The Whiteboard

12:04 AM

@JimmyHoffa Mostly, it's "If you knew how to ask the question with sufficient detail, you'd probably already know the answer."

Or, "Stop acting like a cargo-cult programmer and try thinking for yourself, just this once."

user55340

2:10 AM

@Shog9 that beer in LaCrosse? For coordination, you have permission to look at my email address on P.SE for personal information (given access, its easier than putting it in chat and deleting it... so many blues and italics hang out around here), which for the next day or two also contains my phone number as part of the information.

user55340

In other news, sent email to Qi of the Codeless Code asking if he could create an image for us for community promotion ads...

user55340

> Certainly, I'd be very happy to. Shall I email the PNG file directly to you?

Regards,

Qi

user55340

Given that he does all the art for the Codeless Code himself, I really look forward to seeing some more from him.

user15026

@MichaelT That's rather neat

user55340

@AshleyNunn Yep. From my correspondences with him in the past, he's a very nice guy.

user55340

2:18 AM

(though the way I write an email would be that of sending a letter to a scribe for a monastery... which is how he presents himself)

user15026

Neat :)

user55340

Vortex ring gun

The vortex ring gun is an experimental non-lethal weapon for crowd control that uses high-energy vortex rings of gas to knock down people or spray them with marking ink or other chemicals. The concept was explored by the US Army starting in 1998, and by some commercial firms. Knockdown of distant individuals currently seems unlikely even if the rings are launched at theoretical maximum speed, the speed of sound. As for the delivery of chemicals, leakage during flight is still a problem. Weapons based on similar principles but different designs and purposes have been described before, typically...

user55340

2:37 AM

Back in the golden days of scripting, TCL was one of the contenders... especially with the combination of TK. The computer science department that I studied in had its entire backend in TCL... and one of the guys who worked there who was friends with my brother went to work for a company that was developing/extending it in the dot com boom days.

user55340

However, that was the 90s... and it appears that it has quite a bit fallen by the wayside now. It didn't have quite the staying power that perl is showing in its realm (that department is now a perl shop rather than tcl shop), and python and ruby are a bit more dominant in many other areas that it was present in.

user55340

(I also thing that its fundamentally... well... its got some interesting features... "All operations are commands, including language structures. They are written in prefix notation." and "All data types can be manipulated as strings, including source code." -- made it hard to reason about and everything was, at its core, stringly typed)

user55340

3:49 AM

translate: Ceci est un test

user55340

Ahh... mod tool, my name isn't in blue.

user55340

8

Q: Indicate the language translated from translate tool

The "translate:" tool available to moderators in chat rooms is able to translate to/from many languages, and is also able to auto-detect foreign-language text and translate to English. This is great, but a small additional feature would be to indicate what language was used for the translation. ...

user55340

4:00 AM

Ho ve, ne povas havi ĉioj. ... or maybe... Jen kial ni ne povas havi bonajn aferojn.

user15026

4:14 AM

@MichaelT I like the second, it translates nicer :P

user55340

@AshleyNunn the real question is what happens when you try to play with the mod translate tool in chat with those.

user55340

You might also try tossing some klingon in there to see if it will translate that: nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'

user15026

@MichaelT Oh, now I am curious!

user15026

Once I deal with football, I will have to try things

user55340

-1

Q: How do I get out of the answer block?

I made some troll-like answers and they were downvoted. One of them had $8$ upvotes and $10$ downvotes, but it got removed by a moderator so I no longer have the net positive reputation from it. I am sorry for my past mistakes, but it seems like there is no way for me to get back in to "good stan...

discussion support post-ban

user41796

1:25 PM

Okay, let's put this silly question out of its misery already. Two more VTDs, please.

user41796

@MichaelT - Raise a glass for all of us, please

enderland

1:38 PM

@MichaelT "I was a troll and got banned, how do I fix this"

user41796

@enderland "But I'm very sorry."

user41796

"No, really. I didn't realize there could be consequences for my actions. I mean, if I knew someone was going to hold my accountable then I probably wouldn't have acted like a reprehensible reptile"

enderland

Yeah. Hah.

I want to write a troll response there baiscally saying "you trolled and were banned. why do you think the community should care one bit about this?"

user41796

"Because I'm really, really sorry."

Ampt

Maybe next time you'll think twice before answering the question and stick to hints like the rest of us!

