The Whiteboard

12:18 AM

Hi, I'm trying to install a gcc or gcc equivalent on my mac OSX 10.9.1. I have read through a few posts/threads but none of this is making sense to me. I am doing first year programming so excuse my ignorance. Furthermore, I need gcc - because I -need- it.

Matt D

installing xcode should also install gcc

IIRC

then you can use xcode as your IDE for gcc

eXtremiity

Ok, I'm assuming you're saying xcode will compile my c program.

But, I need to learn how to use gcc code.

That's why I need such a "stand-alone" program.

Sorry if I'm not making sense.

Matt D

a compiler is a compiler. how you use it doesnt really make any difference

when you hit compile in xcode, when you're using gcc, is the same as using gcc from the command line

eXtremiity

Ok, maybe I should explain my context. My course requires me to learn both gcc and c language. I can go on my school computers and it'll run a linux OS with some C-language program and a stand alone gcc program. I am required to learn how to compile my c-programs using gcc.

I want to install something similar on my mac so I can work from home.

I'm well aware, that Xcode allows me to program AND compile. But I will fail my exam if I don't learn how to use gcc to compile my programs.

Matt D

gcc, and c arent languages

gcc is a compiler, c is a language

eXtremiity

12:24 AM

Apologies.

Matt D

gcc can compile C, and C++

installing xcode, should also install gcc

which means you can type gcc <sourcefile>

you dont need to use xcode AFAIK

it just might be an easier way of getting gcc

user55340

@MattD Xcode brings clang rather than gcc. Which can also compile C and C++.

Matt D

ok

i wasnt sure if they still packaged gcc

in my older versions they do

user55340

That was when clang was still maturing.

user55340

coderwall.com/p/lqpp8w

user55340

12:34 AM

Note that for most things, compiling with clang and compiling with gcc will be near identical for command line.

user55340

Its only if you're getting into funky gcc extensions that clang hasn't implemented that you get compiler errors.

user55340

11

Q: OS X 10.9 gcc links to clang

I just noticed that after installing OS X 10.9, the g++ compiler links to the clang compiler. Is there anyway to revert back to gcc/g++?

user41796

1:02 AM

@MattD yeah, Apple / Xcode dropped gcc quite a while ago. Short version is that Apple found it easier / faster to extend clang than it was to get things through in gcc.

user41796

@eXtremiity - You ought to be able to find a package containing a prebuilt gcc. You could try downloading the source and compiling, but I think that's going to lead you into dependency hell. I'm surprised one of the package managers mentioned earlier didn't have a package for you.

user55340

1:19 AM

@GlenH7 There were several parts to that. There's the "gcc wasn't accepting apple updates fast enough" (both Apple and RedHat have to keep back porting the bug fixes they've submitted with each new version)... and there's the GPL vs BSD thing.

user55340

Also GCC is monolithic. Clang has a lot more hooks for tooling and IDE integration with the compiler.

user55340

At one point it was gcc and clang. Then it was a program that looked like gcc that invoked clang. Finally its a "install gcc yourself if you want it"

gnat

6:03 AM

@Oded I don't have rights to post my questions there. I think this is a good question. Then why the moderators is not moving this questions to stack overflow? — Karthik Surianarayanan yesterday

wow, guy openly admits desire to use Programmers with the sole purpose to circumvent SO ban. Really great that this loophole is closed

57

Q: Block migration if user is suspended/question-blocked at destination

There's a sad little loophole in the suspension/question-block system: migrations. Example: Let's say you've been suspended on MSO, but you really, really want to post a question here now. All you need to do is: Go to any other site and ask your question. Chances are good that a moderator the...

feature-request status-completed migration account-suspension post-ban

Jimmy Hoffa

9:20 AM

@gnat how are British hours treating you? They're treating me for shit; turns out the highway exit for my office is being repaved during British hours today so I had to drive all over hell so I could be in for godawful off-peak load testing during British hours..

