The Whiteboard

12:45 AM

I have to show up to work with no assignments at all for 3 days, maybe I should write a mud in Haskell.

Can't be that hard...

@WorldEngineer care to help out?

Do you want to earn my vote? @Dynamic is too young to be busy, if you don't help maybe he will then what kind of vote do you think I'd cast? Extorting candidates Ts fun, it feels like a real election this way :D

user20683

@JimmyHoffa got a project due tomorrow, might have time on Thursday/Friday

user20683

maybe over the weekend too

user20683

my haskell is kind of gasping and bug-eyed but I could give it a go

Jimmy Hoffa

1:23 AM

meh, I don't wager mine's much sharper.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa we could do it and then write a blog post called "Mudball Fhtagn"

Jimmy Hoffa

You had me until Fhtagn, Did you maybe mean Cthulhu?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa fhtagn is the word used to summon said beastie

user20683

or one of them anyway

user20683

oh, I have a better title: "Mudball Curry"

Jimmy Hoffa

1:34 AM

The entirety of my knowledge on lovecraft can be summed up by playing the game Quake 1, in fact a lot of things about me can be summed up that way..

I still think nail guns are awesome and a bit terrifying (but mostly awesome)

@WorldEngineer get a github account if you don't have one and request access github.com/JimmyHoffa/ballOfMUD

I made a world, yay.

maple_shaft

1:34 PM

On another note... I may get hate for this, but I just hate state machines

1

A: Algorithm for deciding change in gesture

One way of dealing with this problem is to have a finite state machine with at least three states: not detecting anything detection phase gesture dectected Then you need to carefully design conditions for each state modification (ie going from detection phase back to "not detecting anything" ...

I always get the impression that they are overengineered garbage that confuses developers more than helps them

IMO

Yannis Rizos

→ 7 messages moved to Programmers 2013 Moderator Elections

maple_shaft

→ 1 message moved to Programmers 2013 Moderator Elections

user20683

1:54 PM

@maple_shaft yeah, I took digital image processing last semester, not once were state machines mentioned.

Jimmy Hoffa

2:44 PM

@maple_shaft 100% agree, they always become an I maintainable mess, monads are the answer

*unmaintainable

Stupid phone. People are so in love with them though. Don't know why, results are always a year later something no one wants to touch

user41796

3:24 PM

@maple_shaft - I've found state machines useful when you explicitly need to define the scope of actions that can take place. To be more concrete, I've had a few cases where n*n interactions / pathways were possible, which was going to be a nightmare to code and the majority of it wasn't beneficial. Imposing a state machine drastically reduced the potentialities and therefore the amount of code required. But I agree that FSMs are a tool where you need to see the use for them before applying.

user55340

Working on the register there are definite states - "you are ringing up items - numbers entered are skus or upcs", "you pressed total, calculate the total (no actions while totaling).", "you are tendering the transaction, numbers entered are dollar amounts"... "transaction has no outstanding balance, close the transaction, start over"

user55340

The key is identifying "is this a FSM" before trying to use a FSM to solve the problem.

user55340

But some people get hooked on one solution / technology and use it for everything.

user41796

@MichaelT - I've got a hammer. Ooooh, look! nails.

user55340

>(problem) - isFsm? -> (use fsm) -> ((solution))
   |
  notFsm? -> (use fsm) -> ((pile of crap))

Jimmy Hoffa

3:34 PM

@MichaelT and how much of the FSMs that should be there are a thousand lines of nested switch case nested in nesting nests?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa They're doing it wrong.

Jimmy Hoffa

You suggest the event driven approach?

user55340

The only justification for such code is "(f)lex made it, I don't touch that code, I modify the .l file and generate it." - humans shouldn't be making such code.

user55340

Model it as closely to the idea of an FSM as possible. You have a state. There are attributes of the state (a method for how to handle numbers entered, a method that gets a list of possible actions while in that state), and a set of exit states depending on the parameter passed in.

Jimmy Hoffa

Oh you refer to FSM generation tools like WF?

user55340

3:41 PM

I'm not familiar witih WF. I do recall writing a FSM (in paticular a DFA) back in college for compiler class (we wrote a compiler by hand from start to finish, our own hand made lexer, parser, etc...). I also use them in the register.

user55340

In the register, it is a half dozen set of states (idle, normal, return, special sale, admin, total, tender) that have well defined "what can you do in this state" and "you can move to this state" transitions.