2

On that note, I need some coffee if we're dealing with Math.SE this morning.

user41796

1:49 PM

Seriously. How dare he (or she) actually try and answer a question?

enderland

who does that

user41796

@enderland HINT: only the low repz folks

Ampt

@enderland The problem is that the user base encourages the trolling.

user41796

2:04 PM

@Ampt Well, you see, they tried to moderate otherwise but they just wouldn't have any of that.

user41796

FWIW, we've had mods (a mod?) resign because of the community whinging at them too much

Ampt

@GlenH7 ouch, really?

user41796

Yep, Mark Trapp was one of the original mods. And he took a lot of flak over the NPR => Progs transition

Ampt

I'm guessing he was in the NPR camp

user41796

Nah, he was just a mod and went with the flow. Took lead on enforcing a lot of the SE guidelines and people took it out on him as if it were his idea

Ampt

2:10 PM

This question appears to be off-topic because it is blatantly off topic. — MetaFight 4 hours ago

Is there a vehicle Dodge won't put a 700HP motor in?

user41796

@Ampt You should see the Dart I just picked up.... Can barely keep the tires from shredding themselves.

Ampt

You got a dart? How do you like it?

We just had to get rid of our Dodge Journey because it had some serious electrical issues.

user41796

Can I get some downvotes on this question and the top answer, please? A few more downvotes and we'll be able to get that within community delete abilities.

Jimmy Hoffa

2:27 PM

-5

Q: To soa or not to soa

I have a C# WPF + Entity-Framework Code-First application that needs to run on several machines within the same intranet. general features of the system: ~10 clients running the DB will hold ~20000 rows of data the general idea is that no more than one client will update a specific row eac...

c# entity-framework wcf soa

I had hopes he might try to salvage it, but it would appear the fact that people weren't just lining up to reddit over the topic with him on P.SE turned him off, feel free to use your delete votes

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Needs one more

Thomas Owens

I just realized that now that Java 8 is out, I can implement my project and use a statically linked library with JNI.

user41796

Sweet! Community mod deleted off a lot of the answers on this one so it's well within community ability to delete.

user41796

@ThomasOwens Were they nice enough to finally add in pointers? :-D

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 No clue.

I just know statically linked libraries.

user41796

2:32 PM

I'm being snarky. I seriously doubt Java would ever introduce pointers as one of its founding principles was to make it easier / safer to program within than C / C++

Thomas Owens

Oh. I thought you meant easier pointers in JNI. I had trouble wrapping my head around how that worked for a while.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 ...I do presume Java has pointers, right?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa negative

Jimmy Hoffa

I mean... it allows embedded coding, it must have direct memory access

what ??

user41796

And can we nuke the source of this comment:

Jimmy Hoffa

2:35 PM

@GlenH7 you can't just say something like that and move on

user41796

programmers.stackexchange.com/q/258472/#comment523864_258472

user41796

Chat timed me out

user41796

grrr

Jimmy Hoffa

how on earth does someone with 149 answers go around encouraging such?? O_o

user41796

Honey badger don't care

user41796

2:37 PM

(or something similar to that line)

Jimmy Hoffa

I flagged as encouraging site abuse

ratchet freak

@JimmyHoffa only through preallocated ByteBuffers

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa you aren't to be trusted with direct memory access!

Thomas Owens

It's not "telecom". Who says "telecom" anyway? It's "telecon". Short for "teleconference", which is short for "telephone conference".

>_<

user41796

@ThomasOwens Erm, "telecom" is an industry

user41796

2:46 PM

So I agree with your chagrin over the misuse of the term

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak so pointers

direct memory access of any nature is in my book...pointers...

ratchet freak

technically they are handles

you'd need reflection to actually start corrupting memory

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak ? how does direct memory access stop you from putting in data that would be "corrupt" for whatever other devices/software is relying on good data in that memory space?

surely the memory layout definition isn't a part of the Java language and there's no way it could enforce that - it could only enforce space access to ensure you aren't jiggering with it's memory space, or any other spaces it deems protected/the OS doesn't allow it to access

(I am way out of my depth on this topic and should shut my lip, I know this low level chicanery is not something I know the first bit about)

ratchet freak

because the native side needs to pass the actual pointer of where the java side can write

Jimmy Hoffa

@JimmyHoffa That is outside my hands really- everything anybody asks here gets closed within a day or two. As is often stated in Meta, a StackExchange site where every question gets closed is a resource of limited usefulness at the best of times. My assumption would be that this is why programmers.se has lost so many core users over the last few years. — glenatron 12 mins ago

oops

that was weird

it oneboxed 2 different things from the same URL from a "failed to load - retry/cancel"

either way, it's unfortunate that people think we're acting just based on our own personal opinions, I had the same sense early on around P.SE before I was guided to the metrics that showed the timeline where we became more narrowly scoped was the same in which our user base had increased significantly

user15026

3:03 PM

From what I can tell, despite people's best efforts, p.se is much better off now.

user41796

@AshleyNunn site volume is definitely up

Jimmy Hoffa

@AshleyNunn it's true, thing is you have to care to go look and find those metrics that show this to be the case