Jimmy Hoffa

9:35 AM

heh fun 10k links that are quite recent

programmers.stackexchange.com/a/232785/35276

programmers.stackexchange.com/a/232784/35276

thorsten müller

9:50 AM

Interesting spam approach: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/28703/…

First he tries to edit another users answer into some kind of advertisement and then offering his services. If such a thing exists, the mods should put this user on a watchlist to see if he goes on lie this.

Jimmy Hoffa

@thorstenmüller I just removed the personal information in his post; for all we know his e-mail is just a front to gather addresses for spam

No need to have any of that public between now and it's future deletion

gnat

@JimmyHoffa hours don't treat me, it's me who is treating hours (my work hours are very flexible)

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat That's always nice. Normally not terribly dissimilar for me, just my turn in the team rotation to monitor our part of the system during the load testing, which we do in production during off-peak hours... Totally wrecks the day waking up at 2am because everytime it threatens to flip my sleep schedule over...

thorsten müller

@JimmyHoffa I removed spam links once and a mod told me it's better not to do so, since it makes it more work for them to see why it was flagged as spam. That's why I just left it as it was.

Jimmy Hoffa

10:10 AM

@thorstenmüller ah... iduno. I'm happy to make the mods do the extra work. I think it's a pittance to pay compared to the cost of feeding the trolls with visitors to their spam links.

thorsten müller

@JimmyHoffa well, I guess that's the price they have to pay for all the mod groupies and fame and stuff...

gnat

10:27 AM

looking at SO-part activities of these two accounts make me rather strongly feel these belong to the same user: programmers.stackexchange.com/users/123899/prog and programmers.stackexchange.com/users/121368/prog - as if they created second account after hitting question ban there. At Programmers, it looks similar. Wonder if these accounts cross-vote each other

gnat

11:10 AM

do i miss something or there was a reason to upvote this? to me it reads a blatant not an answer, maybe some robo reviewer clicked stuff in First Posts queue?

0

A: Asterisks in Multi-line comments

To disable that feature you can refer to the following links: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16518745/how-to-prevent-asterisk-with-enter-is-pressed-inside-c-sharp-comments For Visual Studio 2005 and 2008: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2307602/how-to-disable-the-automatic-asterisk-in-visu...

thorsten müller

@gnat No good reason for upvotes. Maybe OP or somebody else upvoted it as a kind of "thanks for your effort"? People new here may consider this to be the right thing to do, since it's quite common on other platforms (reddit, yahoo answers...).

gnat

11:30 AM

@thorstenmüller ah yes OP could vote it up, that makes sense. Thanks!

ratchet freak

!!xkcd

or has the bot a day off?

gnat

11:53 AM

@MichaelT to my surprise, bare URLs referring to answers in why this question is bad seem to work better than "named links". URLs don't look as repelling, and askers seem to tend clicking them out of curiosity, expecting an answer... and quite frequently it looks like they find the answer there indeed :)

Anupam

12:40 PM

Hi everyone, I am new to this site. I want to study OOP. Would you guys help me to find a specific book that I want to read. The kind of book I want to readd is as I have explained in my question here: <http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/232814/book-or-website-that-expl‌ains-limitations-of-c-as-compared-to-c-practically?noredirect=1#comment464616_232‌814>

user41796

1:25 PM

cv-plz It's an opinion driven, poll fest.

user41796

4

Q: secure photos on server

I would like to hear advice from the more experienced developers. The project is now in the design stage. It's mobile application and a simple web application. Content is pictures, comments, personal correspondence. Pictures can be quite personal. Need a very serious attitude to security. T...

javascript security asp.net-mvc cryptography

user55340

2:09 PM

10

Q: Best book about OOP principles and design

Could someone point me about good about OOP philosophy and design? About how should be used, why OOP is better (worse), than plain functional or procedural programming. Something that would maybe mention about patterns, about SOLID principles. I am looking for book that would be on par with leve...

oop design

user55340

And then there's a wikibooks page that at 0th glance doesn't look bad.

