The Whiteboard

7:03 PM

@JimmyHoffa vote split +5/-3; at score 2 it's not hot enough, answers stuffed into it multiply only by 2. At this score, even downvotes to low quality "answers" matter

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Ah, good for us then on keeping crap out of the collider the all-natural way.

oo +6 -3

ah answer converted to comment. Very nice.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa this kind questions tend to attract sympathy upvotes. also, many bumps by multiple answers / edits to these help

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Is that like sympathy pains? "I didn't ask this question, but I can feel it crowning!"

user55340

@JimmyHoffa o_O

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT oh it's natural, quit your whimpering :P

gnat

7:09 PM

when I was a newcomer I upvoted questions like that without much thinking. Sort of pure emotional appeal, when one turns off their brain

deletion doesn't help, when there are meh answers coming it...

0

A: "Real programmers can learn any language" - how do I learn to *actually* program?

You need to understand key programming concepts, like file definition, and modules; and programming techniques such as links, loops, branches, and conditional statements. These are things that "real programmers" understand in any language. If you understand these, and similar underlying concepts...

Jimmy Hoffa

> [...] and programming techniques such as links [...]

user55340

One question needs to be asked. Do you construct your logic in syntax or do you use a faster and more efficient mental model? I find that novice programmers tend to think using syntax. — ChaosPandion 1 hour ago

Jimmy Hoffa

Wat?

user55340

There... thats the thing thats key to the answer to the question.

user55340

Experienced polyglot programmers think in the AST and translate that to the language they are in.

user55340

7:14 PM

Novice ones have to think out each 'word' - very much like learning a new spoken language.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT You realize he wrote that as an answer and it was converted to a comment after much down voting and people commenting on it with lots of "huh??"s and Wat?s

user55340

In french, I still have to think out the non 'pattern' topics word by word.

Jimmy Hoffa

I don't disagree

user55340

The way he wrote it was the problem - as a question.

Jimmy Hoffa

Write an answer that speaks to that

I'm done fooling with my answer, it makes the point I wanted to make. I don't disagree with your point but I don't care to express that as a response to the question

user55340

7:15 PM

rhetorical answers in the form of a question rarely make good answers.

gnat

@MichaelT that question seems to have too many "keys" - as it often happens with collider-sticky ones. Everyone sees their own unique key, everyone shares, every answer feels relevant, all 30 of them

43

Q: Lots of not-always-useful but well-intentioned answers

In episode 42 of the Stack Exchange podcast Joel Spolsky mentioned something along the lines that some sites (for example, Travel Answers) suffer a little from questions that don't always get useful answers - even when someone has good intentions. So, for example, someone asks a question about g...

15

I noticed today that a request for protection came up due to the the large number of me-too answers on a trending question I answered recently. This got me thinking, since trending questions get far more attention than the average question, should questions that trend be automatically protected?...

discussion feature-request protected-questions answer-quality

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat This is actually pretty funny, look at the guys other answers, he air quotes every slightly technical term he ever writes

1

A: Is there more to being a programmer than what I'm being exposed to?

"Web" is a big thing right now. (And I'm saying this as a user, not a programmer.) The other thing of note is that people want programmers with "server side" experience. You, and many others are on the "client" side. But companies want programmers who can "dish it out" more than the ones who can...

> [...] A data structure's "language" might be compared to a child who said something like, [...]

@MichaelT Aye, I was still kind of surprised he didn't edit it into an actually good answer because he was touching on something that is worth elaborating on

@gnat he took links out

gnat

@JimmyHoffa yeah that's where I feel somewhat envy of Workplace - many regulars over there made sort of a habit to downvote meh stuff. And, since there are more than few of answer-downvoters, they somehow spread over between themselves a tedious job of adding explanatory comments - so that readers understand what's wrong

@JimmyHoffa meaning yet another bump, potentially bringing more sympathy upvotes from passers by. You see, in questions like that, even good things have a dark side

Aug 23 at 22:32, by Jimmy Hoffa

►

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I didn't recall posting that so I followed the link back only to read this and whinge

Aug 23 at 22:33, by psr

@JimmyHoffa Just recently unearthed some code in an instance method that calls a class method in a superclass - which then has a case statement with one case per subclass.

poor @psr, his MUMPS is clearly terminal...

gnat

meanwhile... free spam flags to anyone!

-1

Q: Software testing and what makes it hard?