We've all played with data.se enough to satisfy me and likely others have for themselves as well, that our approach is working, and that's not based on opinion but statistical analysis

user15026

Yeah, there are definitely stats to back up the decisions that have been made and the approach that you guys are using

ratchet freak

hurrah we are endorsed by statistics :)

user41796

@glenatron - Your assumption isn't backed by Quantcast or Alexa. Site traffic continues to grow, and many of us believe that is due to the focus on high quality Q&A. — GlenH7 12 secs ago

user15026

3:10 PM

See? Statistics! You guys are scientifically awesome.

user41796

user41796

Science!

user41796

> Actually I see now. The help center link helped. I thought Programmers.SE was broader than it is. I apologize. – Lex 5 mins ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@glenatron this is pretty meta at this point, but if you really believe that I strongly encourage you to post on meta a request for statistical analysis of site usage - as many of us have done this using Data.SE and other sources and come to a fairly conclusive response that - the narrower scope to this site does result in greater site usage and value. Many of us active in the community approach maintaining the community with an eye on objective results not subjective opinion as folks so often think. — Jimmy Hoffa 14 secs ago

Ampt

3:39 PM

I absolutely believe it, but like most of the people who were around when I used to be a regular here, I am no longer sufficiently attached to the site to put myself through the friction of arguing it out. Programmers mostly stopped being a useful resource for me a few years back when it became closure central- I know that is a deliberate focus and I am sure most people enjoy it more, I guess I'm just an old-timey stick in the mud. — glenatron 19 mins ago

well... he said it.

Jimmy Hoffa

If you think anything in life is about "winning", you're missing the point. — Jimmy Hoffa 8 secs ago

@Ampt "just a stick in the mud" is a nice way for him to try and skirt the fact that he's knowingly abusing P.SE as a resource

user41796

I like being able to VTD on -3 and recently closed posts.

Jimmy Hoffa

makes him feel better that he's not being disrespectful to the community

Ampt

I wonder if other SE sites sit around and make fun of our way of doing things like we do to Math.

@JimmyHoffa who would upvote that post

Jimmy Hoffa

4:02 PM

@Ampt it was just some self righteous arsehole posting because they love to hear themselves talk and above all else they love to hear themselves talk about how they're so much better than everyone else which is best done by dictating with unfliching certainty that everyone else is just a bunch of idiots that exist for him to take advantage of; lesser beings really. what a dick.

@GlenH7 using the generic type system as a dictionary keyed on types as I showed you before - after seeing how ninject is doing synchronous resolution where most of us just need what is essentially a type lookup.... I'm pondering writing my own DI library that uses the type system as it's dictionary like that... all you really need to do is cache Func<>s for object construction/retrieval like I showed you how to do...hrmmm

Ampt

4:30 PM

@JimmyHoffa Lol I just read the whole original post instead of skimming it. Gotta agree with your assessment. I think it's clear to see which person he thinks he is (Hint: A Bold Entrepreneur)

I assume the fact that you're here means you are not Programmer C, who has made millions of dollars, and are instead Entrepreneur F, the person who thinks everything's easy until he has to actually do it ;) — Ampt 12 secs ago

alright, I couldn't help myself with the second one.

Ampt

4:56 PM

Not Another 'Not Another CSS framework'

durron597

5:12 PM

@Ampt I'm surprised that notactuallyathing.com isn't registered yet

Jimmy Hoffa

@durron597 but not surprised that example.com is registered per RFC-2606

Ampt

@durron597 I'm glad that somebody at least clicked the links haha

enderland

@durron597 it's not actually a thing yet

Ampt

@enderland yet

durron597

Who said I clicked on it? I hovered over it

Ampt

5:26 PM

How'd you know it wasn't registered?

Jimmy Hoffa

Failed.

durron597

@Ampt whois.net/whois/notactuallyathing.com

Ampt

@durron597 yeah right :P you didn't whois it before you clicked it

durron597

@Ampt You'll never know for sure...

Ampt

5:42 PM

Foiled again! Curse you durrondurron!

user55340

6:18 PM

@Ampt Btw, you might find EWD 475 an amusing read there. (EWD referring to Dijkstra's selected writings #475). Purely fictional but a fun read.

user55340

EWD 743 is also a fun one on that subject.