Jimmy Hoffa

3:53 PM

@MichaelT I have seen 4 approaches to FSMs, the nested nests of nesting or n^3, the event driven approach which is actually ok in the small case, the page lifecycle of an ASP.Net page is an example of this, and perfectly shows how it can also become pretty confusing, the generated approach where you give data about the machine to WF (or ANTLR or YACC neither of which have I seen) and they create a state machine for you

speaking for WF it's fine for some things like internal business workflows, but as soon as you embed it into your software it grows into the owner of everything

and the 4th approach is monadic composition, which is something like the event driven approach but more flexible and clear, though I haven't seen that one implemented to any great degree

maybe it will fall down too, but of all the approaches I've seen, monadic composition seems the clearest because it has the most autonomy to each of the states (that is, they rely on nothing and know nothing about any other states whatsoever)

in that way it achieves the greatest separation of concerns of any of them

Morons

@Rachel "Pierre and DeveloperArt are still working on their own Q&A site to be what Programmers once was" What?! Why wasn't I invited to that party?

user55340

One issue when saying "FSM" there are many diffrent types of FSM. A DFA (Deterministic Finite Automaton) is a nice easy one. However, PDA (Push Down Automaton) are more complicated - and those are the ones you really need to watch out for getting carried away with implementing. Technically, a Turing Machine is also a FSM, but few people go so far as to implement one in their code... unless they are writing an interpreter within the application.

Rachel

4:11 PM

@Morons DeveloperArt's doing most of it really. Me and Pierre are just offering our input and I think Pierre was helping get us into BizSpark by being our Microsoft sponsor. It was something that was put off until this year since life was getting in the way, so I've been staying quiet until we get a demo up and running, and get closer to an initial launch date.

@Morons Can send me an email if you want and I'll add you to the list of users I've been slowly collecting to notify when we launch :)

Jimmy Hoffa

Reading about PDA and I'm thinking monadic composition can do that, sounds descriptive of parser combinators

user55340

A Push Down Automata is the innards of the recognizer of a context-free language parser. See also Chomsky hierarchy.

Manishearth

@Rachel why don't you guys use Discourse (codinghorror.com/blog/2013/02/…, discourse.org) ? It's open source, an a rather new concept

Rachel

@Manishearth It looks more like a real-time chat forum than a Q&A site. We really like the Q&A format

Manishearth

ah

Yannis Rizos

4:21 PM

@Manishearth new concept? It's a cool implementation, but there's nothing new in there...

Manishearth

@YannisRizos "cool implementation", yeah, that's probably a more accurate way of putting it :)

Morons

@Rachel sent

gnat

looks like we've got a spammer (or someone blindly enthusiastic about their beloved resource), bombing site with useless links...

user2084992

1

Jimmy Hoffa

I think a lot of people are doing the same thing I'm doing regarding discourse, scratching our heads and wondering what the hell Jeff is doing

user55340

Look on the bright side, they are uncovering lots of old questions that should be closed.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:34 PM

@MichaelT in that "chomsky hierarchy" it shows recursively enumerable as the last one, does that refer to "Recursive descent parser" ?

or rather, correlate to

Manishearth

@JimmyHoffa same here :P

user55340

IIRC (and it would likely be best to wander over to the CS Theory chat room to verify), a recursively enumerable language is one that can handle an arbitray depth to it... "my brother's wife's sister's husband's ... house" I can put an arbitrary number of words in that ... and still have it be valid in the language.

Jimmy Hoffa

So it's recursive and context sensitive (my brothers wife's sister is different than my brother's sister or my wife's sister because different context) but yeah I think then I can safely say monadic composition can create those as I wrote a recursive descent parser fairly easily that's not a horrible mess using parser combinators

user55340

A recusive descent parser refers to a form of a PDA that parses a context free language in a particular way. Compare with LL and LR parsers.

user55340

Btw, ever look at Context Free Art? contextfreeart.org

Jimmy Hoffa

4:40 PM

huh, interesting

user55340

contextfreeart.org/gallery/view.php?id=1063

user55340

contextfreeart.org/gallery/view.php?id=185

user55340

Two simple rule sets, but complex images.

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa I'm guessing the Discourse API is going to be what separates it from the rest of similar/exactly the same things.

Jimmy Hoffa

looks like logo

calormen.com/logo

(not that you don't know what logo is, just sharing because who doesn't like playing with logo sometimes? :D)

user55340

4:43 PM

Logo is a neat language when you look into it. very powerful when you dig into it.

user55340

Logo... remeber, I've got grey hairs in my beard... I did logo on the Apple ][+.