I am conducting a short survey to learn about common practices of software testing during software maintenance. Anybody that can answer. Its done with a secured survey tool (limesurvey) http://www.evosuite.org/survey/maintenance Note: All responses are anonymous and all data is treated in the ...

junit

Bob

7:27 PM

@JimmyHoffa He forgot to quote "take it"

user55340

0

A: "Real programmers can learn any language" - how do I learn to *actually* program?

(My apologies to ChaosPandion for borrowing heavily from the idea he presented) ... how can I develop programming skills that can be applied towards all languages instead of just one? The key to this question is to transcend the language and think in not the language you are coding in. WAT...

user55340

There's my collider hit.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa oh yeah those were the days

Gnat goes full-blown crazy

Aug 23 at 22:36, 10 minutes total – 14 messages, 4 users, 2 stars

Bookmarked Aug 23 at 22:48 by Jimmy Hoffa

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Great answer. Also...

> Once one has this ability to use the AST in the head

"AST in the head" sounds like some kind of killer band name

user55340

I feel kind of bad for the youtube videos, but I describe them.

user55340

7:31 PM

And they're not the answer - they're supporting material.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT They are really cool as well having seen them before.

user55340

And befunge isn't that bad if you're familiar with forth or dc.

user55340

But thats because they are of the same AST in the head school.

user55340

I'll think about it for a bit and somehow get the 'write fortran in any language' thing in there later.

Bob

Have you guys seen this site? codewars.com

I was most impressed that registering requires passing tests first

Jimmy Hoffa

7:35 PM

@MichaelT true. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps as SK-Logic says, the selection of differences is more compact than I give it credit for. Iduno though, it's pretty hard to imagine knowing that there are such broadly different languages as dc and APL and even among similar languages there are huge differences like going from SML to a language with universal quantification

gnat

@RobertHarvey it was very nice of you to migrate it with shopping request included — gnat 15 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Aren't there some famous quotes for that bit of detail? Yeah some polish and a bit more details and that answers plausibly better than mine. Mine's just a repudiation after all.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa codinghorror.com/blog/2005/04/…

user55340

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal

"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" is an essay about computer programming written by Ed Post of Tektronix, Inc., and published in July 1983 as a letter to the editor in Datamation. Widely circulated on Usenet in its day, and well known in the computer software industry the article compares and contrasts real programmers, who use punch cards and write programs in FORTRAN or assembly language, with modern-day "quiche eaters" who use programming languages such as Pascal which support structured programming and impose restrictions meant to prevent or minimize common bugs due to inadvertent pr...

user55340

> The determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:39 PM

Linguistic relativity

The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its respective speakers conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined as having two versions: (i) the strong version that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories and (ii) the weak version that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic beha...

That's actually probably the best citation to track into your answer

gives a more fundamental explanation of what you're after in saying "Learn more than one"

user55340

ACM How Not to Write Fortran in Any Language

user55340

Note: first major section title "LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM IS OVERRATED"

user55340

(though I've gotta get back to doing some real work for a bit today)

user55340

> There is a famous view of linguistic determinism known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, framed by Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf. Roughly, it holds that the vocabulary and syntax of our language guide and limit the way we see the world: form dictates content. Edsger Dijkstra believed that programming in Fortran or Basic not only condemned us to produce bad code, it corrupted us for life.

Jimmy Hoffa

8:25 PM

> You can drown in a bathtub with an inch of water in it

I would just like to refute that. Just a general no holds-barred refutation.

user55340

@gnat data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/142107/… and meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/199868/…

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT this could use a little elaboration

> Having a Fortran AST in your head and writing Fortran code in Java isn't a good thing.

Sparticus

@MichaelT its got a score of 28 right now. still pretty far down

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I'll think about it... its related to that review of my first lisp program back in college...

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT ☆ for introducing me to fractran which drives my point about the disparity between languages fairly well

user55340

8:32 PM

I still had a C AST in my head - I hadn't moved beyond it. I could program C quite reasonably for a college student... switching to Lisp... I wrote a C program with lots of () around it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I understand what you mean with that ending statement, but there's room for expansion on it because there are people who don't know why not to write other languages in an identical fashion to that which they write their current language. "It works perfectly in X, and I can do it in Y, so it will work identically in Y therefore what's the harm/reason not to do it that way in Y vs X?"

user55340

Yep... I've just gotta think through how to write that... and I've context switched to Apache POI librarby.

