The Whiteboard

user55340

1:12 AM

You know its a good what if xkcd when he mentions wolfram alpha and not getting banned this time.

user55340

user55340

@JimmyHoffa something to play with on a Friday:

user55340

33

A: Images with all colors

C# I put a random pixel in the middle, and then start putting random pixels in a neighborhood that most resembles them. Two modes are supported: with minimum selection, only one neighboring pixel is considered at a time; with average selection, all (1..8) are averaged. Minimum selection is somew...

user55340

1:41 AM

... and already out of close votes.

user55340

2:08 AM

@JimmyHoffa here's another one for 'ya bartoszmilewski.com/2014/02/26/c17-i-see-a-monad-in-your-future

jozefg

3:26 AM

@JimmyHoffa I'm not so sure. A functor is simply a mapping yes, a catamorphism is meant to model a mapping from an initial algebra to any algebra in a category. A functor can give rise to an F-algebra, but need not necessarily. For example if IO give rise to an F-algebra unsafePerformIO is trivially derived.

Think of it this way, let's consider a functor `F`, an F-algebra for F is

type FAlg a = F a -> a

The classic example of a catamorphism comes from the functor

data Tree a = Leaf a | Branch (Tree a) (Tree a)

An initial algebra is one with a unique map to all algebras in the group we're considering. A catamorphism is the unique homomorphism from the initial F-algebra to all others.]

jozefg

3:51 AM

In our case, we're interested in a specific initial algebra, which is given by

type Alg f a = f a -> a
initAlg :: Alg f (Fix f)
initAlg = Fix

Now using this, we need to prove that for every algebra alg :: Alg f a, there is a map between initAlg and alg

Sorry, between the carriers of alg and initAlg which are f a and Fix f respectively

hom :: Functor f => Alg f a -> Fix f -> f a
hom alg = fmap elim . unfix
    where elim = alg . fmap elim . unfix

It turns out elim is actually the most useful and has the type

elim :: Functor f => Alg f a -> Fix f -> a
elim :: Functor f => (f a -> a) -> Fix f -> a

this is normally called cata.

So essentially, a cata exists whenever the F-algebra F a -> a exists

This is clearly not the case for all functors so not all functors give rise to a catamorphism

btw I do believe Foldable is the relevant typeclass here

gnat

7:36 AM

funny large logo of TWP

2

Q: Design Guidance for Community Promotion Ads

For those who are going to submit images for Community Promotion Ads, I figured that I would share some info to make things easier for you. I am basing everything off the original image added by Grace Note: Colors The colors used here are primarily (all RGB): Dark Blue: 45,77,98 Mid Blue: ...

gnat

10:39 AM

Cheat sheet

A cheat sheet or crib sheet is a concise set of notes used for quick reference. "Cheat sheet" may also be rendered "cheatsheet". Cheat sheets are so named because they may be used by students without the instructor's knowledge to cheat on a test. However, at higher levels of education where rote memorization is not as important as in basic education, students may be permitted to consult their own notes during the exam (which is not considered cheating). The act of preparing a so-called cheat sheet is also an educational exercise, thus students are sometimes only allowed to use cheat ...

@GlenH7 ^^^ regarding question we spoke about yesterday, I would much prefer google searches refer Wikipedia than that Programmers question. This article is just so much better summarized, laid out, maintained than our question... it's just so much more helpful

gnat

11:48 AM

...and it even refers to more accurate term for what the question asks about:

Reference card

A reference card or reference sheet (or quick reference card) is a concise bundling of condensed notes about a specific topic, such as math formulas In spite of what the name reference card may suggest, such as a 3x5 index card (), the term also applies to sheets of paper or online pages, as in the context of programming languages or markup languages. However, this concept is now being adopted to portray concise information in many other fields. Appearance As in the examples below, reference cards are typically one to a few pages in length. Pages are organized into one or more columns. A...

gnat

2:24 PM

Asking off-topic questions here will cause you to get question banned here as well. To get out of a question ban on Stack Overflow, read and follow the instructions listed [here]. — Oded 4 mins ago

@Oded ^^^ markdown above is incomplete: [here], consider editing it into the link [here](link) (thanks for shutting it up by the way)

Oded

@gnat whoops. Thanks.

BTW - if you see an off-topic question like that and the OP has a SO account with a few low quality questions and low rep (say <100), chances are good they are q-banned there.

Ampt

any of you guys have any experience with QT?

gnat

@Oded yup. Another chance is they're cross-posting. Checking SO accounts saves me 4-5 CVs a day average I think - by letting me flag instead of voting

Oded

@Ampt nope

enderland

2:39 PM

@Ampt I did a lot with it in C++

it's got some of the best documentation EVER for "open source" types of things.

which is amiracle

Ampt

@enderland yeah that's what we're looking to do with it. Right now its mainly the multithreading stuff, but a good possibility of GUI as well

any tips/tricks/warnings?

enderland

rerunning moc will be your friend for obscure compile errors...