Jimmy Hoffa

so did I, except in elementary school heh but yeah I actually looked back at logo again like a year ago and was surprised to learn it actually is a surprisingly powerful language

user55340

Logo is turing complete (has a lot of things in it that one associates with complex languages). CF Art is a context free language.

user55340

At times, I wish that Logo was still a language with some popularity today. Its a fun language for kids (grade school), but its also a good language for highschoolers (more advanced ideas of functions and parameters and such)... and even allows for advanced topics of closures and functional language concepts (which are becoming popular again today).

Jimmy Hoffa

... on another note related to forums, I think this fellow has confused P.SE for one:

0

Q: In browser, on-the-web operating system?

I had an idea for a while to write some kind of "web operating system" (the entire web is of course some kind of multiuser operating system with different services fulfilling the traditional needs of an apps in an os, Dropbox is like tar, Facebook is like chat/email, GMail is like well mail, and ...

javascript api operating-systems

user55340

5:00 PM

Re: the Chomsky hierarchy thing, I took an intro to linguistics class at the same time I took a CS theory class... the hierarchy came up early in the CS and late in the linguistics class... I got a funny look from the linguistics professor when I asked if there were any human languages that were context sensitive rather than recursive.

Jimmy Hoffa

lol

@YannisRizos how do you hyperlink text in comment?

user55340

It is an interesting question, but one that is a bit odd coming in at a 101 level class when there are graduate students trying to figure that one out. There is a language in the amazon that might not be.

Jimmy Hoffa

Yeah I could see it making a language curious

user55340

Things like numbers are not in it (its along the lines of 1, 2, 3, many). You can't do the brother's wife's sisters's .... house.

Jimmy Hoffa

Parser combinator

In functional programming, a parser combinator is a higher-order function which accepts several parsers as input and returns a new parser as its output. In this context, a parser is a function accepting strings as input and returning some structure as output, typically a parse tree or a set of indices representing locations in the string where parsing stopped successfully. Parser combinators enable a recursive descent parsing strategy which facilitates modular piecewise construction and testing. This parsing technique is called combinatory parsing. Parsers built using combinators are strai...

recognize that a parser is a state machine by definition, and then read that first sentence, it refers to taking multiple state machines and returning a single state machine that composes all of the smaller state machines

(then you take multiple state machines that have been composed in that way, and hand them to a function which composes them into another single state machine as well)

@MichaelT does that make sense regarding way of constructing a state machine that is not your typical n^3, or event-driven approach

Yannis Rizos

5:09 PM

@JimmyHoffa Markdown links [title](url) work in comments. Also:

142

Q: Add data.SE style "magic links" to comments

How many times have you typed this: [meta](http://meta.stackexchange.com) in a comment? Me, personally, I'm sick of it. Can we has some data.stackexchange.com-style "magic links" inn comments? (inn~iff) I'd suggest the following be added (and would request others be suggested): [meta] =>...

feature-request status-completed comments markdown hyperlinks

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos ..I didn't know about that markdown links thingy..

user55340

It does - that CS theory class, when we wrote a Turing machine state table, we had to hand check it. No emulator/simulator. So I wrote my own interpreter in flex/bison for turing machines (it could do simple c-ish style logic or a state table). I later wrote a compiler that took one several turing machines and logic joining them and made a single turing machine that could be interpreted.

user55340

I knew about some of them, useful when trying to squeeze characters in a comment.

Jimmy Hoffa

Aye, that is the approach I refer to as monadic composition, a monad is a structure with a value, and composing them is taking multiple of that structure to return a new of that type of structure with a value, in the case of parser combinators the structure is parser, the value is the function that actually parses, and composing that monad means taking multiple parsers and returning a new of that type of structure (parser) with a different value (a function that has logic joined the others)

the same technique can be used for general FSM creation

Jim G.

@JimmyHoffa Same here.

@JimmyHoffa In regards to Discourse.org, I just don't "get it". I mean, out of the box, StackOverflow was beautiful. Discourse.org looks very confused. I can't easily follow the conversation.

@JimmyHoffa I just have a hard time believing that Jeff is actually endorsing the current look and feel of that site.

@JimmyHoffa My opinion of Jeff Atwood is sky high, and I was just expecting a lot more.

@JimmyHoffa But then again, even Tom Brady throws interceptions and loses playoff games. :)

Jimmy Hoffa

5:26 PM

Everything I see from him tells me he is endorsing it, I just don't know why.. I mean, I just don't see how solving the problem presented by phpBB is in anyway really relevant to anyone..

Jim G.

@JimmyHoffa Well I think that he thinks that he can do a lot better (which is understandable). But in its present form, I don't see how it actually is better. In fact, I think it's worse!!!

Jimmy Hoffa

or moreover, I don't see how you can solve the phpBB problem in forum format, the problem with forums is exactly that they are forums

Jim G.

@JimmyHoffa Good point.