Jimmy Hoffa

Fire performance

Fire performance is a group of performance arts or disciplines that involve manipulation of objects on fire. Typically these objects have one or more wraps of wick, which are soaked in fuel and ignited. Fire performance includes skills which are based on juggling, baton twirling and poi swinging and other forms of object manipulation. It also includes skills such as fire breathing, fire eating and body burning; sometimes called fakir skills. Fire performance has various styles of performance including fire dancing; the use of fire as a finale skill in an otherwise non-fire p...

Apache POI?

user55340

Apache POI - the Java API for Microsoft Documents poi.apache.org

user55340

Writing a program to spit out an excel spreadsheet that looks all nice and stuff.

Jimmy Hoffa

8:40 PM

I think this belongs on SO?

1

Q: this used inside class' method/function vs this used inside anonymous function?

Why "this" behaves differently when used inside a class function/method as compared to when it is used inside an anonymous function. For example public MyClass { function myfun() { output(this) // << will show the instance of this class but not myfun() function a...

concepts actionscript

@MichaelT Oh apache has a java abstraction over office extensions? Cool.

I have never done any office-related coding, and am very pleased with this. All I've ever seen of it, it's so reminiscent of how software was in the old COM world of '98 (which makes sense considering that's where it all came from)

I'm quite pleased to be a long distance from that enterprise COM crap

user55340

It doesn't get to that level... its more the document model and the styles I'm dealing with... it can do functions, but I've never delved to there (yet).

Jimmy Hoffa

Huzzah for collider. That question's now score 47 almost above the fold in the collider.

I'm still not certain whether it's a good or bad question. I am certain it's garnered a lot of bad answers... but as for the Q itself Iduno

user55340

8:56 PM

I see it at 50, fold at 54.

Jimmy Hoffa

I'm definitely getting a collider bump. The score on my answer slowly crept up until a short bit ago it's spiking.

user55340

The question went from +6/-4 to +10/-5 recently.

user41796

biggest thing holding that Q back from collider is the lack of upvotes on the answers

user41796

net score on the Q is at 5 right now, so that balances the div by 5

user41796

11 Answers + sum of Answers (~=24) for a net of 35

user41796

8:59 PM

I still don't believe the time decay works though

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Are you sure? @gnat I think the time decay might be working. @WorldEngineer can prove it, @MichaelT as well.

user41796

it's showing as 50 on the collider currently

user41796

don't know why

user41796

shouldn't be

user41796

and here goes 10 rep as an experiment. :-) Apologies @JimmyHoffa & @MichaelT for the DV

Jimmy Hoffa

9:01 PM

@GlenH7 Burn in the thousand hells of project management training!!!

user20683

@JimmyHoffa hmm?

user41796

It's a system, I'm gonna game it and see what happens

user41796

@WorldEngineer He's mad that I just DV'ed his answer

user41796

I don't know how long it takes for the collider to update though

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 It takes 10 minutes

user41796

9:03 PM

hmmmm

user41796

Score just dropped to 27

user41796

I'd call that a pretty good investment of 10 rep

user41796

@WorldEngineer - can I talk you into considering a 5th close vote? programmers.stackexchange.com/q/214059/53019

user20683

@GlenH7 I clearly need to get my ass hired so I can write the massive, tome-like blog series "Here is how to become a programmer or software development professional or someone who can just kind of code decently a good portion of the time."

user41796

@JimmyHoffa - you got your rep back. @MichaelT - 5 min window expired before I could pull the DV on your answer. Sorry

Jimmy Hoffa

9:07 PM

@WorldEngineer Alternatively you need to get your ass hired so you can write the massive, tome-like blog series "I'm no longer living off cans of beans and sympathy!"

user41796

@WorldEngineer how is that coming along? Any interviews?

user20683

@GlenH7 not as yet, some excellent leads

user20683

including one place a friend works at

user41796

inside connections always help. They at least get you to "consider my resume" stage.

user20683

yeah

user20683

9:08 PM

and this guy I know well

user20683

we rode the train home a number of times

user55340

(wow)

user55340

user55340

@GlenH7 I just edited it...