user55340

>
Right from its inception, Mathematics Inc. has known that the successful industrialization of the development of mathematics would be tantamount to the Second Cultural Revolution and the Third Industrial Revolution rolled into one. Moreover, Mathematics Inc. has always known Man’s general tendency to resist change even when it constitutes progress. We all know the great subtlety the selling of our products has required, and it is to the everlasting credit of our Sales Department, our Public Relations Department, our Publicity Department, and our Department of Educational Services that so …

user55340

And back from 475:

user55340

>
To supply the missing proof was for Mathematics Inc. an obvious target, not only because we have built up the first (and only) corporation in the world, that is technically capable of constructing such a proof, but also, because commercially it is a most attractive proposition. The point is that whole flocks of mathematicians have made themselves dependent on it and have (somewhat irresponsibly) based whole branches of mathematics on Riemann’s assumption. Think what a market! All those dangling results, ready to be harvested by the first company that provides the missing link! We have pro…

user55340

>
But, besides this, disclosure of the Proof is absolutely out of the question! Has no one heard of industrial property? You see, we want to sell the result of the Proof —viz. that Riemann’s Hypothesis is no longer a hypothesis but a truth—, but certainly not disclose the Proof itself, for that embodies a radically new technique of mathematical reasoning that, as long as it is ours and exclusively ours, we would like to apply to a few similar outstanding problems. Disclosure of the Proof would be similar to the disclosure of “manufacturing secrets” of classical industries. How can we make t…

user55340

6:23 PM

Side bit to that actual question... I've seen companies GPL a key part of their technology because it allows open source products to extend it... but if competitors were to use it, they would have to open source their products... so they can't.

Jimmy Hoffa

dijkstra's always fun to read,bit of a loon in some regards but always fun

durron597

Anyone know the reason behind having to wait so long before you can put a bounty on your own posts?

user41796

@durron597 cuts down on abuse of the bounty system

durron597

It's my reputation, I can do with it what I want to, do with it what I want to, do with it what I want to...

mm

But my impatience just results in me nagging you, @GlenH7, before the two days are out

how is that better than putting a bounty on it?

user41796

also helps prevents instant "leveling up" in the repz system. Think back to how some online games can be played where you find a high level person that allows you to tag along. They destroy everything and you level up without doing anything

durron597

6:32 PM

Ah, because I can award the bounty right away, I don't need to wait for the end of the bounty period to do it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@durron597 people would use it as a reputation transfer tool which is highly abusable as a concept (think about people who are creating groups of users and trying to fake rep them, what they could do given such a feature)

durron597

You'd have to have a significant amount of rep in the first place to do that though

But I agree, it does make those kinds of game harder were you inclined to do it.

user41796

think about it when using a ring of accounts

Jimmy Hoffa

@durron597 not necessarily. Think like a tester, look for the bizarre scenarios you could create to use such a tool against the purposes of SE, I'm sure you'll find some.

user55340

Btw, darkroom stuff from the 80's using sandwiched slides: photography.ca/blog/tag/photography-slide-sandwich

durron597

6:35 PM

Two days gives "fake" questions time to be deleted by the community.

user55340

durron597

so fine, me nagging this chatroom it is, then.

1

Q: Clean Code and Hybrid Objects and Feature Envy

So I recently made some major refactorings to my code. One of the main things I tried to do was split out my classes into data objects and worker objects. This was inspired, among other things, by this section of Clean Code: Hybrids This confusion sometimes leads to unfortunate hybrid da...

java object-oriented-design data-structures clean-code code-smell

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT 80's sandwiches just makes me think of the classic picture of the Snarf's trailer '86 or '87, I could go for an 80's sandwich right about now...

user55340

Those are pictures taken with film... but its two frames that were overexposed and then sandwiched... shot at different apertures (so the depth of field is different)

user55340

6:37 PM

naturephotographers.net/articles0106/dw0106-1.html

Tim

6:48 PM

nice phtos

user55340

@Tim they have an otherworldly effect to them.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa RE: your DI thoughts - sounds like it ought to work. And in theory it won't take too much code to cobble together.

user15026

So....I am very glad I am not working til 4 pm on tuesday.....

user41796

@AshleyNunn good luck!

user15026

@GlenH7 Thanks. Still have to schedule the thing, but since I am at work, it will wait until I am the only one in here in an hour or so

user15026

6:51 PM

(This was a super fast turnaround, so I am intrigued...lots of people saying I am amazing.)

user41796

Friday afternoons are awesome

user41796

@AshleyNunn About time they finally figured that out, right?

user15026

@GlenH7 Exactly!

user15026

(I am actually extra amused because I've gotten calls from 2 separate recruiters for jobs this week, and they are both looking for CSR stuff with one company, just different departments :P)

user15026

So this might not pan out, but hey, things happening

user15026

6:54 PM

(Sorry, I know I babble in here a lot about work things, and I am not even a programmer. It's lovely that y'all put up with me.)

user41796

@AshleyNunn I'm a fan of putting as many irons in the fire as you can keep track of

user41796

@Tim Aren't we all? :-D

user15026

@GlenH7 That's my goal

user41796

In many ways, it can be just a numbers game until you find the right combination.