Jimmy Hoffa

the closest way to solving it is what SE did which is to not be a forum

Yannis Rizos

← 22 messages moved from Programmers 2013 Moderator Elections

Manishearth

5:29 PM

@YannisRizos you called?

Oh

auto-invite

grr

Yannis Rizos

@Manishearth Sorry, I moved the non election messages out of the election chat room. Janitorial OCD.

Manishearth

np :)

Jim G.

@YannisRizos Yep. You did the right thing.

@JimmyHoffa try.discourse.org/t/…

Jimmy Hoffa

I do like the UX feature that I can start writing a response and continue to browse the forum and post my response from any other page

but still.. that's just a trinket where the problem with forums is that they are forums

user55340

Btw, thinking back on Logo, have you seen blocky? code.google.com/p/blockly

Manishearth

5:42 PM

@MichaelT I'm rather angry with block programming at the moment

some of my friends have CS101, and their prof is putting too much emphasis on it

He's making them do Scratch (which is slow and limited), giving them multiple tests and even a project in Scratch

(The speed and limitations of Scratch kill any nice project ideas)

user55340

In a 101 class, I'm curious if this is to try to get away from existing preconceptions.

Manishearth

@MichaelT well, I had CS101 last sem (slept through most of the classes, they were taught really well but the speed was too slow for me and I already knew the stuff), and it was taught in an awesome manner

user55340

I remember my 302 class (first one where you wrote code - the 100 and 200 levels were for non-cs majors, things like "computers for business" or "programming for statisticians")... it was in pascal, I had written in pascal before and had a few bad habits and more advanced ideas than the class was progressing at. It caused some issues with me actually understanding what the instructor was trying to get at.

user55340

"Why do I need to pass a parameter when I can just use a variable up here?"... yea, bad habits.

Manishearth

@MichaelT Nah, our prof told us that there was no problem if we didn't attend. I attended just because I liked the way he taught. I slept when it got too slow

user55340

5:48 PM

Its part of the reason that MIT traditionally (not sure if they still do) teaches the intro class in lisp.

Manishearth

@MichaelT ah, the CS freshmen are having Scheme in their dept intro course (we have common courses in the first year, with slight variation and one department intro course)

IIRC Scheme is like Lisp

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT that is just cool heh

@YannisRizos how do I make something look like a quote in chat (where it's indented etc) ?

Yannis Rizos

> You mean like this?

Jimmy Hoffa

yes

Yannis Rizos

> You mean like this?

Jimmy Hoffa

5:55 PM

okey, thanks

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa chat.stackexchange.com/faq#formatting

user55340

The other day there was a question about starting out trying to teach OO language rather quickly. I think that instructors moving to blocky are going to the other extreme (good, bad - dunno yet). Blocky completely gets you away from that. It also has an integrated debugger - so you can see the code running. Something many other languages don't have.

user55340

4

Q: Should object oriented programming be the first thing students learn?

My high school is starting a program where, instead of following the 'traditional' method of teaching programming (learning variables, then operations, loops, methods, and finally OOP), students are immediately introduced to object oriented programming without any other programming knowledge. I...

c# education

user55340

College level, dunno... Higschool level... quite reasonable. One can do it on any machine with nearly any browser. You don't need to license an IDE. You can have the math teacher who took a couple CS classes teach it (rather than one of them trying to teach java and get that on people's home machines to be able to do homework...)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Digging into it a bit, it looks like they've switched to Python.

Manishearth

6:08 PM

@MichaelT block programming/LOGO/etc is good to introduce folks to programming, but you shouldn't stick to it for long (unless you're dealing with middle schoolers or something)

Jimmy Hoffa

Who switched to python?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa MIT.

Jimmy Hoffa

gahh

I guess it's up to cornell and stanford to generate the good engineers next :|

user55340

Top google - lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3312

Jimmy Hoffa

LtU is a pretty cool news aggregation site for functional programming stuff

one of those places tons of roads lead to yet people don't stumble across untill they fall down the FP rabbit hole

user55340

6:11 PM

@Manishearth Consider CS 202 at UW Madison cs.wisc.edu/academic-programs/courses/cs-course-descriptions

user55340

202 Introduction to Computation 3 cr.

An introduction to the principles that form the foundation of computer science. Suitable for students with a general background who wish to study the key principles of computer science rather than just computer programming.

user55340

Do you want to have them learn how to do OO and java when you're trying to get the to understand "if"

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos why do I keep getting these "spam/offensive" review messages in chat?

Manishearth

@JimmyHoffa you have 10k chat rep

Jimmy Hoffa

ah shit

Yannis Rizos

6:13 PM

12

Q: Why did I get a notification for spam/offensive flags in chat?