Ampt

moc?

enderland

it basically is a preprocess compiler where it reads your Q_OBJECT related information and allows the QT specific stuff to work correctly

if you don't do this and modify/add Q_OBJECT related... stuff sometimes you get really obscure compile errors

I think QT Creator might do this by default? I forget

I guess it depends too if you are planning on using QT objects or creating your own objects? sounds like you might be just using them?

gosh that feels like a lifetime ago

Ampt

probably both...

QT is going to be driving a lot of different moving parts

did I mention it's going on an embedded processor?

probably a multi-core ARM

also did I mention it's gonna be running a snow plow? lolol

If you could just upload your knowledge of QT to the matrix, that'd be greeeeeeat

enderland

2:50 PM

I can't tell you the number of times I got weird compile/linker errors that were at root because I didn't re-run moc. I'd like to think that was always my first "oh!" response but, well. lol

Ampt

so you run moc, then compile it?

enderland

argg I'm trying to remember the exact workflow. I'd written some scripts to generate makefiles/etc and hardly ever dealt with how this actually worked

I think what I did was script running qmake on the .pro file which does all the necessary behind the scenes stuff

this is a drawback to writing a build/launch script. hah

Ampt

ok, thats helpful. Heres a question, is it common to call QObjects Threads?

enderland

what do you mean? all QT classes (I think all? maybe some don't?) inherit from QObject

Ampt

ok, so we have a QObject that handles incoming signals

is it apt to call that a thread?

#ifndef CANMANAGERTHREAD_H
#define CANMANAGERTHREAD_H

#include <QObject>

#include "applicfg.h"

class CanManagerThread : public QObject
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit CanManagerThread(QObject *parent = 0);

signals:
    void ActivateError(int ErrorNumber);
    void DeactivateError(int ErrorNumber);

public slots:
    void Initialize();
    void UpdateOutput(int CurrentRate);

private slots:
    void BodyUpStateChange(bool input);
    void FilterBypassStateChange(UNS8 input);

};

#endif // CANMANAGERTHREAD_H

enderland

2:59 PM

I think you're going to confuse yourself doing that because there are actual QThread objects too (which are different than QObject)

Ampt

yeah, thats exactly what happened

QThread* thread = new QThread();
CanManagerThread* worker = new CanManagerThread();
worker->moveToThread(thread);

That's in main

and its giving me a code smell

enderland

yikes, that's going to be obnoxiously hard to keep track of "my thread that's not really a thread" vs "qthreads which are threads"

Ampt

ok, yeah. Our team isn't used to this kind of threading so I'm gonna point that out

enderland

I don't think signals/slots create their own thread, though I guess i'm not sure

Ampt

I just know coming from java that that would be wrong, so I wanted to make sure that's how QT does it

no, that's in a separate file

enderland

3:02 PM

but I would definitely not name your own classes which don't actually inherit from any thread class "threads" regardless of how they work haha

you have me curious now though if firing a signal/slot interaction is done on the same thread or if it starts its own thread behind the scenes?

Ampt

well, maybe it was a QT thing haha. I wanted to be sure

so this signal/slot thing. An object can fire a signal, and then that is recieved by another object, but first they have to be connected

the signal and the slot have to take the same parameters, right?

enderland

qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/signalsandslots.html

I'd read that - it's probably going to do a better job than I could explaining their interactions

Ampt

ok, sweet, thanks!

enderland

> The signals and slots mechanism is type safe: The signature of a signal must match the signature of the receiving slot. (In fact a slot may have a shorter signature than the signal it receives because it can ignore extra arguments.)

Ampt

so it's kind of like an observer pattern

enderland

3:06 PM

this also is a better explanation of what I was trying to say earlier too regarding moc/qmake:

> The C++ preprocessor changes or removes the signals, slots, and emit keywords so that the compiler is presented with standard C++.
By running the moc on class definitions that contain signals or slots, a C++ source file is produced which should be compiled and linked with the other object files for the application. If you use qmake, the makefile rules to automatically invoke moc will be added to your project's makefile.

@Ampt I don't think we ever did any which didn't do this? I feel like it'd be really, really confusing if you were creating signals which "didn't work" with slots because extra info was ignored even if this was possible, though, I guess there's always a use case haha

@Ampt qt-project.org/wiki/… there's even a link discussing how signals/slots relates to this :)

Man I forgot how awesome QT is for documentation

Ampt

@enderland yeah I'm noticing that haha

enderland

ok I've successfully procrastinated this SQL stored procedure I need to write long enough...

Ampt

haha [sorry|you're welcome] for being a distraction

thanks though!

user41796

@enderland - here's some additional distraction for you: theregister.co.uk/2014/02/28/…

user41796

It's got some typical off-color El Reg comments, BTW. Nothing offensive; but the implied visuals are hilarious.

Ampt

3:16 PM

> The next contract with the next service provider is equally debilitating (“but this one has the grape flavoured astro glide”).

user41796

> ... when a vendor offers them comfortable memory gel knee rests, a barrel and some brightly coloured silk scarves that they're about to sign a lock-in contract for a set of proprietary technology.

user41796

@Ampt There are some gems in there. And I think it's a fairly accurate indictment of many IT shops.