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 James Riddle Hoffa doesn't need you to give back his rep, he would have extorted it out of you. For crying out loud his middle name is Riddle, villainy was inevitable.

user20683

9:09 PM

@MichaelT Primer is still more complicated

user41796

@MichaelT and your rep just changed

user41796

I only fear Tom Riddle

user20683

That is decently complex OO, Primer is VBscript gone spagetti.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Awesome, I'm going to have to forward that to my wife, it'll probably keep her busy all night... on second thought maybe I'll wait 'till after she's done making dinner or else I'll be cooking for myself tonight..

user41796

And I fear that no one caught my Harry Potter reference. Ah well, c'est la vie.

user55340

9:11 PM

@GlenH7 I did.. (its also a Dredmor refrence)

user20683

@GlenH7 as did I

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I'd be surprised if anybody here didn't catch it

user55340

> Tom Marvolo Riddle Award for Scholastic Merit -- Master the Magic Training Skill Tree.

user20683

@MichaelT except that he had no mastery

user20683

just a crippling over specialization toward Curses

user20683

9:13 PM

which makes sense given that he's basically a Necromancer/Liche

user55340

@WorldEngineer The Magic Training skill tree doesn't give you anything you can use... just improves other skills.

user20683

@MichaelT ah, once again the Dredmor devs are nicely clever

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer I thought he was a zombie... he died and came back, and lived by killing others and appeared to have physical deformity's consistent with some form of rotting... yep, zombie.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Horacruxes = Phylacteries

gnat

@JimmyHoffa not that much of a pain to me at Programmers, I developed a moderately complicated way to keep this under control

Jimmy Hoffa

9:15 PM

@WorldEngineer I'm only pinning this because I've seen few things that made less sense, or; Wat?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa how? He divided his essence into multiple pieces and hid it away

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 OoOo in a weird twist: @RobertHarvey has editted and nominated for reopening...

user20683

much the way a Liche would do with Phylacteries

user55340

@WorldEngineer dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Achievements

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer You just claimed two weird made up words were equal, both of which clearly don't mean anything at all

user20683

9:17 PM

@JimmyHoffa Phylactery isn't made up in that sense

user20683

it means "guardian", the boxes containing prayers used by Jewish men at temple are known as such.

Jimmy Hoffa

I'm not well read...

user20683

Tefillin

Tefillin (Askhenazic: ; Israeli Hebrew: , ) also called phylacteries ( from Ancient Greek phylacterion, form of phylássein, φυλάσσειν meaning "to guard, protect") are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, which are worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers. Although "tefillin" is technically the plural form (the singular being "tefillah"), it is loosely used as a singular as well. The hand-tefillin, or shel yad, is placed on the upper arm, and the strap wrapped around the arm, hand and fingers; while the head-t...

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Ah, that's what those things they wear around their neck are?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa hand and forehead

Jimmy Hoffa

9:22 PM

@WorldEngineer What would I know, I've never been in a church

gnat

@GlenH7 downvotes to question is the most efficient way to keep it from being broken by collider...

for the record: discussion on how to manually work around the bug in current formula ("guerilla") is here. "I think it's safe to say that we may need to take things into our own hands..." — gnat May 17 at 6:16

The only reason that I don't promote this way is, it feels unfair on many of the question I studied (to avoid misunderstanding, on "real programmer" question DVs feel fair to me)

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat is it still downvote worthy after Robert Harvey's edit?

Oh he only changed the title, not even the content...

@RobertHarvey I have a bone to pick with you!

Robert Harvey

[cue 2001 music]

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey it's a wish bone, I wish for peace for all mankind

now you go

Robert Harvey

Boy, we're getting crazy with the close as duplicate votes.

user55340

9:29 PM

(My issue with the question as it stands now... the question title doesn't match the questions in the question)

Robert Harvey

Let's see, this question must have been asked before. Oh, here we go, this question has an answer of 42. Every question must be a duplicate. Close all the questions.

user55340

> Can a “real programmer” actually learn a new language in a week?

user55340

> How can I make sure that I'm actually learning how to program rather than simply learning the details of a language? More specifically what I'm asking is how can I develop programming skills that can be applied towards all languages instead of just one?

Robert Harvey

Gotta read the whole post, sport. Not just the title.

user20683

@MichaelT Get Cormen, read all of it

user55340

9:30 PM

The title is what many people start off reading and answering. Thats what they see when they look in the collider.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT They don't see anything in the collider now, closed questions get kicked out

Robert Harvey

Well, the old title was a distraction. That's what everyone was basing their close vote on.

user55340

The question in the title is a question of the background information being given not the question being asked in the question.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Closing does that.

Robert Harvey

Then find a title that won't get everyone to close it as "42."

user55340

9:31 PM

However, there are two reopen votes and I suspect that will make it through.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I agree and your new title is a better question, though I also agree with @MichaelT, should have edited the body as well as the title to reformulate that question

I'm pondering making the question body edit myself

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa You're going to change his whole question, just so we can reopen it?

