The Whiteboard

user41796

03:17

Someone and their one-trick pony has annoyed me...

user41796

@AndyzSmith - let it go. Honestly, just let your rant against the GPL go. OP specifically said BSD which is a very permissive license, even with the copyright attribution requirements. The question wasn't about GPL or the copyleft, and you made your point about being careful with the GPL. Beyond declaring "public domain" and the WTFPL, all licenses have some degree of restriction by their very nature. And there are potential legal issues with those two cases anyway. We get it, you don't like the GPL. Now please let the issue go. — GlenH7 3 mins ago

user55340

04:17

Canadian getters defined

user55340

88

A: Do people in non-English-speaking countries code in English?

I'm from Canada, but live in the States now. It took me a while to get used to writing boolean variables with an "Is" prefix, instead of the "Eh" suffix that Canadians use when programming. For example: MyObj.IsVisible MyObj.VisibleEh

gnat

06:27

@MichaelT not to mention that meta posts don't go to collider, it is simply designed for a different purpose than you likely want. It aims at short attention span, day or two there and post goes away (time decay element in the formula was designed to do just that). Your Open Letter looks worthy of more long-term, Reddit like type attention (as an example, I am getting upvotes every week since one of my posts has been reddited more than a year ago, go figure)...

...Last time I spoke to our local reddit expert :) though, my impression was that meta posts have low chances at reddit. Anyway, let's re-check this, why not... @Yannis what do you think would be chances of this post at Reddit?

64

Q: Open letter to students with homework problems

It is September once again (today is the 7316th day of September), and once again students are asking their homework problems on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE. We start seeing questions like: A car dealer has 10 salespersons. Each salesperson keeps track of the number of cars sold each m...

meanwhile, don't miss the funniest status-* EVAR

upvoted not because I agree with your reasoning (I agree but this doesn't matter here) but for making a fantastic case of a feature request having both status-completed and status-declined — gnat 8 hours ago

122

Q: Get rid of the question ban on Meta; suspend actively harmful users manually

This user appears to have been question banned because of two unpopular Meta suggestions. (He says so in Chat) Look at the two contributions that appear to have gotten him banned. Like those of many others, they may not be of perfect quality, but they are not actively harmful to the site, either...

feature-request status-completed status-declined meta post-ban

Jubbat

11:28

Hi, this page (programming-motherfucker.com) doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Are they saying that any methodology is pointless?. Can someone help me understand it?

Thomas Owens

11:45

@Jubbat It's a joke. Meant to be funny. That's it.

Jubbat

Ok, so just a fancy page to market some books. It was linked as part of an answer suggesting it as an actual methodology but probably I didn't get the joke there either. programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/211843/…

user41796

13:03

@Jubbat I added a tooltip to the link within that answer to indicate that it was a parody site and had strong language.

user55340

14:23

@Jubbat Its not so much 'to market some books' - its more 'a reaction to people claiming methodology XYZ is the next best thing and will improve your productivity." As a programmer, I don't care about agile, or billable hours, or stringing along clients and I despise filling out Microsoft Project. I want to program.

user55340

Many times those who are showing improved performance from a new methodology are instead seeing the Hawthrone effect.

user55340

Hawthorne effect

The Hawthorne effect (commonly referred to as the observer effect) is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior, which is being experimentally measured, in response to the fact that they know that they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation. History The term was coined in 1950 by Henry A. Landsberger when analysing older experiments from 1924–1932 at the Hawthorne Works (a Western Electric factory outside Chicago). Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to see if its workers would become more productive i...

user55340

The books (mostly links to free ones) are more a "you came here for some reason, lets give you something to help you anyways." The T-shirts are more important, and they're a form of the humor found in our profession (but I'd never get one - its red, it would bleed into my occasional non-black tshirt)

Jubbat

15:29

Thanks for the explanation. I didn't want to sound as harsh as the way I word the sentence you quoted suggests. I simply didn't get the parody tone. On that topic, I do agree there is a lot of cargo cult mentality going on, but that doesn't mean that methodologies are utterly pointless.

user55340

"Ha Ha Only Serious" is a core part to programmer humor - catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html

user55340

Compare agilemanifesto.org to the halfarsedagilemanifesto.org (note, programing-mf also makes fun of agile)

user55340

in programing-mf, note the 'Our Values' section and compare it to the agile manifesto.

user55340

I've heard it in all seriousness said by consultants that agile was designed by consultants to help clients come to terms with 'the eternal project" - so they could eternally bill them. (Waterfall, as flawed as it is has an end - you deliver and its done, agile has endless phases... well, from the consultant view).