user41796

I'm so glad we're not The Bridge

2

Tim

7:08 PM

What heppen "the bridge"

user41796

→ 9 messages moved to ProgsTrash

durron597

@GlenH7 Should I star "Oh goody, I was looking for stuff to delete" now?

user15026

@GlenH7 Yeah, some of us aren't so lucky

user41796

@AshleyNunn Perhaps you gave up the wrong diamond? :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat -> I wasn't thinking of an MSE or similar post about those stats, I just meant he should post on meta.P.SE saying it appears to him that we have lost users since the scope changed, and he would like to see some metrics saying so, and you and the others here can dig up and post all the metrics that we have poked around at over time

user41796

7:11 PM

@durron597 I like to put the community mod to work

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Remember, SE is all about relying on the community wherever it can - Tim and the staff are great for the things not available to us, but this is a case where lots of analysis is available to us

user15026

@GlenH7 Nah, I am still good with my choice

user41796

@AshleyNunn I probably wouldn't enjoy being a room owner over there

user15026

@GlenH7 It's not as bad as it seems, really

Tim

What are your fav data structure books?

user41796

7:15 PM

@AshleyNunn Seems to be a striking difference in maturity levels

user55340

Btw, @Tim I will point out that a competing service that I subscribe to (Safari Books) does allow periodic downloads of material.

Tim

@MichaelT including the two books?

user41796

@MichaelT He's wanting Essential Algos in C or C++ See the messages I moved to ProgsTrash

user55340

I don't see those two particular books in their catalog. ( my.safaribooksonline.com )

user15026

@GlenH7 Well, yes

user55340

7:19 PM

(hmm... they appear to have changed their model for downloads... and I've got an older account that still has it)

user55340

> As of June 2013, newly created accounts no longer receive tokens as a part of their subscription. We now encourage all users to please try one of the Safari To Go apps for their favorite iOS or Android device.

user41796

@MichaelT I think they still allow downloading directly to a device for off-network reading.

Tim

books are expensive, be they ebooks or paper books. We don't earn money to pay for them

user55340

@GlenH7 They do, but its a DRM'ed copy to within the application on the device. What I've got is being able to download non-DRM epub that I'll be able to read forever.

user41796

@MichaelT That makes sense. And yes, the ones I can download for off-network reading are definitely tied to their app.

user55340

7:22 PM

user55340

7:34 PM

Looking at moo.com for making some business cards for photography (when I'm out in the field its nice to be able to give a business card...) They've got a feature to make a different image on each business card.

user41796

@MichaelT That's pretty cool. Most cards I see are quite uniform from that point of view

user55340

@GlenH7 Essentialy, I'd be carrying my portfolio with me in print in small form.

user41796

Is "Why won't my rabbits die?" a sufficiently provocative title for SO?

user15026

@GlenH7 I know it would raise hell on Pets :P

user41796

Context is king, right?

user15026

7:41 PM

Very true

user55340

@GlenH7 Not sure, they might hate fun there.

user41796

The specific title is asking about why my rabbitmq queues won't die

user41796

So I was hoping I was just on the right side of questionably tolerable.

user55340

Might tweak it to "Why won't my rabbit queues die?"

user41796

@MichaelT Should I use that for the title, or use that as the opening sentence?

user55340

7:46 PM

@GlenH7 I'd use it as a title. Allows people to misread the title to see what its about, but also won't invoke the 'we hate fun' group who will edit it to something completely boring.

user41796

That makes sense and is probably what that evil crowd would do

Tim

what are best/good data structure books?

or yoru fav?

user55340

Data structures for what purpose?

user55340

If you want old school...

user55340

amazon.com/Algorithms-Data-Structures-Niklaus-Wirth/dp/…

user55340

7:55 PM

And that's a key thing there - data structures and algorithms go hand in hand. If you work with one you will get the other. Thus...

user55340

amazon.com/gp/product/0262033844

user55340

Though if you wish to join the order of the Lambda...

user55340

amazon.com/…

Tim

what is the "order of the Lambda"?

user55340

Lambda calculus

Lambda calculus (also written as λ-calculus) is a formal system in mathematical logic and computer science for expressing computation based on function abstraction and application using variable binding and substitution. First formulated by Alonzo Church to formalize the concept of effective computability, lambda calculus found early successes in the area of computability theory, such as a negative answer to Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem. Lambda calculus is a conceptually simple universal model of computation (Turing showed in 1937 that Turing machines equalled the lambda calculus in expressiveness...

user55340

7:57 PM

A different approach to thinking about computation.

user55340

Its like doing integrals with infinitesimals rather than limits.

user55340

Non-standard calculus

In mathematics, non-standard calculus is the modern application of infinitesimals, in the sense of non-standard analysis, to differential and integral calculus. It provides a rigorous justification for some arguments in calculus that were previously considered merely heuristic. Calculations with infinitesimals were widely used before Karl Weierstrass sought to replace them with the (ε, δ)-definition of limit starting in the 1870s. (See history of calculus.) For almost one hundred years thereafter, mathematicians like Richard Courant viewed infinitesimals as being naive and vague or meaningless...