This is confusing because: It's the first time I got such a notification But there's nothing there On refresh the blue [1] stays there - On Chrome, where caching is chaotic, could it be stale cache? And finally, why would I see spam/offensive flags in chat at all? Notification went away af...

support chat flagging

Manishearth

@MichaelT OO is a different matter, I'm mainly talking about block programming vs text programming

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Welcome to moderating!

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos I won the election?? NOOOOO...

Manishearth

I don't mind if they teach C

or Scheme

user55340

Incidentally, reading the class overview, it uses Scratch. pages.cs.wisc.edu/~dusseau/Classes/CS202-F11

Manishearth

6:13 PM

or Java

@MichaelT for the entire course?

user55340

Looks that way. Its not a class for people who want to take CS classes later. Its for someone trying to satisfy a "Quantitative Reasoning" requirement in a degree program. Along the same lines as taking an pre-calc class in the math departhment.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT @Manishearth I think the only programming that should be taught at the HS level is C. Don't even have to bother with pointers, it's the thinking about logic, knowing switch-case/if-else/for/while/do, but I still love the idea of Lisp/scheme being the intro at college level, if you're going to college you should be getting taught how to design algorithms which is a totally different thing than how to create logical statements

user55340

In HS, a person taking a class wants to learn programming. An entire semester learning the syntax and nuances of C - quite good.

Jimmy Hoffa

C has the simplicity to teach those basic logical structures

and yeah, after you get over those logical bits getting into the memory management stuff etc just gives a good basis for understanding computers

user55340

In this class, you've got 14 weeks to teach a person how a computer works. To people who don't want to learn how to program.

Manishearth

6:16 PM

@JimmyHoffa i'm talking about college level :)

Jimmy Hoffa

@Manishearth ...what is scratch btw?

user55340

scratch.mit.edu

Jimmy Hoffa

ah

Manishearth

@JimmyHoffa it's a block programming language where you move various sprites around

Jimmy Hoffa

Gotcha

I'd say those are good for elementary but then thinking about it..

thinking back, my first programming language even before batch scripts was actually whatever ran hypercard/hyperstudio

user55340

6:19 PM

The concept of binary numbers in this 202 class isn't until homework problem 9 (of 10) in the semester.

Jimmy Hoffa

where you'd put down a button then double click on it and put in some actual script.. I don't even know what language that was

user55340

Hypercard was done with hypertalk.

user55340

HyperTalk

HyperTalk is a high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. The main target audience of HyperTalk was beginning programmers, hence HyperTalk programmers were usually called authors, and the process of writing programs was called "scripting". HyperTalk scripts are fairly similar to written English, and use a logic structure similar to the Pascal programming language. The case-insensitive language was interpreted at first, but became 'virtually compiled' with HyperCard...

Jimmy Hoffa

and that was like 3rd grade, making interactive games and animations by flipping through cards with timers to get the frame rate right heh

if a 3rd grader can write hypertalk, why bother with these visual sprite thingies...

user55340

If you can find a hypertalk programming environment today, by all means...

Jimmy Hoffa

6:23 PM

You think it would be hard to get hypercard up and going?

Aren't there emulators for those old macs?

user55340

So, for an intro to CS class for non CS majors, you want them to have a computer, run an emulator for an old computer on that, run hypercard in that...

Jimmy Hoffa

err nah, for those people they should write python

and I'm not suggesting anyone use hypercard, just saying that if a 3rd grader can write proper textual code, why should we be using these visual languages

user55340

Picture a person who is midly afraid of a computer. How many weeks are you going to spend working with them on python syntax errors.

user55340

The 3rd grader using hyercard wanted to learn how to do this. Was curious on how computers worked. The person taking 202 is kind of afraid of them, but realizes they need to understand something about them in today's world.

Jimmy Hoffa

fair point

Yannis Rizos

6:29 PM

If anyone's interested in some free (and worthless) MSO rep, post a good answer here.

user55340

They are the type that will get very confused when you do a printf("%f",2) and get back 0.000000.

user55340

And likely get flustered and drop the class when they spend an hour debugging syntax errors that they really don't know what to do with.