Jimmy Hoffa

16:12

@MichaelT You can't blame them; the alternative is they are constantly threatened back and forth, and occasionally get tossed off a project only to be brought back a week later. Most projects in companies living off consultants are eternal projects because the company doesn't have the expertise to create or maintain it properly which is why they have consultants to begin with

If they can get the company to come to terms with the fact that it needs the consultants, all the better for the company which just shoots itself in the foot everytime it decides "Ok! We're done!", close the project and two weeks later the system crashes and they have to get consultants back

user55340

I don't blame them at all (I'm one of them now). Its that sometimes the companies that do have the experience go "hey, lets do this agile thing, it seems to work for the consultants we hire... they like it, and we're paying them 3x more than we pay you so they must know what they're doing"

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT haha yeah I love it when businesses base trust on how much they pay someone, which is so utterly opposite of the way they should understand that relationship it's absolutely ridiculous

user55340

The answer isn't agile, or waterfall or whatever... its letting the programmers actually work rather than go to meetings and fill out paper work for change controls.

Jimmy Hoffa

"You negotiated way more money than your worth from us, clearly you must be someone we can trust more than the people asking only for their value!"

user55340

When I was at netapp, I had ~8h of standing meetings a week.

user55340

16:18

At my previous employer, I had to fill out a time sheet with % of time spent in support, maintenance, project, development, and 'admin' (filling out time sheets) every day.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Yeah, been there. Working on FDA regulated software at ISO9001 company I would often go weeks without doing any work because I was waiting on a required review for signoffs which I couldn't get any sooner because everyone was in constant meetings (reviewing and signing off on things) so they couldn't be scheduled sooner than 2 weeks away

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT Any process that prevents people from carrying out their primary function is broken. In some places, though, there is a need for heavy documentation and paperwork that someone needs to do. The problem is making sure that the person doing that gets it.

I think that's a big problem in places - either spreading out the paperwork so everyone's doing their own pieces or making sure that one person is doing it and realizing that most (if not all) of their time will be spent in data and reports and documentation.

user55340

Thus, I completely sympathize with the inspiration between programing-mf. It may be a bit over the top, but thats not uncommon humor in our industry. Sometimes you need to go to extremes to get the point across.

user55340

You hired programmers - not time sheet filler outers and meeting sitters.

enderland

@MichaelT LOL

user55340

16:28

@enderland what do you think of this one heading your way?

user55340

0

Q: Student Team: How to deal with slackers

I'm a software engineering student and as the course name suggest, we make software in class (duh! :D) We usually end up grouped into teams of 5 in building projects... But in the end, it's like I split myself doing 5 people's work instead. Problem 1: Team mates don't know anything... at all Th...

teamwork team team-leader

user55340

Back to the website in question - a bit from the jargon file on a similarly titled entry...

enderland

I think we have that exact question

user55340

> Here we see a quite self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the most anatomically absurd mental image possible — the short forms implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken)

enderland

22

Q: How do I eliminate a coworker from a project?

For a university project I grouped up with two random students in my class (let's call them A and F). A, F and I are working on a project together that all three of us are REALLY passionate about. Me and A have been spending night and day slaving over making every detail perfect, because we are h...

professionalism efficiency

user55340

16:31

It was mentioned as a dup candidate.

enderland

I could copy my answer verbatim

user55340

Though, we can't do cross site dups.

Thomas Owens

@enderland That title amuses me.

Is that the one with comments about actually...eliminating...people?

enderland

Some workplaces are srs busness!

Thomas Owens

If workplaces were run where you could eliminate people who got in your way...

user55340

16:33

One consultant we had, his first status report suggested "identifying the root causes of the problem and elimiating them" - he was thinking more process... we read it as he was going to go to the former contractors and... well.. eliminate them.

user55340

@ThomasOwens They don't just eliminate them... they terminate them.

enderland

termination is when HR eliminates people

user55340

16:45

And... its in TW.

user55340

17:09

Annnndd... out of close votes.

user41796

@MichaelT I still have some. :-) But I very well may have spent some on the ones you're looking at. Just pushed another 3 or 4 CVs

user55340

Gah.