Tim

algorithms, and data structures go hand in hand. Isn't algorithms always operations of data structures

user55340

If you understand the algorithm, you will likely create the proper data structure as needed.

Tim

Are books dedicated to data structures better than algorithm books which have some chapters on data structures?

user55340

7:59 PM

Looking at data structures (or patterns) as a cookbook, or building blocks is an approach that gets you stuck in those mindsets.

Tim

Which way to approach the (same or similar) topic is better, data structure, or algorithm?

user55340

Both.

user55340

They aren't different when you get down to it.

user55340

And to that extent, you might find working with a functional language a good way to rethink how you are thinking.

Tim

What are best or your fav or good books dedicated to data structures?

user55340

8:02 PM

The Wirth one is a good one to read.

Tim

is it dated?

user55340

The best ones are dateless.

user55340

amazon.com/Programming-Pearls-2nd-Edition-Bentley/dp/0201657880

Tim

what the other oneS?

user55340

Pick that one up while you're at the book store too.

user55340

8:04 PM

@Tim The best books are once that deal with the problems at the core of programming. The implementation language they chose is a matter of historical oddity at times.

Tim

are "Programming Pearls" and "Sturcutre and interpetation of Programs" about data structures?

user55340

You don't want a book about data structures in Ruby... because then you'll learn about the Ruby way of approaching that problem. Its good if you're trying to learn Ruby and already have the fundamentals down... but not if you are trying to understand the fundamentals.

user55340

@Tim They are about programming problems that make use of data structures and algorithms and will challenge how you think about programming.

user55340

>The "pearls" in question center not only on choosing the right algorithms (like binary searches, sorting techniques, or sparse arrays) but also on showing how to solve problems effectively. Each chapter frames a particular programming task--such as sorting numbers, creating anagrams, or counting the words in a block of text--many drawn from Bentley's experiences in his long career as a developer. The book traces the process of arriving at a fast, efficient, and accurate solution, along with code profiling to discover what works best. After refining the correct answer, each chapter enumerat…

Tim

Then are Pearl and SICP just two other books on data structures and algorithms?

Isn't it that any book on ds and alg also introduce what problems a ds and alg can solve?

user55340

8:08 PM

Many books of data structures are 'ivory tower'. Here's how you make a hash table, a 2-3 tree, a b* tree... but not the problems that they solve.

user55340

That's where Programming Pearls excels at - because it starts out at the 'this is the problem' and then takes you through the solution.

user55340

I'd also suggest looking at internetsecuritydb.com/2011/09/…

user55340

(Programming Pearls is #15 on that list... SICP is #3, Intro to Algorithms is #5, TAOCP is #9... and some sadistic soul put the dragon book as #10)

Tim

what is with dragon book?

user55340

8:11 PM

Its got a dragon on the cover.

user55340

Even more recent editions...

user55340

Tim

yes, i know. I mean what you meant when you mentioned it?

"some sadistic soul put the dragon book as #10"

user55340

Its not something to be read lightly... though TAOCP isn't either.

user55340

(old cover:

user55340

8:12 PM

Tim

You want it to have a lower or higher rank?

than 10?

user55340

They're all important, though higher is in theory more influential than lower.

Tim

have you heard of horowitz and sahni's fundamentals of data structures? How do you think of the book?

esp compared to Wirth book, or intro to algorithms

I will send you a link

user55340

I like the Wirth book... my father gave me a copy when I was learning pascal on the Apple ][+.

Tim

-3

Q: Is Horowitz and Sahni's data structure book outdated?

I found that Fundamentals of data structures (1982) by Ellis Horowitz and Sartaj Sahni draws my attention naturally, probably because of their formal treatment of data structures, and their choice of topics and their way of organizing the topics into chapters and sections. But the book wa...

data-structures books

I have an pdf of the 1982 book.

user55340

8:15 PM

12

A: How Do I Determine the Value of a Technical book?

The majority of the tech books out there are hopping onto a particular bandwagon. With the rate of change of technology (frameworks, languages, cloud applications, fads of the day), many tech authors write poorly done books trying to get them out there to be sold to the masses who are following ...

user55340

You could also pick some off of this list:

user55340

1440

Q: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

If you could go back in time and tell yourself to read a specific book at the beginning of your career as a developer, which book would it be? I expect this list to be varied and to cover a wide range of things. To search: Use the search box in the upper-right corner. To search the answers of t...

resources

Tim

The book doesn't have latter edition. that is why I am looking for a derivation of the book in C or C++ in 2007 in pdf or soem format

not in reader-unfriendly online format offered by my school

user55340

Those are books I'd buy in hard copy to put on a bookshelf in my office so that they're always available at hand and when gazed upon remind me of what they contain. Something that pdf's and epubs, while taking up less shelf space, don't do.

user41796

0

Q: Why won't my rabbit queues die?