Ampt

> In general, emitting a signal that is connected to some slots, is approximately ten times slower than calling the receivers directly, with non-virtual function calls.

ouch....

user55340

One of those... oh, theres a name users when you stumble across it...

user55340

Robert Martin

609 3 3

design object-oriented-design solid tdd testing uncle-bob acceptance-testing

Ampt

3:22 PM

> There's the payroll example in my book: "Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices". It follows the architecture pretty closely, though some of the nomenclature is a bit different.

that's his highest answer

and it's just that

can I flag it as a link-only answer?

user55340

Yep. Not the best answer, but it is an answer to the question the person asked of.

user55340

(and it was better than the deleted answers)

user55340

I actually flagged it to be undeleted from the failed migration process from SO.

Ampt

is that a yes for flagging or a no for flagging haha

user55340

No, don't flag it as link only.

Ampt

3:23 PM

I feel like semantically I'm correct but I might lose because its got 20 rep + chosen answer AND its by the damn author

user55340

If I was a mod, it would be borderline for a historical lock (or just leave it).

gnat

@Ampt no link => no flag...

removal of few thousands posts, like 98-99% of those picked by query doesn't prove anything, yeah sure. As for "similar link-free posts" for comparative analysis, good luck defining these. I for one will be curious to see efforts to establish semantic equivalence between self-contained statements and those requiring external links for support. Think why there is so much meta drama around link-only answers and so little about short ones... reader's perception of these just differs too much — gnat Feb 25 at 14:46

Ampt

it just smells of "Buy my book"

user55340

@gnat There's an implied link in there... to the chapter of the book.

Ampt

sure, he may be good and sure, it may be correct that it's in the book

but still.

user55340

3:26 PM

@Ampt The question kind of implies the book is already purchased.

Ampt

oh, I added a link to the amazon page for the book

user55340

That works too.

user55340

But yea... there are some deleted answers there that are link(s) only.

user41796

@Ampt - it's a marginal answer to a poor question. He could have done a better job of explaining why the example in the book answered the question

Ampt

> I just finished watching this presentation by Uncle Bob (as well as his "Architecture" section of his "Clean Code" videos)...

user41796

3:27 PM

It's more DV worthy than flag worthy

Ampt

he mentions that he watched a presentation, not read the book

user55340

There's one answer that is a link to the author's (answer, not Bob) own blog...

user55340

and another one that is a list of links.

Ampt

ugh. just crap. and 20 votes

19

A: Are There Any Examples of Uncle Bob's High-Falutin' Architecture?

There's the payroll example in my book: "Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices". It follows the architecture pretty closely, though some of the nomenclature is a bit different.

user55340

As I said, historical lock wouldn't be out of order.

Ampt

3:29 PM

should have found a link that would automatically add it to your amazon cart....

gnat

@Ampt believe it or not, but it's fairly within limits considered acceptable: meta.stackoverflow.com/tags/self-promotion/info Let's see. 1) Question was asked by someone else 2) asker appears legitimate user (not a sock puppet) 3) answer authoritatively addresses the question asked 4) affiliation is disclosed. The only thing that sucks here is that question is a blatant resource request

Ampt

@gnat I just feel that in the interest of question/answer, it just doesn't provide me with any more insight into the problem

or solution

gnat

@Ampt answer looks like tolerable quality. It could be better, and I understand if someone votes it down

enderland

> There are no longer enough enterprise IT people who understand enough about how applications are built to know that when a vendor offers them comfortable memory gel knee rests, a barrel and some brightly coloured silk scarves that they're about to sign a lock-in contract for a set of proprietary technology.

:( this is so true :(

actually my current project is a perfect example of what that article is lamenting, we're basically implementing a "stop gap" system (lol, yeah I'm sure it stays that way) while IT goes through their official process

user41796

@enderland I thought you would find the article interesting based upon some of your current career ponderings

enderland

3:37 PM

> Would a CIO with these kinds of resources realise that Sharepoint has never been an answer to any question ever asked by a business person?

user41796

@MichaelT - is this the answer that you flagged for undeletion after maple closed the Q?

enderland

the irony in that statement... it's going to kill me

user41796

@enderland Really good UX designers are difficult to find though

user41796

possibly more rare than really good programmers

enderland

@GlenH7 I think I'm underestimating my own abilities to do that (I just suck at the "make pretty" part). but an HCI background in "what are my users needs and how do I make their application meet those needs" is REALLY freaking helpful for me to say the least

user41796

3:39 PM

Agreed. I'm glad I snuck a human factors class into my undergrad. It's been beneficial

enderland

HCI is so useful, anyone doing process work should have one - most people are oblivious to "other people see a system differently and have different needs/perspectives"

man this gets me going. LOL. :)

user41796

@gnat - here's one for you to chuckle at. I know you're a fan of his edits. I laughed at the irony of his improving the edit you put in place since you're a pretty good editor as well.

user41796

@enderland You should work on some SCADA systems then. :-D

enderland

Nah I don't even mean implementation projects, but just even project management types of things - completely removing the technical side. HCI/human factors is a perspective I continually learn is so not common

user41796

@enderland It will all just magically work and look perfect

enderland

3:43 PM

but... "what" will magically work?