user55340

-1

Q: What to chose, html canvas of flash for web+android

i have a coulple of ideas of games, which i want to develop for web (mb chrome, facebook) and lately build them for android/ios. Should I choose flash of html canvas? Are those two fast enought on android/canvas? What's your oppinions, experience? Thanks

flash canvas

user55340

Reason to be a mod #1 - 27,412 close votes per day possible. Well... one day at least.

user41796

And that's one less CV for the day.... And I think I used all 10 delete votes for the day.

user41796

17:16

had a meeting with an internal client. They're asking for a new feature. They chose to describe the feature using a term we already use on the project, but gave it a completely different and contradictory meaning. Took me quite a while before I finally understood what they were trying to do.

enderland

oh man story of my life

terminology is such a frustrating thing sometimes

user55340

Previous employer had managers completely misunderstand what a 'unit test' was. They thought it was having the QA team test one area of the application (yea, we unit tested receipt printing, we printed out a bunch of them...)

user41796

@enderland I almost needed to leave the conf room once I figured out what they were really asking. The bitter irony comes from that particular user claiming to be a stickler on how two other terms should be used but end up being misused.

user41796

@MichaelT Oh, where to start with that one..... yikes

enderland

@GlenH7 I've been going back and forth with some internal people as well on some software work

user55340

17:20

Side bit - having this book come up in a search for books to try to educate them didn't help...

user55340

amazon.com/JUNIT-G-OCallaghan/dp/1846930235

enderland

my goal is to fix the entire process rather than just their side of it - it seems my boss REALLY doesn't want to consider that fixing the process (both my team's and other departments) can make part of hte work we're doing irrelevant...

user41796

@MichaelT Isn't that the Bourne series?!? :-)

user55340

(that reminds me, I've gota ask if QA made their 'unit test reporting' goal or not...)

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 That's closer to manchurian candidate sans the candidate part

user41796

17:24

fair 'nuff. There really aren't that many original story lines, so I shouldn't complain.

user41796

I was about to troll and make a play off the term patterns, but thought otherwise. Clearly, that earlier meeting was more distressing than I realized. I never pass on a chance to troll about patterns.

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT That's not an uncommon thing, especially outside of software.

That misunderstanding, I mean.

user55340

It was driving us up the wall... "we want to do unit testing in the code" - "but we already are doing unit testing, what are you asking time for - testing is part of QA"

Brant

Yeah, people here use the term "unit test" when talking about AS400 stuff written in RPG. ("I'm unit testing the new module today")

And I'm like, can't you just hit Ctrl+U Ctrl+L and go get a coffee?

I've been training myself to refer to what I write as Automated Unit Tests.

user55340

I remember early in the project, when we had some very poor consultants I asked "do they have any unit tests for their code?" and was answered "they test their code before we deliver it." and I asked "ok... so where are the junit files?" and was meet with blank looks "oh, that takes too much time to do.. we just ask them to unit test it themselves."

enderland

17:31

wat

I should write unit tests

Brant

People have also used the phrase "writing unit test scripts" to mean writing step-by-step instructions (click on Y, type X, press Enter, verify Z) in Excel for a human tester to manually "execute"

enderland

is it possible to really do unit testing without some sort of test drivein dev process?

user55340

@enderland Yep. We were concerned about making changes to an enormous and very sensitive system (what price events get attached in what order to produce the proper amount to bill for).

user41796

@enderland sure. I manually walk code all the time to validate the code is doing what I expected it to do.

user55340

Thats all we really wanted. Unit tests encourage a test driven approach, but you can still use them to verify nothing broke.

user41796

17:45

unit test is the developer verifying the code / module / function acts according to expectation or specification.

enderland

Ah, I guess I see what you mean

Brant

@MichaelT Theraputic refactoring FTW.

user41796

unit tests with lasting value are generally automated. However, you don't always have the time or framework to automate them

user41796

Theraputic Refactoring: Where you stop saying WTF!!! all the time and just get rid of the offending code.

user55340

@Brant We had a bug (that went to production) that slightly over charged and over discounted package sold products that were on sale. When I mean slightly, something that was $0.89 each was getting in the order of $6,000 each (thats a comma), and then discounted $5,998.11.

user55340

17:47

We had a receipt that said "you saved $32,000,000"

Brant

@GlenH7 Or the expertise. Our QA person (err, our QA "department") was fantastic at finding bugs, but didn't come from any kind of programming background.

user55340

The amount we billed was correct... but this had other problems that trickled through the system (and will pop up again each october for the next 4 years).

user41796

@MichaelT tell me you have a safe-to-post image of that!