user55340

en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Object_Oriented_Programming

user55340

and then...

user55340

6

Q: Suggest good book to learn OOP (not related to any programming language)

Possible Duplicate: Suggest an Introductory OO Text for a (smart) non-programmer? I'm searching good book that teaches how OOP works, best practices, patters (I guess, not sure) and other useful stuff. I work with PHP, so I'm not forced to do OOP at all... anyway, I can. That doesn't m...

object-oriented language-agnostic books

user55340

(and chase the dups from that)

user55340

2:15 PM

Beyond that, it starts getting what aspect of OOP do you want to learn more about with the context of the language. Learning C++ isn't about learning OO. OO is applied to C++ design, but there is quite a bit of C++ that has nothing to do with OO.

user55340

And for that matter, with the right framework you could make classic C into an object oriented language (thats how C++ and Objective C started out).

user55340

@thorstenmüller Given that its an unregistered user, the identity will be lost when the cookie expires. Not too much reason to keep tabs on over time.

user41796

I always kind of wonder if the spammers pick up any leads that way.

user55340

@GlenH7 Its a question of cost. If it takes you 30 seconds to get a lead a 1% of the time, you spend an hour and you've got a lead somewhere. Its also in part a question of how quick the community is to moderate. If the advertisement lasts for only a minute its not worth it since the exposure is quite low. On an unmoderated forum, might pay off the 30 second investment.

user41796

I probably wasn't specific enough - I wonder about whether or not they clear the effort / benefit ratio by spamming Progs or even on SO. I want to think they don't benefit by spamming Progs, but that's possibly just wishful thinking.

user55340

2:27 PM

@GlenH7 They likely don't understand the rate of the difference in SO vs P.SE... and SO you can get in under the radar there if you're careful about it.

user41796

Case in point - my link only flag from 8 days ago is still active. SO mods are a lot busier.

gnat

cultural clash

20 hours ago, 39 minutes total – 22 messages, 2 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked 1 min ago by gnat

user41796

@gnat I get the impression that Alex M doesn't like the hot question list...

gnat

Mar 6 at 10:40, by Yannis Rizos

@gnat My latest question hit the "hot questions". 5 non answers in a day, and a dozen of bs comments that completely miss the point of the question. The numbers may not seem much, but are kind of impressive for a site the size of Politics. Also, someone thought the question itself was offensive. I didn't really enjoy the whole "hot questions" concept before, but now I truly hate it. With a passion.

^^^ he's not alone I guess

user41796

@gnat Nope, not alone

gnat

2:35 PM

@GlenH7 how many garbage answers were deleted in your Workplace question that touched the list?

user41796

@gnat 2 or 3, I think. Maybe 4. I'm not 10k there, so I can't look and tell for certain. I got the impression that jmort was the only mod cleaning up flags though. Took a while to get my protect request in place.

user41796

I did notice some heavy down-voting of the lemmings at some point during the weekend.

gnat

2:55 PM

@GlenH7 I checked my rep history, there were 5 answers removed of those I voted down, as indicated by positive rep changes

user41796

@gnat I dunno, crap questions attract crap answers? :-D

user41796

I'll admit it was a bikeshed question which is why I thought it would hit the collider list

user41796

And you weren't the only down-voter on my question. timeline shows quite a few DVs registered over the 16th & 17th.

user41796

Unless you have more sock puppets on that site that you haven't told us about....

gnat

3:16 PM

@GlenH7 you mean, guys that vote down crappy answers like me? plenty there :)

user41796

@gnat It's okay, you can be honest with us despite this being a public transcript. We all know you run hordes of sock puppets so you can downvote with wild abandon.

ratchet freak

we like our rep a bit too much

user41796

@ratchetfreak The counter-argument is by spending the down vote rep you are investing in the site's quality. Higher quality site means the remaining rep is actually more valuable.

user55340

Downvotes are also part of the ability to do searches for useful things. When searching if everything is just upvoted, it can be hard to distinguish the good from the bad in the 'relevance' area.

gnat

3:38 PM

@GlenH7 I can not openly admit that because if I do, SE team will immediately shut the site down for massive VUI (voting under influence). If seriously, it wasn't as prominent prior to graduation, when beta privileges gave regulars more ways to maintain quality norms. When beta power has gone and amount of incoming garbage went up, I discovered that only means I've got are votes down and flags...