Doesn't sound sportsmanlike, somehow.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Is it better to let the question get closed and eventually culled as bad content that's not going to help anyone in the future, or to transform it into content that is of quality and helps future visitors?

I often hear the saying that a real programmer can easily learn any language within a week, because languages are just tools for getting things done while programming is the ultimate skill that must be learned and mastered.

Is this true, is there something I can study to actually learn **how to program** rather than simply learning the details of a language? Is there something out there to study that would make it so I can pick up any new language in a week, or is this not possible?

@RobertHarvey is that a fitting edit? A decent question? Or no?

(Haven't made it yet, mulling it over, wondering how I can help it be better)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I think it works reasonably.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT @gnat @GlenH7 I welcome suggestions if I can make the question better?

Robert Harvey

9:37 PM

You're fundamentally changing the tone of his question.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa definitely. "hear the saying" is there, and "can easily learn any language", and "languages are just tools", and "the ultimate skill that must bblah blah. And of course, "actually learning how to program" and "skills that can be applied towards all languages" are still there, all the usual cheap populist garbage

Robert Harvey

And if you read it carefully, it already says what you're trying to say anyway.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey The original question was bad content, is a bad closed question better than a good open question when the closed question is what the user was asking and the open question is what the community is willing to answer?

user55340

@RobertHarvey it makes it consistent with the title while maintaining the core.

Robert Harvey

You're just trying to remove the part that people latched on as duplicate content.

user20683

9:38 PM

The answer is yes if the value of language = Lua

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Ideally people shouldn't have to read it carefully...

Robert Harvey

Oh, hi @Gnat. This is all your fault. As usual.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I didn't consider it dupe content, I originally close-voted because it was bad content

I strongly disagree with dupe votes for bad content, I believe bad content should be closed as non-dupe regardless of whether it's dupe or not.

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Well how does your edit make the question better? "Real programmers can learn a language in a week" is prima facie false; the question is rhetorical. The real question is "what is the balance, since learning a language in a week is provably false?"

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Have you edit suggestions that would improve it? I'm not certain my edit's better. I'm just trying to think of how to improve the content the site already has.

user55340

9:41 PM

@RobertHarvey I've learned how to work in Python in a week. However, I still write perl in python. But thats the thing that people are thinking when they wrote that 'a real programmer can learn a new language in a week'

Robert Harvey

I think the question is fine just the way it is now.

@MichaelT That would make a good answer, now that the question is open again.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey @ChrisF agrees with you apparently, I'll take that as sufficient guidance.

user55340

@RobertHarvey Thats what i answered.

Jimmy Hoffa

It's up to others if they want to put an edit on it.

gnat

@MichaelT agree. With current question text, "How can I make sure that I'm actually learning how to program rather than simply learning the details of a language?" would be a more reasonable title. I sometimes really wonder why people invent hand-waving titles instead of simply extracting it from the question text. That's understandable for the asker as they are biased, but why impartial editors miss that?

80

Q: Why is the sudden increase in number of Git submitters on Debian popcon graph in 2010-01?

Almost every article I've read 1 comparing Git and Mercurial it seems like Mercurial has a better command line UX with each command being limited to one idea only (unlike say git checkout). But at some point Git suddenly became looking super popular and number of Git submitters on Debian popcon ...

git history mercurial

guess what was the title that attracted most of the garbage there?

"Why did Git become so popular?"

has nothing to do with question asked

Robert Harvey

9:45 PM

@gnat I'm fine with that title, if people will stop closing it as a duplicate.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey 10k hours of swimming, agh that's what nightmares are made of

gnat

@RobertHarvey easy peasy. If you really want this, recipe is right there, at MSO. Tried and true

21

A: Someone flagged my question as already answered, but it's not

what's the best way to prevent these "helpful" flaggings in the future? Although you put this word into ironic quotes, it is helpful indeed, and instead of preventing, you better learn to use these flaggings to your advantage. Just think of it: someone invested their effort, did some rese...