enderland

@MichaelT I'd be terrified if I ever received an order that was screwd up like that (b/c I have a dev background) :P

user55340

The store software thought that the books went red by $32M and send an alert to the GM that it couldn't make payroll, send everyone home.

enderland

17:49

LOL

user55340

Next october, the sales goals is based on the average sold for the past few years. It thought it sold $32M in that department. It will throw the average off for awhile.

psr

@gnat The automatic bans in meta bother me so much I basically upvote everything from a user without high meta rep. I was hoping the policy would change, because I'd prefer to vote only on merit.

user41796

@MichaelT The other interesting question is if that glitch made it into the 10-k or whatever other quarterly filings they need to do

user55340

@GlenH7 Privately held company (REALLY big familly business).

user55340

And by REALLY big I mean "owned by wealthiest man in state" not "lots of people from his family running it" - he fired his closest relative.

user41796

17:55

@MichaelT that's pretty cold. Better than what happened to another retailer in the same sector

user55340

@GlenH7 There's a very strict "no gifts from subordinates or vendors" policy. He got wedding presents... and fired.

user41796

@MichaelT In a way, that's good for being strict about ethics. I would have considered allowing the gifts to be returned.

user55340

My previous team lead was rather alarmed by this (he wanted to retire, not get fired), he wouldn't eat any of the general food brought in to be shared... unless the manager brought it in (food from us - subordinate... food from manager, not a problem).

user55340

The manager took a different view "don't tell me who brought it in so I can snack on it."

user55340

(the team lead was an old army guy... followed policies to the letter)

user55340

17:59

(Whee - site bans on SO)

user41796

well, if a close relative got axed, I'd be on the side of paranoia as well

user55340

He tells me: Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions from this account. See the Help Center to learn more. — VirtualFall 9 mins ago

enderland

that strikes me as a place I'd not want to work at :\

user41796

@enderland family owned businesses can be something else. The locally owned lumber yard / home improvement chain in my neck of the woods went downhill in a major way when the company passed from the patriarch to the kids.

user41796

They had a pretty decent regional / multi-state presence and blew it due to mismanagement. The big orange borg putting a lot of pressure on them really didn't help things either

user55340

18:03

Thing is, there's no longer any heir apparent within the family.

user41796

may actually be better for the company that way

user55340

Possibly... from what I understand, the nephew was not a manager personality, much less an owner personality.

user55340

Not sure the company can go public with all the skeletons in the closet. Though getting bought out isn't an impossibility... it might (understatement) hurt the local economy.

Brant

FYI: iOS 7 is up

user41796

on the tech side, getting bought out seems to be a much more viable option than IPO. Going public isn't what it once was, especially with Sarbanes Oxley in effect

user55340

18:08

@Brant our IT is already downloading it onto test devices.

user55340

@GlenH7 I worked for Netapp - our CEO was very much anti SOX. Ment we had to follow it to the letter (any audit would have been ruthless)

user55340

forbes.com/2005/07/27/…

user41796

It's definitely a burden for medium and small biz, no doubt about that. And I'm not certain it's had as much of a positive effect as it could have.

psr

@MichaelT I hope it's fixed. Otherwise my wife will be a few hundred and say she saved us millions of dollars.

user55340

@enderland got any psudo cross site dup for this one?

user55340

18:11

0

Q: Is it appropriate for Interviewers to ask candidates for their Stack Exchange user name?

Would you consider it appropriate if you were asked for your Stack Exchange username in a SW job interview (or as a pre-interview screening question)? To me, it seems like a very reasonable request, and one that would be extremely informative -- I'm sure I could learn more about a candidate in 5 ...

interview

user55340

@psr We fixed it that day and had it out in production the next day.

enderland

@MichaelT I don't recall one

user55340

It was only with a certain combination of promotions and package/each issues (buy 1 get 1 free, limit 10 with package containing 16 type thing - need to 'explode' the package, and then recombine it if possible - and thats were the bug was.)

user55340

Lead to some very frustrated variable naming. Used one of our in jokes "Trucks!" - there was a 'truck' variable that stayed in the code for months and got many head scratchings.

enderland

before I left my last project I changed a relatively temp boolean for a return to "of_the_jedi"

so when the statement returned

it was

return of_the_jedi;

user55340

18:15

Ahh! its a MSO post

user55340

115

Q: I was recently asked for my Stack Overflow reputation score in a job interview. Is that appropriate?