"all my hopes and dreams!"

"... ok"

user41796

"Here, see, I sketched out how I want it to look using this set of widgets that's completely incompatible with the tools you're actually using to build it. And never mind my myopic point of view on how the tool is used because I use it only once a year unlike the others who are in the application 10 hours a day."

enderland

my bosses boss wants us to use sharepoint as part of what I'm working on... I'm going to fight that as if it's terminal cancer (since it might be for my project)

gnat

@Ampt regarding buy-my-book "scent", probably worth noting that he doesn't need self-promotion for his books to sell well:

Robert Cecil Martin

Robert Cecil Martin, known colloquially as "Uncle Bob", is an American software consultant and author. Martin has been a software professional since 1970 and an international software consultant since 1990. In 2001, he initiated the meeting of the group that created agile software development from extreme programming techniques. He is also a leading member of the software craftsmanship movement. He founded Object Mentor Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in training their clients in C++, Java, OOP, patterns, UML, agile methodologies, and extreme programming. From 1996 to 1999 he...

user41796

@enderland get the latest version of sharepoint that you can. It's almost tolerable now.

enderland

@GlenH7 we're upgrading to 2013 in a few months I think, so that's nice

I just wish Sharepoint had a discussion forum which was comparable to free forums from 2000

user41796

3:47 PM

That's goodness. You'll probably lose the fight; but at least 2013 is tolerable.

user41796

The problem with sharepoint is it doesn't know what it wants to be

enderland

I just hate it. if it had a tolerable developer view (sharepoint designer isn't even close) then it'd be great. but managing anything on it is a HUGE pain

user55340

@GlenH7 Nope. Bob's. ( programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/149658/revisions )

enderland

my company has 100% bought into the attitude that article describes so negatively :\

user41796

It doesn't do anything well. And while it does a myriad of things, you generally only want 1 or 2 aspects. And their performance is hampered by all the other bloat

user41796

3:50 PM

@MichaelT thanks! and looks like it is already handled

user55340

gnat

@GlenH7 nothing surprising there, when one knows the context. :) My edit was done in the hurry, to repel hotness lemmings. If I could ponder at it for 5-10 minutes as I do in regular cases, I'd likely edit it like Peter did... but I didn't have these 5-10 minutes while it was attacking top of the list...

yesterday, by gnat

@JimmyHoffa go SO upvotes go!!! As for cooling down stuff like that, first thing to try is to edit the title to match the question asked with as much precision and detail as possible. Hot list lemmings prefer 3-5 words in the title, lengthy and detailed titles scare part of them off. And block part of lemming answerers, too

yesterday, by gnat

in The Water Cooler, Feb 19 at 8:56, by gnat

@jmort253 yeah. I think I first learned about titles importance in this question. Number of attempts at lemming answers dropped dramatically after changing the title from "Why did Git become so popular?" to "Why is the sudden increase in number of Git submitters on Debian popcon graph in 2010-01?"

user41796

@gnat I smiled at our site's top editor "getting schooled"

user41796

But I certainly understand the time constraints. Oftentimes, I'll just purge the obnoxious stuff and leave the rest of the post alone.

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat punctional ?? Are you doing alright? I had to fix this gem of yours just yesterday too, bit out of character for ya ;P

gnat

3:55 PM

@GlenH7 getting schooled by Peter is not a shame :) I even openly admitted once how much I respect him...

@ColeJohnson for an example of what I would do to that post take a look at changes made in revision 6. By the way, the user who did that revision is one of my favorite editors at Programmers; whenever I happen to go over their suggestions in edits review queue, it always strikes me as really well done — gnat Aug 27 '13 at 21:47

user41796

If Peter ever shows up as the editor for a review audit, I think the cognitive dissonance will cause my head to explode.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa shit! that one shouldn't slip through even in the hurry. Mea culpa, thanks for correcting

hot questions tend to consistently damage my editing abilities. In that git question, my edit was "Debian popcorn" instead of "Debian popcon" :)

enderland

@GlenH7 I think where there is a huge business case is people who can prototype workings systems for comapnies with IE departments like that one. PPT is one thing, being able to quickly (even if it takes literally a year to "finalize") something and test with users means IT can actually have a "make us this" or "this is what our users want" thing to reference

gnat

I was too much distracted by the show that was going on there in the question youtube.com/watch?v=0HNqJur7RXY

user55340

Jan 13 at 18:38, by MichaelT

See review edit adding links and generally fixing up the material... scroll down... Yep. Peter. Hit approve. I know I'll be in trouble with an audit if his name ever shows up as the fake name.

user55340

4:06 PM

Should put a MSO request that Peter never show up as an audit review.

3

user55340

Alternatively, collectively bounty him until his answer gives him 1.3k rep.

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Let's be honest, whatever it was, Debian popcorn is what it should have been named.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa quit it. you're making me hungry

enderland

@MichaelT that's not a bad idea, make it so anyone with a certain threshold of edits gets either lowered edit rep requirements network wide or even just remove them network wide

gnat

@JimmyHoffa definitely so

just kissed good-bye my last CV... switching to flag-only mode

okay, here's the case when I hit Improve over Peter's edit: programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/122021/revisions (although, following his own suggestion in edit summary "but a closer look may be needed...")