This answer is potential FAQ material. — Josh Caswell Aug 23 at 19:29

this assumes that one really wants it and really puts an effort into avoiding dupe-closures

instead of whining in the rain

►

user20683

@gnat in the milk

user20683

they used milk

Robert Harvey

@gnat What is this i dont even

Jimmy Hoffa

9:50 PM

@WorldEngineer hopefully it was pasteurized...

user20683

@JimmyHoffa it was 1950 something

user20683

so maybe

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer I'm just thinking the volume, plausibly not.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa @gnat apparently that's actually a myth

user20683

it's lit from the front

Robert Harvey

9:52 PM

@gnat: None of that excuses voting to close as duplicates questions that bear only a passing resemblance to the original. It's not up to the OP to demonstrate that their question is not a duplicate; it's up to you as the close voter to demonstrate that it is.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey This has been my contension as well, I think there have been plenty of dupe closure arguments... They don't seem to get anywhere unfortunately.

gnat

@RobertHarvey What is this i dont even

that' the funniest way to say that asker (who apparently knows the least) weights more than 5 high rep users who voted to close

Robert Harvey

In other news, I think I'm going to have to ration my time on SE. I'm on furlough right now so it doesn't matter all that much, but I'm starting to realize what an enormous time sink it really is.

@gnat Those other four users just followed you off the cliff.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey You're a mod on SO, you're only now realizing what a huge time sink it is? heh that's crazy. Also sorry about the furlough, feel free to drunk dial congress

@RobertHarvey That genuinely sucks.

user20683

@RobertHarvey Whom do you work for in the government?

Robert Harvey

10:00 PM

@WorldEngineer I work for a prime contractor for NASA.

user20683

@RobertHarvey ouch

user20683

My sympathies

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey On the bright side, we control robots on mars sometimes. That's pretty cool.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa not right now

user20683

shutdown put that lovely little rep mine into hibernation

Robert Harvey

10:01 PM

Yeah, and the Mars Rover is not tweeting right now.

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer That's why I said sometimes

user20683

@JimmyHoffa fair enough

gnat

@RobertHarvey you apparently mixed up Programmers with MSO. Regulars here aren't fond of gang-voting

lawless places are fertile ground for pack mentality. When community norms are shaky, many feel unsafe; this makes them wish to join a pack. Pack members have to give up part of their identity and reason "in return" (this seems to be typically obscured by vomiting anonymousvoting slogan over and over and over again) but for some, this probably is an acceptable compromize — gnat Aug 28 at 14:58

user20683

we need to hurry up and find some Prothean ruins

Jimmy Hoffa

Winter's coming soon...

Robert Harvey

10:04 PM

Winter's here. I'm in California's high desert, and it's 45F outside.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Boohoo, it snowed here last week

(actually I love the winter, can't come soon enough)

@RobertHarvey You going to stick out the furlough you think or going to start looking? I'm sure you wouldn't have to look for long if you made the choice

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Psheah, that's a long story. The contract ends in January anyway and, due to a series of unfortunate events, the contractor I work for won't be eligible to renew it, despite the fact that they've won numerous awards and get nearly perfect performance scores, year after year.

My boss, who worked for the government for many years, said to me "And you're surprised because?"

user55340

@RobertHarvey Bishop? Ridgecrest?

Robert Harvey

Lancaster

user55340

If i was in CA, this was the time I took a vacation to go to Mammoth to go photograph things.

user55340

10:11 PM

A photograph I know and would bump into up there from time to time... Ancient Bristlecone Star Trail

user55340

And then Mammoth itself...

user55340

I was there for that one... we thought we had a boring sunset and then we turned around...

user55340

10:12 PM

(My version... )

user55340

@RobertHarvey ever been to Darwin Falls? A waterfall just outside of Death Valley at Panamint Springs?

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Ah. At least you'll get backpay once it all ends no? (Regardless of moving on?)

@MichaelT this all reminds me that I need to make sure not to let this winter pass without a few nice hiking trips up in the snow. Last year was my first opportunity in years and I was too busy, this year I'll make sure to get some chances.

Love hiking in this, the silence is deafening

user55340

@JimmyHoffa The winter before I left CA, I did a cross country ski trip from Badger pass to Glacier Point in Yosemite... yea... yosemitepark.com/glacier-point-hut.aspx

Jimmy Hoffa

That's a nice trail I quite like

@MichaelT Awesome.

user55340

10:21 PM

My favorite was seeing a sign for cars and trucks warning them of a steep descent... the snow was up to the mid point of the traffic sign.

user55340

I was thinking "yea... and there's a cliff at the end of that... I'll walk it rather than ski it."

Jimmy Hoffa

There's huts like this strewn about all over back country loveland and berthoud passes

Loveland pass people hitch a ride to the top, hop out and ski to the bottom of the pass just in the national forest area, no ticket or what not, there's a grip of huts strewn about hidden in the woods there just for people doing this

(then you hitch a ride back to the top and do it again, people pick you up all the time because they're taking the pass to get to ABasin or Keystone or Breck right on the other side anyway)

user55340

One guy I worked with... he's got a bit of family in Glenwood area (uncle owns the UPS store.. he used to be a parking lot plow driver, his sister is a ski bum/instructor...)