I was recently asked for my Stack Overflow reputation score in the context of a job interview. I was first asked what blogs I read, and after mentioning Coding Horror and Stack Overflow, was asked for my user id and reputation score. Is that a fair question?

discussion recruitment interview-questions

user55340

244

A: I was recently asked for my Stack Overflow reputation score in a job interview. Is that appropriate?

Just tell them your alias on Stack Overflow is "Jon Skeet".

enderland

Or I turn out to be the interviewer :) — Jon Skeet Feb 2 '09 at 9:32

user41796

@MichaelT I want to push that one onto the collider so I can ride the rep-cap

enderland

do you guys have a naming convention you use to distinguish between varaibles passed as arguments or local ones?

user55340

18:22

@enderland sometimes I stick a 'p' in front of the params.

enderland

that's not a bad idea

I try to do "" or "m" for member variables

user41796

I've seen it work both ways; we don't really have a convention at my current shop.

enderland

err, add an underscore there

guess _ gets autoconverted

user55340

public void setFoo(Bar pFoo) { foo = pFoo; } vs public void setFoo(Bar foo) { this.foo = foo; }

user55340

The name collision without it bugs me.

Brant

18:24

I try to keep methods short enough that the number of variables in play doesn't cause confusion. Also, in Visual Studio, R#'s syntax highlighting helps.

user41796

Interview / SO account question needs more lemming answers to hit the collider

Brant

^ method params are bolded

user55340

@Brant an intellij user?

Brant

VS2012

But I <3 IntelliJ too, which does the same thing.

enderland

@GlenH7 I should build some rep here eh? :P

user41796

18:25

@enderland go for it. (gnat will kill me)

user55340

@enderland We could get someone to help with the delete votes... ;-)

user41796

The trick is to come up with a complementary answer that says the same thing but just a little differently

user55340

You guys don't migrate enough questions with existing high rep answers our ways to pick up the rep that way.

user41796

and then get others to up vote it because they want to jack with the collider score

enderland

hah, yeah

user55340

18:26

(I know a fair number who have P.SE rep that gets migrated to other sites...)

user41796

but that's collusion, and I would never agree to such a thing even if it was only to prove a point

user41796

All of my TW rep is from migration

user41796

It's wrong to add another answer to a question just to manipulate the collider score, right?

user41796

This is why Engineers shouldn't be handed systems to break. They will find a way.

enderland

0

A: Is it appropriate for Interviewers to ask candidates for their Stack Exchange user name?

Would you consider it appropriate if you were asked for your Stack Exchange username in a SW job interview (or as a pre-interview screening question)? Yes, I've discussed this during an interview. As a prescreening question you could confirm but not eliminate candidates. Some good candidate...

user41796

18:35

Props. :-) And now let's figure out the collider score.... ~11 at the moment. Since we have QScore of 3 times 3 Answers (rounded to 2 after dividing by 5) and a SumAnswers of 9.

jozefg

I want dual monitors..

user41796

And the question isn't even an hour old yet. I still don't really understand how the time decay function works on the collider score. As it's hour based, I don't know if it will kick in yet or not.

enderland

@jozefg I inherited 2x 24" 1900x1200 monitors when I moved to this position.... the intern before me had a LEGIT setup

jozefg

Damn you.. I'm on an 13'' ultrabook.. @enderland

user41796

@jozefg wow. You seriously need an additional monitor. Even an itty bitty 17" external monitor would help you out

jozefg

18:40

I know.. I think I'm going to try to get a used one from a lab at my uni

user41796

If the interview question takes off, it will be interesting to see if one of my other theories about SE plays out. I have a hunch that high rep users attract more up votes for the equivalent answer than low rep users do.

enderland

good thing I can test it :P

I think it's more about the first user on rep train questions

user41796

@enderland I have seen 2nd or 3rd in take a lead after a bit, so it's not always FGITW. But that's a good point in this case since it was high rep && FGITW

Brant

@GlenH7 Embed a picture. Doesn't matter how (ir)relevant it is. It's like catnip for upvotes.

enderland

@Brant Hahaha. I should do that and see :D

Brant

18:45

If upvotes were cats, anyway.

user41796

@Brant brilliant. I need a recommendation for that

user41796

@MichaelT - obligatory xkcd reference for that question? I need a good embeddable image....

enderland

@GlenH7 I already checked, wasn't able to think of one :P

I sniped a pic from here codinghorror.com/blog/2009/11/…

Brant

Someone needs to write a web service that just serves up a random XKCD strip with an innocuous url like www.example.com/xkcd.png.