...Pretty soon I decided that I better invest some rep into maintaining prior norms, at least until more mods are elected. Guess others figured that too

user41796

I tease about your sock puppets, but it looks like TW already has a decent core group behind it working to maintain site quality.

user41796

@RobertHarvey I CAN HAZ TRANZACTIONZ?

Robert Harvey

@GlenH7 Fairly pedestrian stuff, really. And the other guy answering says it's impossible to do.

user55340

I'd be curious to see how the inclusionists who moved from P.SE to TW are handling the current onslaught of crap.

user41796

@RobertHarvey I was going to VTC as too broad but decided to let it be after I saw your answer

user41796

3:49 PM

@MichaelT Could be reveling if they don't see it as crap

ratchet freak

@GlenH7 s/reveling/revealing/ ?

user55340

Couple of possibilties there: it was scoped properly from the start so didn't have the 'change during beta' or 'their understanding has evolved (lacking an evil mod to to rail against they realize they must do more themselves)'... I'm sure there are others.

user41796

@ratchetfreak Amusing and unexpected substitution, but I think there's a measure of celebration as well.

user55340

(I bumped meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/225006/… with an edit... still holding the 3:1 view:vote ratio... all upvotes)

user41796

@MichaelT Half-tempted to switch to a downvote just because

gnat

3:52 PM

@MichaelT fairly smoothly I think, norms there were rather firm since day one (of public beta), so everyone had time to get used to these

user55340

@GlenH7 meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/225006/timeline - fairly impressive for an MSO question.

gnat

in contrast, at NPR->Programmers it happened suddenly and that was shocking

user41796

@MichaelT Surprising that there aren't any comments

user55340

And there were the evil deletionist mods that served as a lightning rod for all criticism.

user55340

@GlenH7 No clarification is needed apparently.

user55340

3:54 PM

"Yep, this is a good thing. +1, carry on"

Robert Harvey

@GlenH7 He's asking what if he gets an error while he's trying to open the transaction.

user55340

The awkward part with that - without the additional discussion activity the topic dies down. I don't want it to get lost.

user41796

@RobertHarvey roll over and die or retry.

user41796

"Next!"

Robert Harvey

@GlenH7 Exactly. He wants absolute guarantees. I don't think there is such a thing where computers are involved.

user41796

3:56 PM

@MichaelT We had a perfect example roll through the queue this AM. Not enough info to migrate but still had 2 votes to go to SO

user41796

@RobertHarvey You should figure out a way to connect him with the FP fanatics that have been trolling you lately. Have them figure out a way to guarantee him an immutable state or something. Then they can all be deluded into happiness from the thin veneer of a "guarantee"

user55340

@GlenH7 Sometimes I'm "dig up the close reason and use that" but other times its "if this is going to get closed as off topic or unclear on SO, I'll close it as unclear and use that implied close text to ask them to update the question"

Robert Harvey

@GlenH7 You noticed that, huh? Except that I wasn't gullible enough to take the bait this time.

user41796

I was going to make a comment about kool-aid to them, but was pretty sure it would merely encourage them

user41796

'cause hey, if I can't program in FP then I might as well cobble it together with assembler!

user41796

4:06 PM

Excel is like crack cocaine for engineers who don't know how to program.

user55340

To be fair, I think almost everything that happens in the Bridge is an attempt to derail what is happening in the Bridge. — fredley 33 mins ago

ratchet freak

until they discover the maco language

user55340

@GlenH7 Excel is actually a wrapper over FP...

user41796

Maybe it's more like crystal meth. It seems innocuous enough. You think you can use it for just this one project. You swear you can quit whenever you want. But you're blind to all the damages it causes.

user55340

Nah... used properly its a great tool. It just has a few too many helpful extras that make it the choice for too many problems where people don't realize other tools exist.

user41796

4:13 PM

Today's over-the-wall conversation is a senior engineer (who can program) trying to talk another engineer (who can't program) off of the cliff of Excel. They are considering massively expanding a particular workbook that is already pushing the limits of what should reasonably be done in Excel.