Jimmy Hoffa

I love Glenwood

user55340

I had to get a new car there... the Honda Dealership.

Jimmy Hoffa

10:25 PM

The hot springs pool is huge, the little town surrounding it is great for a walk on the strip et al

oh yeah I recall you mentioning

@MichaelT did you make it up to hanging lake to get pictures when in the area? Very picturesque.

One side:

view of the other side:

that second side you can see why it's called hanging lake: It's a clif drop on the other side of that bush

user55340

@JimmyHoffa When I was there, I started to go up, and it started to rain. I really didn't rellish the idea of hiking up or down in the rain.

user55340

Those are some steep rocks and a hard trail if you've got a camera bag.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT yeah, it's relatively steep and being in the rain in the canyons around here is genuinely unsafe to begin with.

user55340

And... well.. .its 5:30. I'm out.

Robert Harvey

Nice pictures. Never been to Darwin Falls.

user55340

10:34 PM

@RobertHarvey I'm curious if you can get in there now... its owned / managed by NPS, however the pipe for the water that supplies Panamint Spring, well... thats kind of important.

user55340

Darwin Falls

Darwin Falls is a waterfall located on the western edge of Death Valley National Park near the settlement of Panamint Springs, California. Although there exists a similarly named Darwin Falls Wilderness adjacent to the falls, the falls themselves are located in and administered by Death Valley National Park and the National Park Service. There are several falls, but they are mainly divided into the upper and lower with a small grotto in between. At a combined 80 feet (24 m), it is the highest waterfall in the park. The canyon is walled by dramatic plutonic rock. Darwin Creek is one of the...

enderland

is this named for the plethora of darwin awards awarded there????

user55340

enderland

I mean it is death valley afterall

user20683

@MichaelT should I bother with listing OSes on my resume?

user55340

10:37 PM

@WorldEngineer yes.

user20683

I mean I've used every windows from 3.1 except Vista

user55340

Given that there are several of them...

user20683

@MichaelT fair point

user20683

Mac OS 7.5 will be left off

user55340

You don't want to put down "Linux" only because it would be looked down on if you applied to a Microsoft shop.

user55340

10:38 PM

7.5 - yea... thats a tad old.

user20683

@MichaelT not necessarily, not if Mono is listed as a thing

enderland

@MichaelT probably depends on who is interviewing you. Some folks there might go "oooh sweet, this guy's a nerd"

user55340

Likewise, only Windows and applying to a linux shop.

user20683

ah

user20683

okay

enderland

10:39 PM

are you referring to development experience in them?

or just "I'm comfortable using these OS's"

user20683

yeah, I'm on a mac, have ready access to both Linux and an instance of Windows 8

user20683

@enderland I've compiled C code on things and manually installed python modules (pain in the ass)

user55340

But, if you have "Mac OS (10.1 through 10.8), Windows (NT, XP, 7, 8) Linux (Redhat, Slackware)" - thats fine.

enderland

I might clarify that - just putting "Windows | OS:X | Linux" is a bit lame

user20683

yeah

user20683

10:40 PM

Windows(2000,XP, 7, 8)

user55340

The thing is if you're a mono OS guy and applying to something that isn't your OS shop... it will be a mark against you.

user20683

I'm an every OS guy

user20683

I hate all of them

Robert Harvey

What's Mono OS?

enderland

which do you hate the most????

user55340

10:41 PM

@WorldEngineer harmful.cat-v.org/software/operating-systems/os-suck

user20683

@enderland Windows ME

user55340

@RobertHarvey A person who only knows one OS.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I think it's a stretch to say an MS shop would look ill upon someone who listed Linux, every MS shop I've worked at had plenty of folks who enjoyed Linux

user20683

then probably the Playstation 2's OS

user55340

@JimmyHoffa If you only listed Linux and never touched windows... and you're going to use windows... its something to look into.