"Relevant XKCD: link" and everyone is confused

user41796

can we embed xkcd directly in an answer? Will it automatically pull it in?

enderland

18:51

You should have multiple identities anyway. At least 2 of them should be of the opposite sex. — ott-- 3 mins ago

user41796

Yes! It's on the collider with a score of 23!

enderland

oh woops forgot to UV the other two answers :|

Jimmy Hoffa

I'll sell my SO account for $100 as long as you change the name after. — Mathew Foscarini 36 mins ago

wait wait wait... is this against any SO rules?

(I know he's kidding, I'm just curious now because I never thought of this)

user41796

Jimmy Hoffa

this could be very lucrative. (for someone who actually has rep)

imagine Skeet auctioning off his account...

user41796

18:55

I think he loves his rep too much to do that. Does he even offer up bounties?

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 he could offer up absolutely ridiculous bounties and you would never be able to tell

Brant

For him to do that, there would have to be questions for which he doesn't already have the answer.

user41796

bam! and it jumped to 28. :-) I should have kept track of the statistics as it was starting, but I didn't think it would actually hit the collider.

Jimmy Hoffa

but for him to offer up a bounty would require that he didn't have the answer

user41796

I'm enjoying watching that question blow up a little more than I probably should. OTOH, it's a good reminder that rep is just imaginary points anyway.

user41796

19:05

Now someone needs to tweet it and / or pump it out to Reddit.

enderland

all it needs is a few more upvotes on the Q and it'll get popular fast

user41796

I'm really curious to see what happens to the score when we cross the 1 hour mark. I'm trying to figure out what the time decay component of the collider formula really does.

Brant

reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1mnsjd/…

enderland

haha

nice

Brant

I don't know if it really belongs in /r/programming, but shrug

If it gets downvoted into oblivion I won't be offended.

user41796

19:09

@Brant that's awesome And does anything on Reddit really belong where it is?

user41796

The hour rollover doesn't appear to have had any effect. Underwhelming, but a good data point I guess.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Brant I could use some free rep, do me a favor and reddit one of the questions I answered. Who doesn't love extra free rep

Brant

Anyone with a pulse can post stuff on Reddit.

user55340

zombies not allowed

Brant

It's just relegated to /new until it gets a few upvotes.

Jimmy Hoffa

19:13

@Brant Lies. Reddit is magical hipster stuff, you have to wear suspenders to get anything visible on there I think ...or a halo

Look busy? I'm parsing messages off a live feed. and updating a live memory store

Look nothing

user41796

@Brant - regrettably, removed messages can't be pinned. :-(

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 mods can undelete messages however

user20683

I found a counterexample to the claim that all things must someday die, but I don't know how to show it to anyone.

user55340

@GlenH7 stackoverflow.com/users/22656/…

enderland

@GlenH7 we all saw it! :P

user41796

19:20

Well, at least it's one. And Draw Attention is as good of a reason as any

user41796

Lucky guy being the only person to receive a bounty from Skeet

enderland

I like offering bounties on questions I want to see better answers to

though I guess The Workplace facilitates that a bit beter than SO

user41796

@enderland keep in mind that mods & room owners can see removed posts. I'm pretty sure @Brant knew that other wise I would have point it out.

user41796

@enderland The churn on SO makes it really hard to get anything to stand out.

enderland

@GlenH7 right, a lot more "answer for me now"

user55340

19:21

o_O

user55340

16

Q: Can I use Vampiric Touch on myself?

The Spell Vampiric Touch states: Your touch deals 1d6 points of damage per two caster levels (maximum 10d6). You gain temporary hit points equal to the damage you deal. You can't gain more than the subject's current hit points + the subject's Constitution score So could you cast the s...

pathfinder rules-as-written

enderland

it's always amusing when I find SO questions I've upvioted before

user55340

I wouldn't, you'll go night blind. — Kyle Hale 1 hour ago

user20683

@MichaelT when he thinks about Bella he touches himself

user20683

the he being Edward

user20683

19:22

:P

user55340

The things you find in the collider...

user41796

@MichaelT no doubt. But our interview question needs a few more answers to really push it to the top. At this point, 2 or 3 more answers would have an awesome effect. The QScore is at 8 or so. Specifically, each answer at this point will add 1.6 collider points to the score.

user41796

and I think it takes about 6 answers before people stop scrolling all the way to the bottom of the question, so there's free rep to be had... "Just saying" :-)

user41796

@Ampt - get some free rep so we can get you working in the close review queue. :-)

Ampt

thou shant tempt me harpie!

although I do have a lot more down time between classes now...

user41796

19:26

but it's free as in beer, not that horrifically loaded "Free as in Freedom" stuff.

