK.

durron597

@ThomasOwens I agree, it's not obvious why that would matter to me either, but there you are.

I've followed all of these links and nothing worked: stackoverflow.com/questions/13481935/…

Thomas Owens

I just deleted a crap ton of code because we no longer need to support a feature. Nice.

durron597

Mythical man month should measure productivity by lines of code deleted, not by lines added.

user55340

7:54 PM

MMM doesn't like metrics at all. It mentions them but realized they are all flawed even then.

Thomas Owens

Metrics are a necessary evil, I think.

Ixrec

necessary for what?

Thomas Owens

Management. At some level, someone who is making a decision needs a number. This person probably doesn't understand software development (even if they did at one time).

Duga

It is not a programming problem (no code needed), it is an algorithmic/modelling-problem and a theoretical-problem. The question is if it is possible to model the problem and solve it in polynomial time or if the problem is already NP-complete. But I am new here, so maybe I am wrong and it belongs to 'programmers...'. — Benjamin 49 secs ago

Ixrec

I think that need is covered by estimation of tickets in the backlog rather than metrics on the code that's been written so far

Thomas Owens

7:59 PM

Shareholders, perhaps. Investors. Management. Someone who is making a decision wants to quantitatively make that decision. Measurements and metrics are how they do that.

@Ixrec It's still a measurement or a metric.

Ixrec

I'm used to "metric" being used to imply a number produced by a simple tool or algorithm, as opposed to human intuition

tomato tomatoh

Telastyn

Management by metrics isn't management.

Thomas Owens

@Telastyn Numbers are just a tool.

Some metrics are useful. Or at least more useful than others.

Telastyn

meh. Numbers are an abstraction, usually more than one abstraction - each one further and further from reality.

gnat

free spam flags: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/288873/…

Thomas Owens

8:02 PM

And as you move up in the management hierarchy, they want more and more abstractions.

whatsisname

joel sposky correctly realized that "management by metrics" is an abdication of managerial responsibilities

user114359

@gnat How would I send that person a message anyway? I was not aware of any IM functionality here. Bad attempt at spam is terrible.

durron597

Code Review primary I'm hoping Simon replaces rolfl and otherwise remain same

Oh I guess they need a 4th mod, huh.

Ixrec

the metrics we have that seem genuinely useful are very high level ones, like how many man-hours were spent on new features versus KTLO work the last month, or how many team members were redirected to this other project for a few weeks

more importantly, they're being used to make decisions about (human) resource allocation, rather than judging performance

and of course, sprint velocity

user55340

@SimonAndréForsberg going for a blue name?

durron597

8:08 PM

@MichaelT Yeah

user114359

I don't have enough rep to vote there

Telastyn

ugh, manhours

such garbage.

durron597

I guess for the 4th mod I'd pick janos, but I upvoted Mat's Mug as well.

user114359

I really should participate more in some of these other tech sites instead of just lurking

durron597

cv-pls programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97259/…

user114359

8:12 PM

@durron597 0 votes remaining

Nick Alexeev

Did something bad happen to c2.com patterns repository? Or did it simply and fairly get overtaken by sites like Sourcemaking and Wikipedia?

user55340

It got difficult to use and keep up with.

user55340

It lost its focus and became too forum like, and not being well implemented as a forum.

durron597

If you don't have CVs can you downvote the question at least?

user55340

See also wiki wiki system notice.

user55340

8:21 PM

c2.com/cgi/wiki/wiki/wiki?WikiWikiSystemNotice

durron597

Oh, wait, it has to be closed in order for it to be deleted with answers? even if they're all zero or lower scored? pfeh.

Simon André Forsberg

@MichaelT I always thought I looked good in blue.

Blue happens to be my favorite colour. (well, technically it's cyan but close enough)

user55340

@NickAlexeev c2.fed.wiki.org

Nick Alexeev

@MichaelT Somehow, I feel leery about this. I would feel less leery of incremental improvements to the original c2.com

Let's see what Wayback Machine has to say.

user55340

The original site appears to have been subject to attack by vandals. The infrastructure on wikiwiki wasn't there to handle such.

user55340

8:28 PM

c2.com/cgi/wiki/wiki/wiki?RecentChanges

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn why aren't they womanhours? I motion that from now on we measure estimates in sauropod hours. All in favor say aye

user114359

@JimmyHoffa I vote for cat-hours. We could spend weeks worth of cat-hours and still get literally nothing done.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman but with sauropod hours we would be able to see over buildings and know the project is doomed to meteoric failure from the start

user55340

Isn't that a given?

user114359

8:34 PM

We could save the world in a blaze of glory

MetaFight

woo!! I hit 100 consecutive again! My reward for not taking any holidays this year :)

user55340

891 consecutive. That's why I have a phone.

whatsisname

you must not ever go off the grid

user55340

The grid is everywhere.