I'm having a problem getting my RabbitMQ queues to expire. I'm using RabbitMQ 3.2.4; Server is running on Windows, and my client code is in C#. I have tried setting both the queue's auto-delete parameter and the queue's TTL value via x-expire. I have tried priming the queue with a dummy message...

c# queue rabbitmq

user41796

8:20 PM

I took your advice and decided to avoid the fun police

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 it's because they're breeding like rabbits.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa You don't know the half of it

user41796

Any given calculation run can generate ~800 tasks. And we'll handle dozens of runs in a day.

Tim

Pearls is problem-oriented. SICP isn't problem-oriented, is it? @MichaelT

user55340

Google hires camel for desert street view

user55340

8:24 PM

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 with activeMQ anyway, clients can be durable - so that when they disconnect the server holds the Q and persists all the messages while it's away to give to it when it comes back. Is there any kind of flags on the consumer/subscriber (not the Q/topic itself) that tells it to hold onto the Q? Alternatively, is there any possibility there's just no reason for it to remove the Q if it's inactive, and it will disappear when the system has cause to do maintenance tasks - shutdown or startup

user41796

The other option I'm considering is pushing the retry queue name to yet another queue, and when the calculation run is done then roll through that 3rd queue and delete off all the retry queues

user55340

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT it's not entirely clear to me why someone would walk around an area like that short of desiring to meet their end

user41796

@JimmyHoffa My fear is it's the latter case where they are waiting for a restart to clean things out

user55340

8:25 PM

@Tim SICP is more ivory tower fundamentals... but its going to completely change how you think about code (and also help you understand many of the constructs that are showing up in languages these days... lambdas, closures and the like).

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 what's scary about that? If inactive queues use no resources, is this a problem ?

user41796

The exchange (aka routing rules) can be made persistent; the queue can be made persistent; and the messages themselves can be made persistent

Jimmy Hoffa

please tell me you aren't relying on statistics about the queues themselves like their existence for instance as a logical indicator?

user55340

> The Liwa Oasis is a 100 kilometer-wide (62-mile) scenic desert, southeast of the city of Abu Dhabi that includes some of the world's biggest sand dunes.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa restart means the whole instance has to go down

user41796

8:26 PM

so every exchange and queue in the instance is affected

Jimmy Hoffa

> and the worlds oldest skeletons

@GlenH7 why would it matter if a queue is there or gone?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa No, there's a management panel that clearlyshows whats there

Tim

By "ivory tower fundamentals", do you mean fundamentals to climb ivory tower?

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 are the inactive queues using some amount of important resources?

Tim

from what you described, SICP is a book on programming languages, isn't it? Not about data structures, or algorithms

user41796

8:28 PM

@JimmyHoffa A) I'll end up with tens or hundreds of thousands of these dead retry queues. B) If I need to see what's going on with the main queues, the retry ones will obscure my ability to see them

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 and this makes you queezy? You feel like drinking because you're seeing imaginary things, and expect the walls to just fall away as you wake up in vanilla sky at any moment? ;P

@GlenH7 so keep track of the live ones

user41796

No, no. I learned the lessons of dumbo

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Why not expect the code to work the way they say it should and does in other client languages?

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 it sounds like it does

your frustration is basically with RabitMQ's management console I guess ?

user55340

Ivory tower

For other uses, see Ivory Tower (disambiguation). The term ivory tower originates in the Biblical Song of Solomon (7:4) and was later used as an epithet for Mary. From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. It usually carries pejorative connotations of a willful disconnect from the everyday world; esoteric, over-specialized, or even useless research, and academic elitism. In American English usage it is also used as shorthand for academia or the universit...

Jimmy Hoffa

8:29 PM

can it not be sorted by active queues?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa No such concept at that level

user41796

I didn't say it was a great management console. Just that they showed in the console

user55340

There are a class of problems that one finds practical use only in schools and research papers. Going down that road 'to far' can lead you thinking that everything can be solved with the right algorithm.

user41796

And given our past problems with workers dying off, we want to be able to monitor the main queues

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I'm sure RabitMQ knows which queues it has recently routed messages on, but regardless - it really doesn't matter. You're effectively complaining about the internals of RabbitMQ even though they effect you in no way - other than the management console displaying information poorly

user41796

8:31 PM

@JimmyHoffa Don't get me started on picosecond efficiencies....