Ampt

Actually that's a really good analogy. You have a few and go "Man this is really good" but after enough of them you start to have some real consequences like close reviews.

user41796

Here, I'll start it for you: "Oh yeah, I've been asked for my ID a few times in interviews. I think it's awesome 'cause it shows the company actually gets it."

user41796

Up to you on whether or not you mention Ruby in there....

Ampt

wait where am I supposed to be answering this question? I see now question

user41796

@Ampt All things in moderation. And beer can be tasty.

user41796

19:28

8

Q: Is it appropriate for Interviewers to ask candidates for their Stack Exchange user name?

Would you consider it appropriate if you were asked for your Stack Exchange username in a SW job interview (or as a pre-interview screening question)? To me, it seems like a very reasonable request, and one that would be extremely informative -- I'm sure I could learn more about a candidate in 5 ...

interview

user41796

It's like watching a train wreck. You can't look away. But in this case, it's just the collider gone awry

Ampt

I will say that if a company asked I'd have to think about it

while my questions and answers have been professional.... you guys and this silly room on the other hand...

enderland

37 on the "hotness" score so far

user41796

No movement on reddit though. May not be close enough to the magic formula for there.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Put git in the title and sprinkles throughout the question, and it'll go nuts

user41796

19:33

@JimmyHoffa I will admit considering registering with Reddit just so I could place a comment to that effect.

Jimmy Hoffa

mention cupcakes and bacon too and reddit might just knock SE down

user41796

let's not get carried away then....

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Sorry, I'm out of my depth here, I haven't worn suspenders since my first grade pictures

Ampt

Any thoughts on that @GlenH7?

enderland

2

A: Is it appropriate for Interviewers to ask candidates for their Stack Exchange user name?

I think it's acceptable for an interviewer to ask, but if a candidate refuses then it shouldn't be a deal-breaker. Some people work with specialized, proprietary tools that don't have any questions on StackOverflow (I just checked). Some people don't have time to spend answering other people's g...

new answer

my answer is too long for here I think :(

user41796

19:35

@enderland And up voted multiple times already

user41796

answer length is certainly part of the game, no doubt.

enderland

yeah I think each site has optimal length

Ampt

Anyone have a link to Joel Spolskys blog where he talks about someone with a high rep being an insta-hire for fog creek?

enderland

though. I didn't realy spend much time writing it eitehr so maybe it just sucks :|

user41796

but now that Frustrated's answer has picked up votes, it won't sit at the top of the list. People will have to see yours to get to his

user41796

19:36

@Ampt pretty sure that was in an old podcast

user55340

238

Q: Will high reputation in Stack Overflow help to get a good job?

In a post, Joel Spolsky mentioned that 5 digit Stack Overflow reputation can help you to earn a job paying $100k+. How much of that is real? Would anyone like to share their success in getting a high paid job by virtue of their reputations on Stack Exchange sites? I read somewhere that, a perso...

career-development

enderland

the real answer: spend a few months earning a five digit Stack Overflow reputation, and you'll be getting job offers in the $100K+ range without an interview. — Joel Spolsky Nov 21 '10 at 15:24

user55340

120

A: Career advice: stay with PHP or start a new career in something else ( .Net?)

What on earth does the choice of programming language have anything to do with your career? This question is like asking, "I have two choices for a place to work. Should I work at the one where the boss has a norwegian accent, or the one where the boss has a spanish accent?" There are much more...

enderland

(except in non-popular tags)

user55340

My google fu is to be feared, when I'm not in a meeting.

user41796

19:37

I bow before your fu.

user55340

The specific entry though is in a comment..

user55340

the real answer: spend a few months earning a five digit Stack Overflow reputation, and you'll be getting job offers in the $100K+ range without an interview. — Joel Spolsky Nov 21 '10 at 15:24

enderland

(already posted) :P

Jimmy Hoffa

HAHA! HAH! I WIN!!!! I flagged one of Joel's answers (regarding the product he was involved in the original architecture of) and it was finally accepted and the answer was deleted! That means I'm better than Joel! Yep, that's exactly what that means ... Woo!

user55340

(and yep... I can read things that aren't in blue... sometimes)

Ampt

19:40

alright I posted an answer I hope to expand upon

but it's a placeholder for now

user55340

#5 in the collider, its above the fold now.

