V'dibarta Bam

2:30 AM

@Daniel why not?

4:16 AM

@Menachem 2 reasons. The first is that it unnecessarily bumps the question to the front. The second-and more important-reason is that we prefer to keep answers in the answerer's own words. Everyone has his/her own writing style, and there is really no reason to impose a style on someone else. Furthermore, it's better not to risk accidentally making a subtle change to the meaning of the post.

Isaac Moses

5:38 AM

Guess what Modern Hebrew for "dead end" is

... and in case you're wondering, like I did, whether the first of the words in the Hebrew phrase is common otherwise in Modern Hebrew, it isn't

HodofHod

@IsaacMoses Huh!

That's really interesting, I wonder how that phrase made it into the vernacular without its first word doing the same.

Isaac Moses

@HodofHod Nice, eh?

@HodofHod Lots of the early Israelis learned in yeshivos in Europe

GTranslate doesn't do anything cool with it, but "מה ענין שמיטה אצל הר סיני" is also a common idiom in Modern Hebrew

... I checked, and no, that wiktionary entry is not by msh210 :)

HodofHod

@IsaacMoses So why isn't the first word common? It would seem that they'd be more likely to use the word, which is common in Talmud, rather than the phrase, which is not.

@IsaacMoses :D

Someone should probably edit in the source for that....

Isaac Moses

@HodofHod I guess they needed a way to say "dead end," but not a way to say "alley"

@HodofHod I'd do it right now, but I don't have an account, and I'm not familiar with the formatting conventions. Paging @msh210 ...

Isaac Moses

6:16 AM

@unforgettableid (If you leave the link bare, without the angle brackets, in a chat message, it'll be clickable. Alternatively, you can use it as the target for linked words using this format: [this suggested edit](http://judaism.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/5940)

msh210

@IsaacMoses Cute.

@IsaacMoses No, but I did mean to add etymology to it, but never got around to it. (Feel free to do so.)

@IsaacMoses Ah, I see. You don't need an account, but okay, done. Now that the formatting is in place, you may wish to tweak.

Isaac Moses

1:16 PM

@msh210 Y"K. It's cool that Wikisource has all those commentaries; I didn't realize that.

Isaac Moses

2:55 PM

-3

Q: Hebrew blessing or baptizim

What does "Baruch Atah Alah mayem Alah mayew" mean? I am not sure if the spelling is correct either, however, this was said after I recieved a mark of the cross on my forhead after some water was blessed by a friend of mine. My concerns are valid

hebrew

^^^ one more close vote needed

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses already taken care of.

Huh, this is interesting. Under the old close scheme, you saw the majority reason and the names of the voters, but no individual accounting. I happened to choose a different off-topic reason than the other voters (I was torn), and both reasons appear with attribution. I'm assuming that's not just because I'm a mod.

Daniel

@MonicaCellio Yeah that's interesting.

I was also torn between close reasons

Isaac Moses

3:18 PM

@MonicaCellio I like the new way. There's useful information there.

@MonicaCellio Thanks

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I agree it's useful. I was just surprised by it.

msh210

4:38 PM

@MonicaCellio I think it is because you're a mod. Otherwise two users have to vote for something for it to be listed as a reason. Not sure, though.

Daniel

So what if she weren't a mod? Would it say

put on hold as off-topic by Daniel, Isaac Moses, Dave, Seth J, Monica Cellio

•"Questions about comparative religion, and questions about what others have written about Judaism, are off-topic on Mi Yodeya. This includes any question that requires of its answerers any knowledge of a religion besides Judaism." – Daniel, Isaac Moses, Dave, Seth J

And leave her out of the reason completely?

msh210

@Daniel I don't know. That'd be my guess.

Isaac Moses

@Daniel @msh210 We'll discover this by accident one of these days

msh210

@IsaacMoses Yeah.

Daniel

@IsaacMoses Yeah. Did we ever definitively find out what happens if someone with vote-to-close privileges instead flags a question for closure?

Isaac Moses

4:41 PM

@Daniel Sorry. I forgot to test it this time.

Daniel

@IsaacMoses Me too. I thought of it just after I voted

msh210

5:05 PM

@IsaacMoses Baruch tihye. It is. Note, though, that coverage is spotty. (They may have all of Rashi to Chumash -- I don't know -- but I doubt that they have all of Rashi to Tanach, or all of Ramban to Chumash, for example.)

Monica Cellio

3

Q: What did the other 2 users choose as the close reason?

I'm looking at this (off-topic) question, which has now been closed, but only 3 of the 5 users are listed in the bullet points - why? Is it a bug?

support closed-questions

msh210

@MonicaCellio There we go, then. Thanks.

Monica Cellio

@msh210 just came across it now. (No, I didn't put any effort into searching for it.)

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio Huh. I agree with OP that that's confusing. If you're going to the trouble of providing a reason breakdown in some cases, why not just do it in all cases? It's not at all obvious to the naive user why five people are listed above and only three below.

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses yeah, I agree. It's an improvement over what we used to have, which was "closed by (5 names)" for (majority reason only)"; I know I've been asked why I voted to close for such-and-such in cases where I didn't. But I think there's more work to do here yet.

Isaac Moses

5:22 PM

@MonicaCellio It shouldn't be much work in terms of code; probably just commenting out a line that says if (numvotes(reason r) > threshold || nummodvotes(reason r) >0) or replacing threshold with 0. Work in terms of design discussions - yes

Daniel

5:34 PM

@IsaacMoses tsk tsk... commenting out code...