Ampt

4:20 PM

How I picture Peter right now

gnat

15

Q: Giving edit privilege based on number of trustworthy edits

I've made 50+ edits on SO, and I always have to wait for my edits to be peer-reviewed because my reputation (672) isn't high enough yet. Shouldn't we give edit privileges based on the number of "trustworthy edits" made, in addition to the reputation privilege? It'd be more efficient, since the "...

feature-request edits privileges

Ampt

> I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you roll back my edit now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

gnat

3

Q: bypassing the review queue for avid editors

I often see very good posts on SO which go unacknowledged because of bad grammar / lack of clarity. Unfortunately, if the errors aren't fixed quickly the posts tend to die. I would like to see some way for suggested edits to be processed more quickly. One solution would be to allow bypassing of ...

feature-request edits suggested-edits badge-request

user41796

It burns. cv-plz

user41796

-1

Q: How to send code snippets in Outlook

I sometimes include a code snippet in an Outlook email and it's a very distracting and frustrating experience, because Outlook has an assumption that everything in an email message is natural language (e.g. English). So it tries to flag "spelling errors", attach links and other such non-helpfuln...

email

Jimmy Hoffa

4:32 PM

TIL I how to spell Ransom correctly.

Ampt

> TIL I how to spell Ransom correctly. Liam Neeson is a B.A.

fixed that for you

Jimmy Hoffa

> Neeson was enrolled as a physics and computer science student at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, before leaving to work for the Guinness Brewery.

jozefg

@JimmyHoffa Did my rant above make much sense? I was somewhat asleep when I wrote it :$

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I can't think of a better use for those degrees.

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg Yeah, I had already gone over to #haskell and gotten schooled on it from Cale... My error in misunderstanding how to derive it was thinking about not using recursion which is 100% requisite with the functor implementation of a catamorphism, whereas a monadic based catamorphism can rely on return and join to not need recursion

then again maybe that requires a monoid...

Ampt

4:47 PM

@JimmyHoffa He was also Qui-Gon Jinn, one of the few good things to come out of the prequel trilogy

user55340

@GlenH7 I'm out of close and regular votes...

user41796

@MichaelT I still have quite a few of both.

user55340

@GlenH7 Doing the 20 reviews that are sitting in there each night that I see takes all but a few close votes... and I was doing a massive downvote on a community wiki to reduce its delete vote threshold that ate up most of the rest.

user41796

@MichaelT link for the CW post?

user55340

(just a sec... have my own burning)

user41796

4:53 PM

or just give me the title and I'll find it

user55340

0

Q: Online and offline point of sales application

I am going to develop a web based point of sales system. It is going to be based on linux and php. Users will access it via internet and using browser as the tool. Problem is if the web server is down? The user want to be still able to do their business locally and update the central database on...

c# php

user55340

It burns!

user41796

@MichaelT already VTC'd

user55340

20

Q: What syntax element do you love most in a programming language you use frequently?

The logical companion to the Which do you hate most question. What's your favorite syntax element in a programming language- what nicety to you like best? I'm sticking with the 'syntax' specification to avoid broader answers like "dynamic typing" or "is interpreted."

programming-languages syntax

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT flagged for deletion.

user55340

4:54 PM

@GlenH7 Its more than a "vtc' its a "oh my... you're writing a POS application in php that is web based and worried about how to take money when the server is down? You're doing it wrong"

user41796

@MichaelT oh! That one. Ugh. I don't think us mere mortals can take it down, but I'll try

user55340

@GlenH7 Only 3 more to go.

user55340

Its not that high in regular votes or views...

user41796

Downvotes please. They're community wiki, so they won't cost you any rep

user41796

20

Q: What syntax element do you love most in a programming language you use frequently?

The logical companion to the Which do you hate most question. What's your favorite syntax element in a programming language- what nicety to you like best? I'm sticking with the 'syntax' specification to avoid broader answers like "dynamic typing" or "is interpreted."

programming-languages syntax

user55340

4:55 PM

(5 total dv's to kill)

user55340

So yea, the mortals might be able to kill it.

user41796

With 43 answers on it, we can move the total required down pretty easily, afaik

user41796

bam. out of up | down votes

user41796

I'll wait a moment for others to hammer it with down votes too

enderland

@GlenH7 it's been a while since I've done that

user41796

4:57 PM

@enderland See above; there's your chance to use up all of today's.

user55340

Btw, there's a badge for it if anyone hasn't done it yet.

enderland

I have on workplace a few times

user55340

( suffrage badge )

user41796

@MichaelT Too bad you only get it once

user55340

@GlenH7 Yep.

gnat

5:04 PM

@MichaelT I just invoked a spirit of immortal, let's see the magic they can do

user55340

@gnat For a moment, I was wondering if that was a Magic the gathering card...

gnat

@MichaelT with esoteric text I wrote in my spell, it pretty much can be it :)

once you or Glen get elected, you'll get a chance to enjoy my flagging poetry

user55340

Tap one keg (pale) and target the spell at the offending question.

user55340

@gnat I'll decline all your flags unless they are haikus or limericks.