Jimmy Hoffa

Aye, I suppose visual languages make sense for them

But I still think that don't make sense for someone who is really trying to learn programming, at HS or college level

Hell, in real terms, I can't imagine how many hours of my life have been spent trying to figure out syntax error lol, no reason not to introduce that early to someone who want's to program

user55340

Yep. You want something that can't have a syntax error. And it also helps that the visual environment also works as a debugger (you can easily see it step through). Something not trivial in most other enviroments (sure, you can get a debugger in java with eclipse, but again... do you want to spend a week trying to get them to install eclipse and explain that red squiggly lines are not a condemnation of their feelings?)

user55340

But they don't want to program. They want to understand how a computer works.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:34 PM

@MichaelT everyone knows how they actually work, you plug them in so they don't lose power, and the electricity is used inside for magic. The really good ones have loud noise inside because of all the magic they're making.

Yannis Rizos

-1

Q: Why isn't Java being used for web multimedia applications?

Why is Java not ideally suited as a replacement for Flash/Silverlight in regards to multi-media streaming? I've been focusing on multimedia applications and I've noticed that most applications don't use Java. Instead, I see solutions with PHP/ROR/Python and Flash/Silverlight. One would think tha...

java web-development java-ee

Did the edit help? Is this ^^^ re-open worthy? (not my edits, those are purely cosmetic, check the revision history)

Jimmy Hoffa

Was that just posted? in light of recent events that is a pretty hilarious question

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa 3 hours ago.

user55340

The key to answering it would be in addressing "One would think that there would be a benefit to programming your back-end in the same language as your front-end (applet)."

user55340

There being two flaws there - one the benefit is doubtful, and two java on the client browser was so '90s.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:38 PM

@YannisRizos I could reopen but I would add one more clarifying edit because he mentions RoR/PHP/Python when in reality he is talking about front-end, so a clarification at the end to the tune of "Why is java not often used on the client side in browsers for multimedia?"

though it feels very pollish

I want to phrase it as "What are the cons to using java in the client side" but that is a clear poll, but kind of the guts of the question at the same time.

user55340

I would move it to the other question - not java specifically on the client (I'm sure there's a dup somewhere)... but "is there a benefit between using the same language on the server and front end?"

Jimmy Hoffa

maybe "Why do people use flash/silverlight instead of Java on the client side in web browsers for multimedia?"

@MichaelT but that is totally not even close to his question

he distinctly wants to know why java isn't used on the front-end

user55340

186

Q: Why isn't Java used for modern web application development?

As a professional Java programmer, I've been trying to understand - why the hate toward Java for modern web applications? I've noticed a trend that out of modern day web startups, a relatively small percentage of them appears to be using Java (compared to Java's overall popularity). When I've a...

java web-development

user55340

though thats more backend... and mistaken.

Jimmy Hoffa

yeah, he mentions multimedia so I really think he wants to know why youtube uses flash instead of java etc

user55340

6:43 PM

6

Q: Do Java applets have any place on the web today?

Many browsers now disable Java applets by default, requiring them to be enabled on a per-page basis. It seems like applets have not changed much in the past few years. In fact, it seems that client-side Java (applets, desktop applications, ...) is dying completely, and Java is primarily becoming ...

java html5

user55340

and tangentially...

user55340

4

Q: Are java applets worth learning?

I'm on the way of learning java myself.I find most of texts giving emphasis to java applets. I got confused about the importance. Is it something widely used? Do i need to spend more time on it?

learning java

user55340

So, I find that a less useful question to ask. He is under the impression that there is a benefit to having the front and the back using the same language. Asking that question, I believe, would be more useful.

Jimmy Hoffa

Yeah, iduno.. it's so polly.. isn't there something in the FAQ about asking language X vs language Y? Maybe this is just shark vs gorilla

@MichaelT yeah, perhaps you're right

@MichaelT whoa actually his original question is TOTALLY different than the edit

I think the edit made his question worse

user55340

His original question was all over the place.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:47 PM

his original question was unclear but I think he was specifically talking about multimedia back-end processing

I don't think he had any thoughts or meanings of front-end at all

user55340

The back end is a matter of appearance... and who is doing it. Which is another question that can be taken. Many "multi media back ends" in php/ror are done by consultants who specalize in that stack and build a site for a customer using that stack.

user55340

So its not so much "java isn't there" but rather "we sell a solution of this that lets us charge lots for writing something quickly." The quickly being key.

Jimmy Hoffa

I get it, but that's more of his actual question

(unless I'm missing something in comments...)

user55340

It could still use some clarification to make it one way or the other. Though if its an already asked question it may get dup'ed.

Jimmy Hoffa

My wife just started my computer at home for the first time since the button busted and I've been starting it by touching the wires together. My woman can jump-start a computer. I just had to share that.

Thomas Owens

7:03 PM

0

Q: Is tracking Android OS.Buid/Manufacturer info a privacy issue?