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 so write your own monitoring stuff if you can't find any good RabitMQ monitoring stuff

user55340

However, fundamentals are often great things to have... but you won't go out and write a hash table in code. Ever. Because nothing is ever a simple hash table.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I'm not even sure where this is coming from - it just strikes me that you are concerned with the internals of RabbitMQ when it has nothing to do with you except that you want to instrumentate RabbitMQ and it comes with poor tooling built in for doing so

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Keep in mind it's not just me maintaining this. Others on the team need to have visibility into these queues. And I don't want to own a homegrown tool in this case.

Tim

@MichaelT Agree. Is SICP a book on programming languages, isn't it? Not about data structures, or algorithms

Jimmy Hoffa

8:32 PM

@GlenH7 so it's a tooling issue. Look for other RabbitMQ monitoring tools perhaps?

newrelic.com/plugins/pivotal/95

^-- says it can tell you about message rates

user55340

SICP is a book that will teach core concepts of computer science in Lisp. By doing it in Lisp (something you are likely unfamiliar with), you are not going to be encumbered by concepts of how to do it in C, or C++... you will have to learn it all over again. And thats a good thing.

Jimmy Hoffa

that should let you see active Queues I should think

user41796

I also can't imagine that having tens of thousands of unused queues laying about will be good for the routing table of the exchange. Maybe it won't be an issue, but seems like keeping things tidy would be a good idea

Jimmy Hoffa

thegeekstuff.com/2013/12/nagios-plugins-rabbitmq

@GlenH7 again - don't concern yourself with it's internals, if it performs poorly then that's a problem - if it does not, then perhaps it's not functioning as you suspect

user55340

You will learn about data abstraction, closures, local state vs global state, modeling mutable data, lists, queues, tables, concurrency, register machines, and so on.

Jimmy Hoffa

8:35 PM

what if the routing table is a usage-based balanced binary tree? Perhaps routing is found at a speed weighted by frequency of use

user55340

Full text of SICP in html (creative commons license). Website: mitpress.mit.edu/sicp

Tim

@MichaelT all these are programming language concepts. There are many books on PLs, such as Concepts in Programming Languages, Programming Language Pragmatics, ..., which i plan to read

user41796

@JimmyHoffa The retry queues are all one-time use

Jimmy Hoffa

close your eyes when you start looking behind the curtain - work against the abstractions given to you, and if they fail you then throw them out and look for some tech that doesn't have broken leaky abstractions

@GlenH7 then it seems reasonable you might just be seeing log messages of previously-used ones as there's an obvious heuristic that can be relied upon wherein messages sent to a retry-queue must be one of the unused ones

user55340

@Tim And every single author who wrote one of those books has read SICP. You are reading the watered down version of that information.

user41796

8:37 PM

@JimmyHoffa I hear what you're saying, and I certainly agree. I don't think I'm doing a good job at explaining why it matters in my scenario and why it's not really a case of poking about within the internals. This is functionality they've advertised as working, but I can't get it to work.

Jimmy Hoffa

it would seem silly that they're smart enough to implement RabbitMQ and not recognize and take advantage of heuristics so obvious. Ignore the inside of the bridge - if all the other cars drove over it and it's got an up to date inspection, what more can you ask for? Just drive over the damn thing :P

@GlenH7 The retry queues or the management console?

Sounds like the management console sucks - but there are others

thegeekstuff.com/2013/12/nagios-plugins-rabbitmq <-- nagios console for it

user55340

Realize that with lisp, the difference between the code and the data (structures) is blurred. Data and Code for a koan on this.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa sure. In this case, as a community member I can only explain how I would want to measure trends in user "stickiness" - by comparing how many of users registered in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 visited site for 5, 10, 30, 100 days. SEDE query for this would be a piece of cake if visited days were in schema... but these aren't

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat aye, not everything is in SEDE, but quantcast is also a good tool for some of these things.

user55340

(aww... the author self deleted that MSO post where he was asking if it would be possible to get someone to look at some SQL for $20... and I pseudo-pimped Martjin's profile pointing out his links to his consultancy sites at $120/h)

user15026

8:45 PM

@MichaelT laugh There's a bit of a price difference there

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Sorry got pulled away for a moment. Yes, the queues are advertised as being able to auto-delete.

user55340

A simple guide to Swift Programming:

user55340

Or "why you shouldn't allow unicode identifiers in your style guide"

user55340

Are Haskell engineers second-rate? (Answer: no.) and Why programmers can’t make any money: dimensionality and the Eternal Haskell Tax --- sorry for the clickbait titles.

3

Jimmy Hoffa

8:57 PM

@MichaelT So what you're saying is that someone created an IDE with emoticons and this is somehow supposed to be indicative of the value of unicode support for compilers :P

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