Ixrec

except on the train to work

Jimmy Hoffa

8:40 PM

how do I check my consecutive? It's probably pretty crappy, I miss at least a day a month...

depending on what it requires for interaction to be called active

Ixrec

I think it's on your profile

Jimmy Hoffa

I imagine so, but my profile has lots of stuff

Ixrec

yeah, mine says "visited 178 days, 131 consecutive" in the top right of the "Profile" tab

Jimmy Hoffa

It says I've reached 171k people; aww I feel all warm and fuzzy

Ixrec

I can live with a mere 69k

Jimmy Hoffa

8:41 PM

> visited 931 days, 2 consecutive

Ixrec

lol

someone does not use the mobile app

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT 891 consecutive !?! eesh, how many total? I didn't think you were here that long before me

user55340

Tron Legacy - Soundtrack OST - 02 The Grid - Daft Punk

►

user55340

@JimmyHoffa 1193

user55340

Btw, clicking it shows what days you were on.

user55340

8:44 PM

(The consecutive link on the profile)

Jimmy Hoffa

well, 3yrs 10 months for me - so my profile's actually older than yours by 3 months, nyah nyah.

user114359

4 years, 2 months

Jimmy Hoffa

yeah, but you're made of Snow. You're just as pretend as @Ampt

user114359

I vaguely remember signing up and being annoyed at all the stupid questions

Ampt

There is no sock.

user114359

8:46 PM

the ones I am now helping to close and delete.

Jimmy Hoffa

Woot! I have managed to get the remove and sort usings at the solution/project/file level working! It only required...recreating from scratch....

The only part of the previous package I managed to reuse was a snippet of code I pulled out with ILSpy

durron597

Anyone remember when SO looked like this?

user55340

2009 wasn't that long ago.

durron597

Jon Skeet already had 40,000 rep at that time sigh

@MichaelT It's not that long ago, but you may not have used / known about SO 6 years ago.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:02 PM

@durron597 that seems unlikely, it was pretty fast after SO went up that it started devouring google search results, every programmer just suddenly started seeing it pop up on every 3rd link for the shit they googled in the course of their day to day

my SO profile turns 5 this year, and I remember seeing it as "that thing that I click when I search for something and it's one of the choices" for a long time before I ever joined or participated

durron597

I'll be honest, I was so soured by Experts Exchange that it took me a long time before I realized SO was totally different

I thought it was going to be yet another "spend more than 30 seconds clicking around and we're going to demand money from you" site

Thomas Owens

@durron597 You mean Expert Sex Change, yes?

durron597

@ThomasOwens sorry, my spacebar key is broken

Thomas Owens

You should get that fixed.

Jimmy Hoffa

I know an Expert web site that could help...

user114359

9:18 PM

@durron597 I remember being annoyed at Expert Sex Change for sucking so much and latching onto SO right away. I did not create an account for a while but I got a lot out of it. Specifically, I remember EE hiding answers unless you paid rep, but unless you were one of the maybe five top users who spent every minute of every day on the site rep was impossible to come by.

user114359

SO never hid anything behind a paywall or fake internet points wall.

Jimmy Hoffa

Yeah, I think a lot of people immediately caught onto SO because it was so transparently what so many people wanted

hah! I have you beat by 1 month on SO @Snowman!

user114359

@JimmyHoffa Yawn.

Jimmy Hoffa

psh you're totally jealous.

durron597

@Snowman I remember ESC having such good SEO and every time it I clicked one of their links I could never view the answer I just got really, really annoyed.

whatsisname

9:36 PM

though for a long time if you scrolled way down you could see the answers

MetaFight

9:58 PM

and, if I remember correctly, shortly after that you could reveal the answers by removing an overlay div that made the answers look like blurred out text.

F12 ftw

experts-exchange.com/Database/MS_Access/Q_28115212.html <-- my favorite Database question on there.

What the fuck does "pythonic" mean? When I was in university everyone loved to use that term, though nobody could ever define it for me.

whatsisname

there is that big PEP manifesto thing

pythonic is just idiomatic python

MetaFight

which means what? Cramming as much as you can into a single line?

Jimmy Hoffa

10:33 PM

@MetaFight it's actually a literal spec doc for interface design and code styling. They just couldn't say spec doc because...maybe they didn't have enough experience to know what a spec doc is? Or style guide? Or they were just too hip to use normal words because they're better than you?

shrug, Pythonic is just a more marketable term for coding guidelines

MetaFight

10:48 PM

gotcha.

Ampt

eh, being pythonic has kind of taken up it's own meaning in those circles

it's more than just following spec and spaces instead of tabs, it's almost like trying to do things the way you think Jon Skeet would do them. you know, if he actually gave a shit about python.

MetaFight

Hi armpit.

Ampt

11:03 PM

@MetaFight looks like an awesome answer underneath all that blur. Oh well.

That's Mr. Armpit to you.

MetaFight

Mr. Armpit it is, then.

user55340

11:18 PM

@whatsisname Well, there's PEP-8 and PEP-20

psr

@Ampt Careful or "What would John Skeet do if he gave a shit?" might become a thing.

Transcript for