On the Android operating system details about the phone are available via the Android.OS.Build class. These details include things such as the phone manufacturer, model, version, etc. The customer may want us to collect this data and save it to our database for analytics and tracking. I think thi...

android ethics privacy tracking

Thoughts on that question, post-edits? I think there's a good question in there that can be answered (especially if there's an Android developer who has applications that use this functionality and do/don't disclose it).

Perhaps it needs more edits, as well.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:15 PM

@ThomasOwens that sounds wayy too needs-a-lawyer

I can see the on-the-fence nature of MIT vs BSD questions because we deal with those licenses

but privacy agreements are a whole 'nother ball of wax with no common standards

well, there are some forms of standards but they really need to be scrutinized by lawyers far more than modification/redistribution licenses which don't pertain to personal and private data in any way

gnat

@JimmyHoffa I think ethical edge given by rev 2 shifted it away from ianal stuff...

...not completely mind you (and I am still holding my close vote ready for it, for the case if my preliminary assessment fails:)

user20683

@ThomasOwens Looks pretty good to me now, voting to reopen

Jimmy Hoffa

7:31 PM

@gnat ethics are also something that absolutely can't be answered on SE

> Are we obligated to inform the user that we are collecting this information

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Ethics don't need a lawyer.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens no, but ethics are subjective

completely

user20683

@JimmyHoffa go try telling that to Philosophy.SE

user20683

I'll wait...

Jimmy Hoffa

haha

Yannis Rizos

7:33 PM

@JimmyHoffa ...and culture dependent.

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer I'm not touching that one.. your background you could probably speak at length regarding that

user20683

@JimmyHoffa don't I speak at length about everything?

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos in my own personal culture it is a compliment to paint your forehead green then headbutt someone (yellow is an insult)

user20683

on and on and on I prattle ;)

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Modernist Klingon Green Lantern?

Jimmy Hoffa

7:36 PM

I'm guessing klingon's headbutt eachother and the green lantern is a painter

user20683

green is courage and yellow is cowardice in the green lantern rainbow of values

user20683

BROYGBIVW - Death, Anger, Greed, Fear, Willpower, Hope, Compassion, Love, Life

gnat

@JimmyHoffa I haven't seen definitive / authoritative guidance on ethics, nor a pattern of ethic-related questions consistently going bad on P.SE, that's why I am inclined to give it a try. Regarding "obligated", that's a really good catch, it increases a risk of it turning it into askalawyer indeed

> What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases.' Our software 'escapes,' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:52 PM

the klingons made the cylond?

user55340

8:16 PM

0

Q: A simple algorithm for finding duplicate floats

We have N numbers(real numbers(float)).They can be positive or negative or anything we do not know except the fact that there is exactly one number which has a duplicate and the rest all are distinct. I would like to know the fastest one to find the duplicates.Can anyone help ? Thanks

c++ algorithms array

user55340

I'm confused.

Yannis Rizos

8:26 PM

I blame @JimmyHoffa.

user55340

@YannisRizos That's a fairly safe and reliable assumption.

user55340

Are we getting 'invaded' by intelligent but upper level (not necessarily exclusive attributes) who are asking non-constructive questions? or is this just my impression? It just feels like there are more of these questions recently.

Jimmy Hoffa

lol

@MichaelT why are you confused by the question?

It seems fairly simple though the guy really doesn't appear to have done any work on his own and it looks a little homeworkish

user55340

I can think something if N numbers are within 0 and N-1 and integers.And for matching let us say as you say within some range pairs are equal. — Sameer Sen 24 mins ago

Jimmy Hoffa

Can't you just do a bitwise comparison of floats to check equality? I would do a sort and then a single iteration comparing each element to the element after it so it's O(nlogn) + O(n), but that might be the naive approach

ah hashtable, see I'm an idiot

Dynamic

8:35 PM

@JimmyHoffa I have a project too... although i may be able to help later in the week.

Jimmy Hoffa

sounds like somebody doesn't want to win the election

Dynamic

@JimmyHoffa I'm not going to lie and say school doesn't come first :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

Not going to lie? You've clearly no idea how to campaign

2

step 1) tell everyone you will do exactly what they want step 2) get elected step 3) whatever you want, you won, screw step 1! Winner!

user55340

@Dynamic Find a professor to give you class credit for "independent study in online community moderation" Then you can have SE and school come first at the same time.

user55340

I'm open to suggestions for rephrasing the question. This is a question every SaaS provider struggles with and there are going to be many viable ideas and answers. I believe exploring the means of elegantly solving the problem has widespread and lasting value. — Larry Silverman 1 min ago

user55340

8:44 PM

Is there a diamond that could explain and help better than myself?

Yannis Rizos

No.

