The Whiteboard

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8:29 AM

There's only so far books can go, beyond that it will be practical experience and pondering and maybe meditation.

brabertaser1992

9:11 AM

i need to buy one or more exlusive (vip) proxy, which IP is based on Poland, i google'd for many companies, but most of them offer ip only in US or Germany, but maybe you know polish servers?

or maybe give advice in which room to ask?

12 hours later…

user55340

9:02 PM

@ThomasOwens I've rewritten the java upgrade question - is it reopenable?

user55340

Q: Considerations on which Java version to run in Production

Some people run the bleeding edge of technologies - updating the day that something is updated. In production, this isn't as appropriate. Researching about if the current (Java 7) version is ready for production produces a significant amount of old material that might not be correct anymore (at...

Walter

@MichaelT Nice edit

I voted to reopen

user55340

It was the same question that I was asking back for 1.4 to 1.5 - when is it ready, what do I need to think about. Its was just a matter of taking the "is Java 1.7 ready now" part out and ask the question behind the question.

Walter

that question could almost be edited again to make it more generic, ie. "What considerations do I need to make to determine if it is appropriate to upgrade the production environment to a later version"

but i think that starts to get too theoretical

there could be too many factors with a generic question like that, applying to OS, or frameworks or whatever

user55340

9:20 PM

Limiting it to Java is appropriate - as you said, there are a vast many more factors when it comes to "production environment" that might move it close to one of the other close categories.

Thomas Owens

9:39 PM

@MichaelT Apparently, it's already reopened.

But if it wasn't, I would have reopened it.

user55340

The next bit is to write a good answer for it...

arin

Hi, I am getting downvotes for this answer:

Very bad idea; my rule-of-thumb is [clarity over brevity](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3250-clarity-over-brevity-in-variable-and-method-names).

With an acceptable limit of course.

Just think of what another programmer that comes into the code a little after would think (that might very well be you). Better keep [this](http://commadot.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/wtf.png) low.

For [this](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/183865/is-it-a-good-idea-to-provide-different-function-signatures-that-do-the-same-thin/183980#183980) quest…

Yannis Rizos

@MichaelT Purged the obsolete comments there, good job in getting the question re-opened.

@arin Ok, first of all that question has +57 answer saying it's a bad idea, why add another answer saying the same?

arin

@YannisRizos agreed, you are right. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the answer is bad..? Although from that perspective the answer is not useful.

Yannis Rizos

I'm not saying it's bad, and I can only guess why it was downvoted.

user55340

9:52 PM

@arin The mouseover text on an answer downvote says "This answer is not useful"

Thomas Owens

@arin Downvotes indicate that the answer is not useful. It's in the hover text. My problem with it is that there's no explanation. There's a link with no summary of the link - if it dies, how does anyone know what is intended by "clarity over brevity"? What is your definition of "acceptable limit"? If that link for "this" goes down, what is supposed to be indicated by it being there? Lots of unanswered questions in that answer, especially considering there's already a comprehensive answer.

Yannis Rizos

You are (more or less) repeating the top voted answer, without adding anything new to the discussion. That's... not good.

user41796

Could we get a quick close on this question, please? programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/184005/…

Yannis Rizos

...and what @ThomasOwens said. Links rot and disappear, it happens a lot more often than most of us realize.

arin

@ThomasOwens @YannisRizos, thanks, awesome responses as always. Will keep in mind.

user41796

9:55 PM

@ThomasOwens - thanks!

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 No problem.

Yannis Rizos

@ThomasOwens Oh, come on, I wanted to post an answer saying "Tequila!" before we closed it...

Thomas Owens

@YannisRizos Then I would have had to down vote that. The answer is Scotch.

user41796

@YannisRizos - it took a lot of self-restraint to not pile on to that question....

Yannis Rizos

Booze, apparently: xkcd.com/323 — FrustratedWithFormsDesigner 43 secs ago

2 hours later…

gnat

11:52 PM

A: Don't let questions stick to the top of the hot questions list forever

One problem with hot questions seems to be that there is no way for "hotness algorithm" to differentiate genuine popularity from fake one, that is from popularity introduced by the algorithm itself. This is most likely what causes some questions to stick to the top for too long: the algorithm si...