2

user55340

(ok.. now I've gotta find a post to flag...)

gnat

5:07 PM

@MichaelT I adapted to so many mods that haiku-ing the messages would be just yet another minor spell to learn

user55340

I'm poking at old SO rejected migrations to see if I can do a plausible poem in there.

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat flagging poetry? Is that "Bleh!" or

Nov 21 '13 at 20:08, by Jimmy Hoffa

gnat

@JimmyHoffa @MichaelT said haiku...

please delete this or
at least lock
this is crappy old mess

user55340

> An old question sits / it was rejected from stats / locked, but still here. // Please delete this post

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Alright, that is actually a spectacular haiku.

user41796

5:16 PM

Garbage. Burn it now.
Offensive malodorous.
Off-topic. Delete.

user55340

> There once was a question from Stack Overflow / But it was only so-so / and sent to sharepoint / but yet dissapoints / and was sent back here a long time ago. // Please delete this question.

3

gnat

@MichaelT (going away to search for questions that would match this, to have fun using it in real flag message)

Jimmy Hoffa

I hate this question / VLQ STFU / Please make this dead now.

user55340

@gnat stackoverflow.com/…

user55340

That particular flag was on

user55340

5:19 PM

-5

Q: Duplicates in XML

How do I merge two XML files by removing the duplicates in C#? I am using the DataSet by it is resulting with the duplicates. As I am using in SharePoint application page, I need a clean XML file. public static void Merge(string fileName, XmlDocument originalSource, XmlElement ele,string Targ...

c# xml

user41796

And people accuse us of not being friendly enough. But here we are trying to come up with creative haiku to explain why crap messages must go.

user55340

My favorite haiku is from Kingdom of Loathing: hippopotamus / anti-hippopotamus / annihilation

gnat

@GlenH7 add that we're doing it so that moderator using our flag could quote it to asker to ease their pain of deletion

user41796

"Look! See! Your question was so atrocious that they flagged it with poetry in order to get it nuked. See, we really do care."

gnat

Blog - Stack Exchange: Kicking off the Summer of Love

Joel Spolsky on July 20, 2012

It’s summer here at StackHQ. Have a flower!

You’re welcome. Now on to some serious work. Can we talk about cultural anthropology for a minute? I’d like to talk about what happens when a community (online or off) gets to be about… oh, three or four years old.

Every community starts out needing to recruit members, so they tend to be very friendly to newcomers.

After a few years, an insider group of old-timers forms. They get to know each other. They know the rules. They know the history and the legends of the community. And it’s only natural to get little bit irritated when newbies show up who don’t know the rules. …

user41796

5:22 PM

And we'll know it's a great piece if the mod does quote the poetry in a comment just prior to closing or deleting.

gnat

we should also include URL of that flower into flag messages

user55340

@GlenH7 But lacking 10k on SO, I won't see it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat whoa whoa whoa... we do not need to be bringing topics like this back.

gnat

so that moderator could put it into deleted question!

@JimmyHoffa what do you have against bringing beautiful flowers into deleted questions?

Jimmy Hoffa

Post anything else from that era and the resultant year+ long trainwreck in it's wake and I may have to put you on ignore

I had succesfully wiped that mess from my memory

enderland

5:24 PM

Jimmy Hoffa

and with luck, links to it had been lost in the archives such that new users won't start pulling that stuff back out

gnat

@JimmyHoffa lucky you, my memory still has scars. "Programmers, we need to talk!"

I regularly reuse reference to one of the answers there in some of my flag messages

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat oof I'm sure glad only mods see that

the people you're flagging would probably take the reference as an opening to broach a conversation that only leaves us trying to decide how many dead bodies we need to pull out of the closet

user41796

@JimmyHoffa You say that as if there's lots of them in there....

Jimmy Hoffa

> Example A: Death by VLQ, Example B: Death by NARQ, Example C: Goma - need we go on?

user41796

5:29 PM

@JimmyHoffa You forgot our resident teenage troll. And AFAIK, goma hasn't been around in quite a while.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I said they were dead bodies in the closet didn't I?

I'll leave it to Rachel to share D-Z by way of a link to the meta archives, but the result would probably just be the user posting a question on meta asking why there were so many murdered questions... won't somebody think of the questions??

user41796

@JimmyHoffa see, if you'd get to 10k then we'd have more shovels to help with digging the graves and burying them so no one can find them anymore.

user55340

@GlenH7 his posts still occasionally get honeypot newbie activity... there are some delete votes there to cast.

user55340

10k will help shovel too... 15k is protect.

user55340

(20k is fast delete and selective answer delete)

user55340

5:38 PM

It is difficult to make a cow out of hamburgers. — Kaz Dragon Feb 21 at 8:30

3

Jimmy Hoffa

writing a question on Security.SE I see they have a tag with one question man-in-the-browser

enderland

I'm a one-hit wonder on Security.SE

Jimmy Hoffa

that might be a serious issue... having a man in your browser? very difficult to solve security problem.