Robert Harvey

Wow, that's never happened before.

At my last job, we built an entire practice management suite in Microsoft Access. You haven't seen overtaking the plumbing until you've tried that.

user41796

It's pretty funny actually. Granted, I'm biased because I know the "right" answer. But both engineers are pretty stubborn and aren't doing well at persuading the other of the pressures each option would create.

user41796

@RobertHarvey That would be the other application I'm working on. :-(

Robert Harvey

Access applications are maddeningly difficult to distribute. You need a runtime, patches, and a layer of pixie dust.

ratchet freak

@RobertHarvey don't forget prayers

user41796

4:18 PM

A lot of layers of pixie dust

Robert Harvey

And the database is not unlike attaching to a giant Excel spreadsheet. When they finally got off Jet and onto SQL Server Express for the backend, the speed of the application doubled. The stability probably improved by an order of magnitude.

Eventually, they rewrote the whole thing in Winforms.

user41796

@RobertHarvey oh, so this was a recent project then... :-P (I jest, but I realize it very well could have been)

user41796

Same two engineers were talking about the client upgrading to Win Server 2003

Robert Harvey

@GlenH7 He doubled the size of his company at the height of the recession. Too bad he doesn't pay his employees anything near market rate.

user41796

Just chatted with the senior engineer. We agreed that Access is crack cocaine and Excel is crystal meth

user41796

4:29 PM

@RobertHarvey I never understood the mentality of treating employees as replaceable commodities. On the one hand, you don't want to risk the business to the bus factor. On the other hand, your business doesn't grow as well as it could if you treat employees poorly.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 on the other hand, if you make an appropriate amount of money you're totally entitled to give no shits about anything quality related at all; product quality, environment quality, work-life quality, employee quality, none of it matters when your checking account is swelling in America.

user41796

(flags as offensive)

user55340

Btw, comments have hit that MSO question if you want to follow it.

user55340

49

Q: Add a "don't migrate crap" migration 'path' to all sites

Don't Migrate Crap This is the golden rule of migrations. And we do it far too often. I'll even admit to it. Its sometimes difficult to justify to one's self to spend more time drafting a custom off topic reason to say it when it is more work than the OP has spent putting into writing the que...

feature-request migration close-reasons

user41796

Can't have a real MSO question until the comments roll in

gnat

4:40 PM

-4

Q: What are the best/worst decisions you ever made in your professional life as a software engineer?

Sometimes we do great things, sometime we screw up things. Most of the time we share the lessons learned with our friends and colleagues. Some people write a blog post, an article or even a book about it. To me that's the return to the community that we have already learned a lot from it. So wha...

career-development

user55340

Nope. It needs the activity to get SE's eyeballs on it...

gnat

^^^ down and delete votes please

user55340

Speedy delete flags FTW!

gnat

@RobertHarvey Wow, that was so fast. Sometimes we need a bit room here in SE sites to ask off-topic questions. It's not a bad thing all the time. — Mahdi 11 mins ago

^^^ wow. Just... wow

user41796

@gnat t and g are really close on the keyboard. Not all that uncommon of a typo.

user55340

4:43 PM

(aww, timed out an edit of "quick! Migrate it to TW!")

2

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I don't know how you brits can stand to start work from 3 to noon, I'm hardly making it to 11 this morning... your whole country is backwards, these hours are shite.

