The Whiteboard - 2013-02-18

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8:47 AM

we've got a spammer...

1

freelancing independent python entrepreneurship

6 hours later…

user55340

2:53 PM

I've got a file here, where the first line with code in it (not private static final string blah = "xyz" and the like) is on line 2772. Imports end on line 194. Gotta love 3rd party code.

user55340

3:14 PM

Some people, when presented with a problem, think "I know, I'll use XML."

<Problem:Worsening> <Problem:TimeDescription>Now</Problem:TimeDescription> <Problem:Posessive>they have</Problem:Posessive> <Problem:Quantity>many, many</Problem:Quantity> <Problem:WorseningDescription>more problems</Problem:WorseningDescription></ProblemWorsening>

— Mason Wheeler 45 mins ago

user55340

There needs to be a site with all the "I know, I'll use ____" forms.

user55340

3:29 PM

@JimG. I am curious if his leaving was because of the downvotes on meta and not understanding them. See revision #2 meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/5563/revisions

Programmers Stack Exchange Blog: Endangered Pythons

Ben on February 18, 2013

Well, not yet, but possibly.

There’s a dispute going on between the Python Software Foundation (PSF) and a UK company over the name Python. A loss for the PSF could mean that they are no longer able to use the name Python within the borders of the EU.

The chairman of the PSF, Van Lindberg, posted a “call to arms” last Thursday on the PSF blog about the trademark issues:

The company is POBox Hosting, formally Veber, an ISP based in the UK specialising in dedicated hosting. The Guardian newspaper quotes the managing director of Our Holdings (apparently another name associated with the company) as saying …

1 hour later…

4:45 PM

@MichaelT: Upon further review, it looks like @Nathan deleted his account. I think he meant well, and it's such a shame that he rage quit SE. Somehow, I think SE needs to find a way to reduce this type of behavior.

5:13 PM

Are state machines widely used to implement complicated behaviour, or is there an alternative?

user55340

5:50 PM

@JimG. Yep. I'd concur on that, though he only rangequit P.SE, not all of SE - his SO account is there and he's visited within the last day. It is unfortunate, I believe it stems from bad advice that he got on SO (telling him to post here).

user55340

I believe he was moderately frustrated when he got here (I recall a comment on his SO version of the question along the lines of "why don't you just tell me the answer here?"). Us closing it didn't make him any happier, and he didn't get the answer he wanted on meta.

user55340

@Ford State machines are widely used to implement a wide range of behaviors. The alternatives largely depend on what the desired behavior is.

user55340

6:36 PM

@JimG. I think part of it was also the downvotes on meta without understanding what a meta downvote means. Maybe meta needs a "new user" page like the rest of the sites are getting?

@MichaelT If not a "new user" page, we could at least show new users this:

user image

user41796

@MichaelT - you raise a good point with a "new user" page for meta. Quite a few folk have freaked out at the downvotes on a bad meta question.

@GlenH7 I'm having this exact discussion on MSO right now

user41796

As heated as some of his comments were getting, I wonder if he was simply trolling for a cooling-off period (aka suspension). :-)

@fredsbend Yes. And that's not a bad thing, once you get used to it. It's a little confusing at first, but it saves us a lot of time that would otherwise be spend in back and forth discussions. Also Meta reputation is pointless (just in case you were worrying about it). MSO is the only Meta that has reputation (historical reasons), per site Metas just show your main site reputation and Meta voting doesn't affect it. — Yannis 6 mins ago

user41796

6:48 PM

@YannisRizos - solid comment there for that thread. I wonder what rage-quitting MSO looks like... ;-)

7:15 PM

@Bart ok. Downvotes mean "no". fine. Still weird. — fredsbend 14 mins ago

No argument there. We are most definitely weird. — Bart 11 mins ago

user55340

7:54 PM

@YannisRizos range-quit! heh

@MichaelT I'm not so sure Nathan rage-quitting is a bad thing or even that it counts as rage quitting. He was incorrectly pointed to Programmers, and when he realized the site is not what he thought it was, he moved on. That's... good.

...also, he was being an ass from the start. @maple_shaft went as far as to apologize for the SOpedians that incorrectly pointed him here, but it didn't really seem to matter.

user55340

@YannisRizos I tend to agree. I personally believe that he was quite frustrated when he got here and what we did was just adding to it. There are some things that might be able to be addressed - improper migration suggestions (which are reposts) and the meta downvote misunderstanding to new people there.