Jimmy Hoffa

10:42 PM

@RobertHarvey This is mono os

enderland

@WorldEngineer I guess I would consider - "why am I adding these OSes to my resume?" - if you just list a bunch that's rather lame, because you don't communiate to someone reading it "why should I care @WorldEngineer has used 15 OSes"

user55340

> (Free|Net|Open)BSD[386] suck.
Linux sucks differently every time a kernel is released.
Eunice sucks so bad Larry Wall made special mention of it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Oh yeah, I thought you meant listing Linux at all would be a black mark from an MS shop

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Mmm. Last release in 2008.

enderland

you mean you logged in? compiled apps on? Developed apps? built multiplatform libraries? etc

user55340

10:43 PM

@JimmyHoffa If I interviewed at your place and had "Linux" down on OS and only "Linux" along with "C++" and "Java"... the interview wouldn't go well for me.

user20683

@enderland Developed on Windows 7 and 8, Linux, Mac OS 10.6, keep meaning to play with illumos (OpenSolaris successor)

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey It was a fun MSR project I'm sure, there's been a few of these floating around MSR trying to do an OS entirely managed so drivers and systems software can be written in a managed language

user20683

most of my work is systems agnostic

user20683

because Java and Python

Jimmy Hoffa

Singularity was the one that got the furthest to my memory, there was at least one other earlier too

user20683

10:44 PM

and web fiddling and what I did of iOS

Robert Harvey

Hey, I have a question about site maps.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Breadcrumbs are good

Did I answer your question?

enderland

Gotcha @WorldEngineer.

Robert Harvey

Is there some tool that will do a diff of two sitemaps, and produce a new site map with the deleted links, per Google's specification for notifying them of deleted links?

user55340

@RobertHarvey Robots like them.

Robert Harvey

10:46 PM

My old boss wants me to write a tool, and he thinks I can do it in five minutes.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Do you not delineate your sitemap in some XML file?

user20683

@enderland I also understand how operating systems in general operate and a good amount about RTOSes

user20683

namely things like hardware interrupts

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Yes, but it will change when we generate a new site map, and it will not contain the deleted links.

user20683

round robin vs priority vs full RTOS

user20683

10:47 PM

Genetic LISP program that tries all possible site maps till it finds the right one.

user55340

@RobertHarvey Two bits there... how to do a good sitemap... and how to inform google of gone links.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey take old file, take new file, load using XDocument for pleasant linqiness and Intersect then take the new one and SkipWhile the intersection contains the same nodes

user55340

The later bit - developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/indexing

user55340

> If you have a web page that you just deleted but it is still showing up in your custom search results, and it is very important to you that it does not show up in search results as soon as possible; or if one of your web pages contains inappropriate content and you want to block it immediately while taking it down, you can prefix the URL with a "-" symbol, and submit it in the On-demand indexing using individual URLs section, like this

user55340

> You can also add an expires tag in your Sitemap to specify a date in the past when the URL expired and submit the Sitemap. Following is an example from a hypothetical Sitemap example.com/sitemap.xml:

Robert Harvey

10:50 PM

@JimmyHoffa Y'now, that might actually work. It will take longer than 5 minutes, but still... inflated expectations.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey How do you get the old and new? That's on you. Could inject it into your build process to look at sitemap on some given URL (the live one that google knows about) compared to sitemap in source control, make the custom task output a file that ends up in your drop so it ends up on the live as well

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Getting the sitemaps is not a problem. Producing the diff with the deleted links is.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey Yeah longer than 5 minutes, but still relatively simple (the second part of automating it is where it becomes a lot longer than 5 minutes)

Robert Harvey

@MichaelT Right, that's what he wants. He wants a tool that will roll a new sitemap with the expiry dates on the pages that no longer exist.

user55340

(ahh, already had that part down... well, now I know)

Robert Harvey

10:53 PM

Y'know, I should ask this question on Stack Overflow under a 1 rep pseudonym as a test. Will probably get closed as "no effort, didn't show the codez."

enderland

@RobertHarvey you could totally close it yourself!

Robert Harvey

lol

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I'm not familiar with the sitemap xml format, but you may need to do a recursive intersection so you prune out the children which didn't change

(if sitemaps have a recursively nested schema?)

Robert Harvey

I think it's just a flat list of URL's, in XML form. I'll make a sitemap of his site and see what it looks like. For that matter, his sitemap is at the root of his site, I could probably just go and get it.

Jimmy Hoffa

If it's like <url><child url><child url></child url></child url><child url></child url></url><url></url> etc nested recursively you need to intersect top level, intersect each child of that level, intersect each child of each child of that level, etc. Simple recursion

Robert Harvey

10:59 PM

@JimmyHoffa street-technology.com/sitemap.xml

Gnat goes full-blown crazy

Transcript for