@enderland I'm a one-hit-migrated-wonder on TW...pfleh...can you migrate it back here?

enderland

pfffft I have 2.5x as much rep from my question on security as you do from your answer on workplace. clearly I'm more awesome

Jimmy Hoffa

0

Q: One-time use nonced login token on redirected URL - vulnerable to cross site attack?

I'm not a security expert but whiteboarding with some colleagues on a design approach this one detail set off alarm bells in my gut. I'm not certain this is a risk so I was hoping to get some term for the type of attack this is vulnerable to - if any. The situation is we're talking about creatin...

web-browser xss man-in-the-middle csrf url-redirection

@enderland I have a +9 on my one Sec.SE migrated answer too...

@enderland whoa whoa whoa... you're talking about rep from a question - my TW rep is from an answer - WAYY more awesome. Questions are only worth about a tenth of the awesome an answer is

enderland

5:53 PM

@JimmyHoffa it's way harder to get rep from questions though ;)

thorsten müller

What a day... Finally got management to admit that they had contracted idiots and have to terminate a project after six months of pain.

3

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland Who am I kidding, it's a TW answer - it's worth negative points anyway

@thorstenmüller Wow, that is one hell of an accomplishment.

Many of us have tried, most of us have failed...

enderland

@thorstenmüller aww you killed someone's cash cow? how horrible!

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland Interestingly it's easier to make a cow out of cash than hamburgers.

thorsten müller

No, those guys were losing money on it since at least two months too.

Just couldn't give up, hoping to earn money with future feature adds.

gnat

6:01 PM

So basically- this website is no different to Stackoverflow? And there was me thinking this was for the open-ended, non-code questions..... — user997112 4 mins ago

oy wey

61

Q: Are you still confused about what Programmers is for?

I'm going to try and keep this short, because a lot of it has already been discussed. If you are interested in the history, you can find it here on Programmers Meta, but here's a very brief recap: Programmers started out life as "Not Programming Related." It was supposed to be a haven for all...

discussion scope site-definition

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa well yeah, how are you gonna see the internet if someone's in your way all the time

> @user997112 you thought wrong :) Welcome to P.SE, where we're more than a toilet bowl for your bad questions.

it's friday and I'm half tempted to do it haha

Jimmy Hoffa

@thorstenmüller I've seen managers continually run projects that lost money for years... lots of money, but then that's usually at big places where money has no value

user41796

@Ampt If it makes you feel better... But the OP won't really understand the full meaning.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa but I take one ream of paper and all of a sudden I'm the bad guy. It's despicable I tell you! despicable !!

enderland

@Ampt better paper than my stapler you murderous heathen

gnat

6:07 PM

184

Q: Let's burn down the close queue!

So, this happened: Fuzzy the number of questions in the close review queue, a dopamine for the shutterers Now, only questions with at least 4 votes/flags are listed in the close review queue. If you're thinking, "that's crazy!" THEN YOU'RE RIGHT! This dramatically reduces the utility of the queu...

discussion stackoverflow review vote-to-close

SO guys having fun... at last

give me a badge first! (just kidding) — gnat 10 hours ago

Ampt

@enderland Is it a swingline?

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat ? I don't understand. I go to the review queue, and it says 9.8k close vote questions

gnat

53

A: Fuzzy the number of questions in the close review queue, a dopamine for the shutterers

This is now implemented (build rev 2014.2.27.1403 on sites) as lined out in Shog's answer. We now have a per-site configurable close vote threshold for questions to be enqueued in the close vote review queue. Review tasks with fewer close votes and no do not close review results will be gradually...

it's... fuzzied

Ampt

Does the threshold go all the way to 11? — Bart yesterday

CRANK IT UP!

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat what's fuzzied ??

> It's huge

FTFY

gnat

6:12 PM

@JimmyHoffa there are 120K but most of them are hidden; currently queue contains only posts having one close or leave open vote to complete review (that's not 100% precise, there is additionally some magic with flags, but the overall idea is about like this)

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat That's nonsense, shouldn't they make the queue only those having 4 close votes ?? That would clear the queue much more quickly than those with just 1 close vote...

gnat

so yes it's huge. what you see is not what you get

Jimmy Hoffa

besides the 4 close vote ones are more likely easier to tell are bad because they actually got 4 other reviewers

so people will be able to close vote more because it'll take less assessment time

gnat

@JimmyHoffa that's right 4 close, or 2 (3?) leave open: so that just one vote is sufficient to "to complete review"

Ampt

Just make everything over 99 show up as 99+

problem solved

gnat

6:15 PM

whenever you review in majority direction, question drops off the queue (a bit simplified, but 99% so)

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Oh I misread what you said.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa the number with 4+ votes are very, very small. that patch would last for about 30 seconds

gnat

@JimmyHoffa that's an effect of dopamine. Everything I write about it is fuzzy

Ampt

21

A: Fuzzy the number of questions in the close review queue, a dopamine for the shutterers

Note: Based on Shog's answer to this question, reviews actually are prioritized based on number of past reviews. I am leaving the below for posterity, and redoing the math based on the numbers he shared in the comments Here are the current amount of posts in the queue by number of existing v...

enderland

6:40 PM

@Ampt I'm... mildly troubled I guessed the poster of that answer after only reading the first portion

Ampt

6:55 PM

30

Q: How can I convince cowboy programmers to use source control?