Jimmy Hoffa

An accepted flag against Spolsky or Atwood anywhere on SO should deserve a funny munny check worth $2.57 (to overflow of course)

user41796

Or an automatic 7 day suspension.

Ampt

we're close to beating out vampiric touch...

enderland

it's amusing to me how easy it is to basically force questions into the hot questions list

Jimmy Hoffa

19:44

@enderland Then spend some rep on a bounty on

42

Q: In hotness formula, discard answers when voting evidence indicates that these are not good data points

In current version of “hot” questions formula (Qanswers * Qscore) *, all answers are assumed to equally contribute to question "hotness score", including even those downvoted into oblivion. I suggest discarding answers when there is a strong evidence that these do not provide good data points fo...

feature-request voting stackexchange-button hot-questions answer-quality

(tomorrow)

enderland

heh

Ampt

and I'm over 1500 rep.... halfway to quiting p.SE forever

enderland

:o

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland At 3k WorldEngineer's going to ban him; he can't be trusted with close vote privileges

Ampt

Wow we jumped to #3!

user55340

19:47

Can likely get to #2. Doubt this one will beat #1 anytime soon (3x the score)

user20683

It is now under my protection

Ampt

oh @WorldEngineer, you're so dreamy

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt You're clearly a hipster, you should post my answers on Reddit for me

user55340

{insert Darth Vader sound coming from @WorldEngineer here}

user20683

@Ampt You have invoked girlfriend level privileges. I'm gonna have to ban you now.

2

user41796

19:48

@WorldEngineer howl!!! you did that on purpose to slow down the collider score!

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa I'm a hipster? Man they must just be letting anyone into the hipster club these days...

Let me grab my PBR and skateboard and just jet over to reddit to put up some stuff that's cool but you've probably never heard of.

user41796

@MichaelT BTW, it hit #2

Ampt

@GlenH7 are you saying that @WorldEngineer protected the question to foil our attempts to abuse the current algorithm?

user41796

The top Q has a score of 200. That will be hard to beat without a lot more answers

user20683

@Ampt no, I protected because it's a good question that doesn't need to accumulate shit answers

3

user55340

19:51

@WorldEngineer As long as you don't try to blame caching...

user55340

@Robert I tried to blame caching for why the trash did not appear to be out on the curb yet. My wife didn't buy it, and she knows what caching is. — Andrew Barber 16 hours ago

user41796

And I'll own up to pinning that one.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt You're being ironic right now, and apparently don't know you're a hipster, two tell tale signs..

Ampt

Jeez, I'm not a hipster, hipsters are just wanna bes

user20683

the Problem with PBR isn't that it's lousy, it's that it's too well known

user41796

19:52

@WorldEngineer I'm still bitter about slowing down its acceleration and ultimate velocity.

user20683

@GlenH7 acceleration

user55340

@GlenH7 Its #2... at 72. #1 is at 200.

user20683

wait, why am I arguing physics with a real engineer?

user20683

This is a stupid idea.

user41796

@WorldEngineer cause you have a diamond and I don't

user20683

19:54

@GlenH7 careful, I might just have to have you given one.

user55340

Just switch to accretion of answers rather than acceleration.

user55340

@GlenH7 There is a way to solve that...

user41796

@WorldEngineer I'm a bit squirrely today so I might call the bluff. :-P

user20683

@GlenH7 Who said I was bluffing?

user41796

19:56

props. Had just gone there to put a close vote on it.

user55340

I wanted to give him a "education is about all the steps in the way - not the end result" - but he self deleted.

user20683

@GlenH7 I was told to feed you to Goma and Leslar. Looks like you're safe for the moment.

user55340

@WorldEngineer btw, you saw the latest incarnation of Andy?

user20683

@MichaelT I wanted to tell him that he's 16 and thus has no patience. Think of this class as learning patience rather than CS.

user41796

@WorldEngineer I think I'm more of a Goma than a Leslar. Leslar just gets argumentative. Goma lays out some really elegant traps.

user20683

19:59

@MichaelT Here? I've not seem him here.

user55340

The other thing is, I'm fairly sure pascal data types are not machine dependent.

enderland

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/211906/…

was I the only DV on that one?

I hate feeling like I chase people away

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