Ampt

@MichaelT Roommate and I are delving into maven. should be an interesting experiment

EBarr

Did I stray too far? Are people about to throw tomates at me ? programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/232929/…

user55340

@Ampt Its a great tool. What IDE/integration are you using with it?

Ampt

@MichaelT Eclipse

user55340

4:51 PM

@Ampt You've got m2eclipse installed?

user55340

0

Q: What is the value in making code code comprhensible?

Please don't throw tomatoes; I don't mean to be flippant. I intrinsically know that making code comprehensible is important. A while back I read an article on the matter a while back and cannot for the life of me find it (Attwood? Joel? knuth? not sure). So I'm throwing it out the community...

code-quality

user41796

@EBarr That's going to go downhill

Ampt

@MichaelT well we started by making mixed drinks, followed by champagne, then launched eclipse

everything after that is... fuzzy

so I'm gonna go with a maybe

user55340

@EBarr (if you have a message that only has the link to a whitelisted site on it, it oneboxes in chat)

user41796

You potentially have a good question there if you demonstrated more research and got rid of the meta-blather about "don't throw"

EBarr

4:52 PM

@GlenH7 yeah, it hit me as I hit submit

user41796

SWEBOK calls out some aspects of why software maintenance is the most expensive phase of development

user55340

The time it takes for me to get in the head of the previous developer is some of the longest period of time.

EBarr

Is there a better place to ask ? Meta on SO didn't seem right. SO's wrong. Here's wrong.

user55340

"Why did he do it that way? What did this mean? is there a business decision that caused this code?"

EBarr

couldn't agree more ...atwood has an article on what developer spend time on. like 85

user41796

4:53 PM

@EBarr You need to do some more research before you'll have a question that would fly on any of the SE sites

user41796

need to do === need to demonstrate

user55340

Your code may be written once... but it will be read again and again and again by other programmers who have to modify it or use it.

EBarr

85% of their time understanding code, and 5% writing new code

Jimmy Hoffa

misspelling comprehensible, irony; thy name be done.

EBarr

totally my weak point <tail between legs>

user55340

4:54 PM

I'll also claim that this is part of the reason it is good to follow as many style guide and static analysis things as is reasonable...

Jimmy Hoffa

@EBarr Where do I buy tomates?

Ampt

The thing to remember is that just because you can put it in the form of a question doesn't make it a good, or on topic question. You do seem to be attracting some attention though, so thats a good sign that theres something under there that you can salvage into a good question.

user55340

when I go into new code and get all these warnings from static analysis - they distract me (that may just be me though) from the code itself... and I don't know what I'm breaking if a new one shows up on my line.

user41796

@RobertHarvey - sorry for trolling you.

Jimmy Hoffa

@EBarr haha don't take it personally, just good for a larf.

user41796

4:55 PM

And I didn't down vote that one

EBarr

var inHand = new Tomato();

Robert Harvey

Well, that went well.

EBarr

aye

driving me batty to find the article i read. I swore it was joel on software, or coding horror. Can't find it :-(

Ampt

well this is a good place to ask about where to find such articles

Robert Harvey

@GlenH7 Was that you? :) Maybe I should step away from the Exchangez for awhile.

user41796

4:58 PM

@RobertHarvey I only wrote "-1 for arguing with anonymous down voters" but I didn't actually down vote.

EBarr

@Ampt -- do you know of a good article on the value of code comprehensibility?

Robert Harvey

I should know better.

user41796

So I guess that's more in the vein of teasing instead of trolling

user41796

But I saw the reply and realized I may have accidentally hit a nerve so I deleted my comment

Ampt

@EBarr Me? No, but @JimmyHoffa @GlenH7 and @MichaelT usually have articles popping out of their eyeballs haha. I can do a quick google search, but assuming that you did your due diligence with the google, I'm not sure I would find more than you.

user41796

4:59 PM

And that's why I apologized. It was only in jest and I didn't mean to offend

Jimmy Hoffa

@EBarr What are you trying to get at? I didn't read the question but - what makes you want to know something about code comprehensibility and what do you hope to gain from an answer?