UPDATE I work on a small team of devs, 4 guys. They have all used source control. Most of them can't stand source control and instead choose not to use it. I strongly believe source control is a necessary part of professional development. Several issues make it very difficult to convince them t...

version-control teamwork team-foundation-server cowboy-coding

ugh, is this really a thing?

gnat

@MichaelT @GlenH7 I guess you just have gotten a couple of votes back

the ones you recently spent on voting stuff down

user41796

@gnat on the CW question? No, the votes are gone for the day. And there wasn't any rep lost due to CW status.

user41796

but I'd like to have more votes today

user41796

:-)

user55340

@GlenH7 When a question is deleted the same day the votes are cast, you get the up/down votes are cast.

user41796

7:07 PM

@MichaelT oh really? heck yeah! Gonna go on another voting spree!

user55340

If you do the cliff votes on SO, you can get huge number of votes/day.

user55340

(I've done downvote 30 things, get them all deleted, downvote 30 more things that day... then the votes roll over, downvote another 30 things....)

user41796

"brilliant!"

enderland

@MichaelT sounds like a game, "what's the most downvotes you can get on Stack Overflow in one day?"

user55340

Or something like that. Its contingent upon the vote roll over running at a different time than the community delete.

psr

7:27 PM

@GlenH7 Do you know what it is? I bought a book just to answer that question and was no more enlightened after I finished it. I haven't actually worked with it at all.

user41796

@psr Do you have a MSDN subscription?

psr

No. Sometimes I can freeload on someone else's with extra licenses though.

user41796

Another thought is to look at Rackspace. I don't know if they offer free trials, but they originated in hosting sharepoint

psr

Can what it does only be explained by seeing it?

(just that much of a hodgepodge)

user41796

@psr Here you go: sharepoint.rackspace.com/free-sharepoint-2013

user41796

7:32 PM

yeah, sharepoint is really one where you have to kind of know what you want to do with it and then mess with it

user41796

you can use it as a blog

user41796

or as a wiki

user41796

or as a document management suite

user41796

or a community calendar

user55340

Its a CMS... and then consider all the things that 'content' can be and how it can be managed.

Ampt

7:32 PM

@enderland are there any threadsafe containers in QT?

it seems pretty limited for what it gives you out of the box

user55340

@Ampt QT or SP?

Ampt

@MichaelT QT

user55340

(Sharepoint seems limited out of the box... though I'd contend thats in part to keep the Microsoft Partner consultants a steady stream of contracts customizing it)

user41796

@MichaelT But wait! There's more!

user41796

> SharePoint can be used to provide intranet portals, document & file management, collaboration, social networks, extranets, websites, enterprise search, and business intelligence.[5] It also has system integration, process integration, and workflow automation capabilities.

user41796

7:35 PM

That's from Wikipedia

user41796

But that also illustrates what is so wrong about it as well. It tries to do too much and fails to do anything well.

user55340

@GlenH7 Its awful and horrendous piece of software... yet some MS shops are locked into that technology and have to use it...

user41796

@MichaelT One of our peer teams is

user41796

I feel bad for them

enderland

f you guys and your M$ hate. doing dev in M$ products is teh bestest!

user55340

7:40 PM

They are a reasonable choice if you are going to work at a company that is going to buy into one monoculture technology or another.

user41796

@enderland We like you. We really do. You need to seek some serious, professional help. And soon.

Ampt

@enderland how much are they paying you?

user55340

Buy Microsoft and then get office, exchange, outlook, sharepoint, etc... and yea... its an ok solution. You only have to deal with one company and one support contract.

enderland

I actually don't mind the work I'm doing right now, though it's annoying somewhat often to be sure

user41796

@MichaelT that's quite true, and there's good value to be had that way

enderland

7:42 PM

@Ampt I'm making far more than I need to survive, that's for sure

user41796

The problem is when you don't kill off your old content mgmt solutions.

user55340

To that end, Microsoft is a reasonable choice. I don't buy into the monoculture argument well... though on the flip side our IT department would love to buy into an Apple monoculture for hardware and development systems.

user55340

(everyone gets mac minis or laptops... unless they need specific programs that run on windows only)

user55340

Or, thats what IT wants.

Ampt

@enderland I meant M$, not the employer.

enderland

7:43 PM

I would kill to have a mac for work

@Ampt not enough :(

honestly though I don't care what system I work with as long as I'm learning, the pay is sufficient, I have a good team to work with and there is solid career/salary growth potential (ie not trapped). having a "fun" environment for what I do is easier than finding all that

Ampt

@enderland You got that right.

I don't care what they say about you when you aren't here, you know whats up.

enderland

7:59 PM

this might be the worst method name ever?

appendSQLParametersExceptProjectsID

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