8:21 PM

The Programmers 2013 community moderator election is underway

3

@YannisRizos We should nominate ourselves. If we win, we may get TWO diamonds.

user image

@ThomasOwens So... what happens if we lose?

@YannisRizos Hm...our diamond turns into a club?

(also, I already have 2 diamonds ;)

8:23 PM

Yannis Rizos, Giga-Mod... "... and this isn't even my final form!"

Since there are people in here, anyone know of a tool that can reorder an XML file?

@ThomasOwens An unpaid intern

at least thats what I use

@maple_shaft Dammit. We don't have those here.

user55340

@ThomasOwens Ever read "Hearts Clubs Diamonds Spades: Players who suit muds"? - not as well known or universal as A Group... but a good read about online games.

user55340

Saying that you change from a diamond to a club amuses me.

8:25 PM

I'd like all of my simple types at the top, complex types below them/

@maple_shaft ChrisF is the Giga-Mod, elected in three sites. I'm just a pro tem on Politics.

So does anybody have any predictions or wagers they want to throw out there?

wait

prolly not a good idea

it might influence the outcome

user55340

@maple_shaft I predict something might happen.

Provider 1 bids 300 quatloos on...that guy.

@MichaelT are you a prophet?

user20683

8:28 PM

should I run...decisions...decisions

user55340

@maple_shaft Only if I can get tax exempt status. Otherwise, I'm entirely profit.

So far, no one has nominated themselves.

Heh... maybe I should run

im the only mod left that hasn't been elected

im the Gerald Ford of Programmers

user20683

If you got elected, that'd make you either the Teddy Roosevelt or the Lyndon Johnson...

lol

user20683

8:30 PM

there was one other but we don't talk about him

Talk about who? ;-)

user20683

the other Johnson

user20683

guy was a total dick

Hm. I see what you did there.

user41796

Did anyone notice that the Town Hall for the election is obviously incorrect?

user20683

8:33 PM

@ThomasOwens :D

user20683

;)

user41796

"A Town Hall Chat with the candidates will take place Tuesday the 31st at 22:00 UTC / 5:00pm EST. For more information, click here."

February 31st

@GlenH7 You're imagining things

@GlenH7 December will be a 31st.

On a Tuesday.

user41796

8:34 PM

I realize the Facebook will be shut down on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of this month but I didn't realize SE was participating in that too.

user55340

Heh - look at the recent badges on the front page.

user55340

Caucus, Caucus, Caucus, Caucus....

All in favor of a caucus cactus?

user41796

@YannisRizos - slick, I see what you did there....

user20683

a raucus caucus?

8:47 PM

[feature-request] Show a "you already have a diamond, you dumb ass" error message when a moderator tries to nominate themselves.

2

user image

user55340

@YannisRizos I hope you ask for that exact wording.

user20683

@YannisRizos make it an achievement: Carbonized - Moderator attempted to be recursively elected.

oh good lord... the code that I find in the legacy system

// has the lock on the image file been released?
System.gc();
File file = new File(faceImagePath);
int count = 0;
while ( ! file.delete() ) {
count++;
if (count > 1000) {
break;
}
}
file = null;

not even in its own thread... this guy likes to live... dangerously

user55340

Try to delete the file 1000 times after garbage collecting?

@YannisRizos This moderator has been ~~closed~~ marked as a duplicate

8:53 PM

@MichaelT i don't have words

user55340

@maple_shaft You didn't see my lament earlier?

user55340

6 hours ago, by MichaelT

I've got a file here, where the first line with code in it (not private static final string blah = "xyz" and the like) is on line 2772. Imports end on line 194. Gotta love 3rd party code.

@MichaelT Burn it with fire?

user55340

I want to... oh do I want to... Consider though that this file has 11,121 lines. Assuming all of that is functional, how long would it take to rewrite?