Dynamic

@JimmyHoffa Oh, so if I lie I'll win :P. In that case, great advice ;-)

@MichaelT There aren't any professors in a high school :P

user55340

Sometimes you can get college credit for above and beyond coursework in HS.

Dynamic

@MichaelT I'm actually in 8th grade. I'm in the high school part of the day for advanced courses. Not sure if that kind of thing is available to be yet.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I really think that question is an IANAL, your answer is not internationally accurate I would wager considering in parts of europe they place significance on personal data as data that is yours or about you regardless of whether it identifies you, one could say what type of phone you have is personal data because that is your information to share or not regardless of the fact that it can't be used to identify you

user55340

8:53 PM

@Dynamic Likely not, it would be way above and beyond then. (I went to HS with a guy who at freshman level in HS was taking college senior level math theory classes - he obviously had some college level work prior to HS).

Dynamic

@MichaelT Thanks for the idea though :-). Maybe in a couple years...

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I would be curious how they regard the user agent reported from a browser. IANAL either, but I don't see much difference between that and android.os.Build properties.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Dynamic I started unpaid apprenticeship at a local web design shop when I was in 7th grade, you'd be surprised what opportunities there are if you call around

@MichaelT there has been significant debate about whether or not it is legal to store user-agent as well as IP address etc, google-analytics was illegal in germany for a while (still is? there's a lot of active litigation about this stuff)

Dynamic

@JimmyHoffa Hm that'd be interesting. I've worked with a computer hardware engineer over the past summer, but nothing with software. Of the few software companies in my area (most of which I've asked

They are only giving internships to colleges students.

user55340

See, IP address.. thats identifiable. But if I keep a tally of "Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, IE" and version... and "Mac, Windows, Linux" as a separate tally...

Jimmy Hoffa

8:57 PM

@Dynamic I started out doing webpage design, gotta start small; I was basically given articles writers put in word docs or flyers etc and laying them out in HTML to be put on the website (was like a local news/press website, not even really focussed on software until later years)

@MichaelT I know what you're saying, but I'm just presenting the counter-argument because there are counter-arguments, and which one of us is right is something neither of us have the expertise to know

Dynamic

@JimmyHoffa Interesting... I'll look into something like that. Gotta wait until the summer though... my schedule is packed.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT let me put it this way, if the question that guy is asking came up at your work, you would go to legal, you would not answer it yourself, amiright?

user55340

If it was a business requirement or a marketing requirement, I would put it in. If it was not, I would leave it out. Mine is not the place to ask the legalities and I would have to assume that those who are giving the requirements have done due diligence.

Jimmy Hoffa

wow, your company must be better organized than some I've worked at heh

I've had to take a lot of shit through legal

dudes who write the reqs just say "yeah do this!" and I say "We can do that legally?" to which they say "Uhh iduno, not my problem, you go figure out how to make it legal or whatever, I've got uh stuff to do"

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I am avoiding laughing out loud. No its more of a "do it and let legal sort it out afterward." If the business wants to take the heat for something, they take the heat.

user55340

9:05 PM

We actually had that issue come up a few months ago (rather than asking for all information we asked for just the phone number and looked it up against the customer database, and asked "is this you?") - I fussed and said "um... bad." and business said "do it anyways." It went out. Within 4 hours business said "Oh Sh...! roll it back now!"

Jimmy Hoffa

You totally sound like an FHE when you say that

Yannis Rizos

@Dynamic Packed schedule? Hm... moderating Programmers isn't exactly a time sink, but it will require you to spend at least half an hour on the site daily (or every other day).

Jimmy Hoffa

hehe

yeah, I've done things on the "do it anyways" mantra, I just always get those warnings in writing so that people don't come chewing on my ass like it was my bloody idea

Dynamic

@YannisRizos I've got a good hour and a half during the week to dedicate to the site before and after school. Weekends I basically have most of the day usually.

Yannis Rizos

@Dynamic One hour per week?

Jimmy Hoffa

9:07 PM

I think he meant before and after school each week day

but who knows, my lexer could be broken

Dynamic

@YannisRizos Ya @JimmyHoffa was right. An hour and a half a day... if my time here was that small I would've never ran :-)

Yannis Rizos

@Dynamic Ah ok, I didn't parse that correctly then. An hour and a half per day is more than enough.

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer btw:

0

Q: Are ethics subjective?

I made a claim that ethics are completely subjective; that there is no one correct answer to a question in the form of: Is __ ethical or not? It was suggested that I try that claim here. So, are ethics subjective?

ethics

Dynamic

@YannisRizos Alright that's good... if I'm elected I'll try to use at least an hour of that to do something productive ;P

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