Isaac Moses

@Daniel Did I say "commenting out"? I meant "deleting and checking in with detailed checkin comments." :)

Daniel

@IsaacMoses Much better

:)

@MonicaCellio The only case where it displays more than just the majority reason is if a mod chooses a different reason

We see for a 3/2 breakdown, it only shows the majority

I guess it's possible that the 2 each voted for a different reason

Isaac Moses

@Daniel What if the breakdown was 2-2-1 or 2-1-1-1, such that there's no majority?

Daniel

Actually, there are a lot of scenarios that I'm not sure about

@IsaacMoses Yeah, I was just thinking that

Or if a mod votes before vote #5

msh210

6:21 PM

@Daniel Is that bad practice? I thought it's standard to comment out code unwanted now but maybe wanted in the future.

Daniel

@msh210 Yeah, it's bad practice. That's what version control is for. It leaves your code cluttered with code that doesn't do anything, and people forget that it exists. Plus, if you want to bring it back later, half the time it won't work anymore because of other changes to the code

I'd guess that at least 80% of code that gets commented out remains commented out forever

msh210

@Daniel Do people use version control when there's just one person working on the code? (E.g., something you're writing for yourself at home, not for work (and not for MY).)

Daniel

@msh210 Yeah, I always do

My whole home directory is on git :)

But AFAICT even people who aren't that obsessed generally tend to use version control for all projects that they'd work on for more than a couple of days

You only have to get burned once before you learn your lesson

Maybe @HodofHod or @IsaacMoses or @whoever else is a developer can give a second opinion

Charles Koppelman

@Daniel Yes. If I'm working on code that I care about, I will put it under version control

Isaac Moses

@Daniel I agree completely and have in fact been burned by not using version control. But I'm too lazy to set up a system for myself.

Charles Koppelman

6:33 PM

I know folks who also have their LaTeX resumes on verison control

msh210

@Daniel Interesting. And good to know. Thanks. I currently have only one script that I would need version control on, and I use nothing at all: all old revisions are lost (except a bit that's commented out). Otoh, it's only an 82-line python script, so I'm not too worried.

Daniel

@msh210 Yeah that kind of thing isn't such a big deal

But once you're a little bit bigger (even only a couple hundred lines) I always back it up

doesn't take any effort

just a quick git add

msh210

@Daniel First I'd have to learn how to use a version-control system. :-)

Daniel

@msh210 git has a bit of a learning curve, but there are plenty of subversion programs that have nice user interfaces

msh210

@IsaacMoses So you're saying you don't use version control?

Daniel

6:37 PM

5 mins ago, by Daniel

You only have to get burned once before you learn your lesson

I guess that doesn't apply to @IsaacMoses

:)

ish kashe oref hu

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Not currently. In my two previous jobs in s/w development shops, I did, along with the rest of the company. In my current job, I'm not in a traditional s/w development role, and I don't make lots of big code projects, but I do write SQL and VBA scripts, and I really ought to version control them

@Daniel Please don't throw me down the cliff.

Charles Koppelman

@IsaacMoses That's a good point - I don't have any of my random one-off ruby/sh/sql scripts under version control

i should, though

Daniel

@IsaacMoses :)

msh210

@CharlesKoppelman Is that standard practice?

@CharlesKoppelman I'd think finding it would be harder than rewriting it, then.

Charles Koppelman

@msh210 It depends what exactly it does. If it's literally just a data fix, then it's likely not worthwhile. The main reason to write a script, though, is if it's done more than once.... and the saying goes: "Something that happens once will never happen again, but if it happens twice, it'll happen a third time"

e.g., i have a script that i needed once to translate a csv into json. that could easily be useful again

otoh, i jsut ran a script that manually inserted some rows of data into a db. That will never be that useful and like you said, is easier to just rewrite

so by "one-off" i really mean "general one-off"

msh210

6:50 PM

@CharlesKoppelman Got it.

Thanks.

Monica Cellio

7:59 PM

@Daniel version control is important, and everything I do professionally goes into source control in a diffable format. (I haven't set anything up at home, but I don't do much recreational stuff that would call for it.) I've turned a few heads by demanding that doc teams I work with use source-control responsibly for documentation source -- none of this wholesale checkin of Framemaker (binary) files or (shudder) PDFs.

Daniel

@MonicaCellio ugh... At my first internship, I worked for a place that really didn't know how to use source control. For my first project, they told me to resolve merge conflicts that occurred when they tried to pull in a baseline that included compiled binary files

Needless to say, it's not so easy to resolve merge conflicts in binary

Monica Cellio

@Daniel yeah. And the writer I had to read the riot act to on this said "it's ok; I'm the only one who works on this doc so there won't be conflicts". (A) maybe now, and (B) someday you'll need to understand the diff from a change you made months ago.

Monica Cellio

9:28 PM

The answers to this question seem to apply to a shacharit service (or, at least, one mentions Ashrei). Do they also answer the s'lichot said on the first night (Saturday night before RH, for Ashkenazim), or do I need a new question? I have failed to remember what exactly is in that service.

7

Q: Priority rules for abridging Selichot

If the minyan doesn't have enough time allotted for Selichot to finish everything listed in the Selichot book for today, so you need to cut some parts out, what are the rules of priority for what should be cut out first, last, or never?

selichot synagogue tefilla

TRiG

heh

Daniel

@MonicaCellio I'm pretty sure it's the same selichot service

(there is ashrei, even on saturday night)

it's a separate ashrei that is part of the seder of selichot

Monica Cellio

@Daniel ah, thanks -- couldn't remember from last year.

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