If you know what it's doing would probably be quicker to totally rewrite

user20683

8:56 PM

@MichaelT O(2^MichaelT)

@WorldEngineer Thats a lot of operations

user20683

@maple_shaft aye but such is legacy code

user20683

also apparently they still teach Nuclear Engineers FORTRAN 77 and Fortran 90

user55340

@BenBrocka Yep. I would use jstp - jstp.sourceforge.net/manual.html - though, again, that is still 10k lines of code that needs to get converted into different functionality.

user20683

which makes a disturbing amount of sense if you know anything about nuclear reactors

8:58 PM

I don't even call that legacy code... thats what I like to call Incompetent code. Legacy implies that it is old while Incompetent is timeless

but most legacy code is also timeless

user20683

@maple_shaft GomaCode?

so...

yeah

user20683

actually I'd like to see a code sample from him. I bet he manages multiple circular inheritance in Java

shudder

user20683

GomaCode: make your screen come alive

user20683

9:00 PM

with Chthonic Rage

I heard that the only way to compile GomaCode is to write a compiler for it in GomaCode

user55340

v>>>>.
 12345
 ^?^
> ? ?^
 v?v
v6789>

user55340

You know Goma writes in Befunge.

user20683

@MichaelT Malebolge

When Git tries to merge GomaCode it gets caught in an endless loop because of GomaCodes microsecond code duplication rate

9:02 PM

@WorldEngineer None of his (visible) SO questions have code...

user20683

@YannisRizos so he codes in Whitespace then?

user55340

use Acme::Bleach;

@WorldEngineer Not quite... GomaCode is actually an algorithm of synchronized resource and tutorial request questions

user20683

@maple_shaft so Whitespace Prolog then?

user55340

@maple_shaft Could some mod download all the goma questions and use it to seed a Markov chain?

9:05 PM

@MichaelT Yes, we'll make the new guy/gal do it.

9

A: Elected moderators can nominate themselves

Eeeek, you've found our secret test. ): Really this is a simple litmus test for the existing moderators. If the election is adding moderators instead of replacing moderators and an existing moderator nominates themselves, then that's a reason to take away their diamond. Looks like you narrowly...

user55340

9:36 PM

This is currently in spec-stage so I don't have lots of details available, but suffice it to say: how we handle closures/question rehab is going to be revisited in the next year, and the methodology of communicating this to the end user is expected to receive a complete makeover. — Aarthi 9 mins ago

@MichaelT maple_shaft forwarded your question to SE, and I'm afraid that's as good as it gets at this point. The "marked as duplicate" thingy was just the tip of the iceberg, but I can't share any details right now, not even an ETA.

user55340

@YannisRizos I don't see anything other than duplicate diamonds about marked as a duplicate... though having SE be aware of it is significantly further than I had otherwise hoped (so 'afraid that's as good as it gets' isn't that bad).

user55340

I'm half hoping for things like "when seen, advise the person making the suggestion to repost a question at P.SE that it isn't on topic and aggressively delete comments that mistakenly suggest migration" - people seeing someone say "maybe you should post that at P.SE" on old questions makes them think that this is the right place.

@MichaelT Well, that's something that's already happening.

But SO is massive, we can't get them all.

I went on a mini rampage about a year ago and flagged a ton of "belongs on Programmers" comments (found them through Data Explorer). Didn't really help, but at least it felt good.

user55340

9:58 PM

@YannisRizos It needs to be done more frequently... and not only flagged, but also messaged to the person who did the suggestion "No, this is off topic on P.SE" - erasing them prevents the spread of the meme, but it doesn't work to eradicate it in those who are already infected with "belongs on P.SE"

2

A: Is C# a strongly typed or a weakly typed language?

From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2012/10/15/is-c-a-strongly-typed-or-a-weakly-typed-language.aspx Is C# a strongly typed or a weakly typed language? Yes. That is unhelpful. I don't doubt it. Interestingly, if you rephrased the question as an "and" question, th...

10:16 PM

@MichaelT Tried searching for comments with

text like '%Programmers Stack Exchange%' or text like '%Programmers StackExchange% or text like '%Programmers StackExchange%' or text like '%Programmers SE%' or text like '%Programmers.SE%'

but... timeout expired. As I said, SO is massive.

10:40 PM

Election chat room

user55340

10:56 PM

Favorite 3rd party code of the day...

user55340

else if (propertyName.equalsIgnoreCase("V_creditnote_RemainingBalance"))
{
	text = tagValueEvaluatorRes.getString(SVC_BALANCE_NOT_AVAILABLE);

	for (Iterator it = ((RetailTransaction) transaction).getTenders().iterator(); it.hasNext();)
	{
		Tender tender = (Tender) it.next();
		if ((tender instanceof CreditNoteTender) && (tender.getAmount() < 0))
		{
			// TODO: Do we have the account balance? text = ((CreditNoteTender)tender).

		}
	}
}

user55340

(just be glad I didn't like the one that had 25 conditions in the if block).

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