Robert Harvey

No worries.

EBarr

yeah. I've spent quite a bit of time

sometimes, it's just getting the right key words

ratchet freak

@EBarr blog.codinghorror.com/when-understanding-means-rewriting

EBarr

and once you do a wealth of information comes up

@ratchet -- twitter.com/doogie04

Robert Harvey

5:00 PM

@EBarr It could have been a good question... had it been a good question. The answer seems obvious to me though.

EBarr

jeff and i went back and forth this morning

the answer is obvious. Framing the issue well and making the value clear, however, take the art of a good writer

Robert Harvey

So the person asking why comprehensibility equals maintainability doesn't really see the value of maintainability... since being able to understand the code as a prerequisite to maintaining it is self-evident.

EBarr

@ratchetfreak -- funny enough that pie chart is in the power point I'm working on :-)

Personally I see the value. Making the case to others is what I want help with. It's why I'm trying to find the article that I remember making a strong eloquent case on the topic.

user41796

@EBarr Chapter 5 of SWEBOK may give you some additional insight into the cost aspect of maintenance. So the question becomes a matter of associating a (higher) maintenance cost with unreadable code.

EBarr

@GlenH7 - much appreciated. The way I've been saying it internally is: there are lots of costs to software development, and we pay them. Wouldn't we rather choose when to pay, instead of explosions in production?

user55340

5:11 PM

The cost of all software development is often drastically underestimated for a number of reasons.

Jimmy Hoffa

@EBarr wait, I have some white papers that will help you; they'll show that nice clean code is significantly more productive than otherwise. One second...

user41796

The cost of fixing a defect increases as you move into later stages of the SDLC. I think SWEBOK touches upon that, but those types of studies help derive maintenance costs

user55340

You've got the optimistic developers "I'll get that done in a week" (and a month later...). You've got discounting of maintenance and upgrade costs...

user55340

(third speedy delete on that question of 'worst decision' as been cast)

Jimmy Hoffa

@EBarr fpcomplete.com/business/resources/white-papers

There ya go, those whitepapers will tell you very well how clean code can increase productivity significantly.

user55340

5:14 PM

I in part blame the dot com boom of "we write a web app, and then sell it to another company for $$$ - it doesn't matter how buggy it is, we've just got to be first out the door."

EBarr

Wait, you've seen an under-estimate of the time to develop something? I'm shocked! Yep, the cheapest bug to fix is one you don't create in the first place. Spot on.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT The dot com boom was a symptom of the mindset, not the cause

user55340

@EBarr amazon.com/Software-Estimation-Demystifying-Practices-Microsoft/…

EBarr

@JimmyHoffa - thanks. Downloading now.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa It made that mindset a viable business model for a period of time.

Jimmy Hoffa

5:15 PM

you have your causal relationship inverted, I blame MBAs for that mindset

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 SWEBOK doesn't touch upon things, it only provides references to things. The key sources for the increasing cost to fix a defect comes from Barry Boehm and Victor Basili in "Software Defect Reduction Top 10 List", published in IEEE Computer, January 2001. Alan Davis's Software Requirements: Objects, Functions, and States also touches on this.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens damned SWEBOK people with your "evidence" and shit. We fake engineers know our gut is the only evidence we need to make decisions!

user55340

>
The best software developers understand the importance of communicating with people over communicating with the computer, according to Code Complete by Steve McConnell. On average, 85 percent of a programmer's time is spent communicating with people, while only 15 percent is spent communicating with the computer. Maintenance programmers spend 50 to 60 percent of their time trying to understand the code they have to maintain and a software program will have, on average, 10 generations of maintenance programmers in its lifetime.

user55340

Heh...

user55340

> McConnell states that less competent developers favor code with advanced programming language features over code that is readable. Code written by these programmers tends to increase software complexity.

Jimmy Hoffa

5:18 PM

@MichaelT 10 generations? That is a fucking downer if I've ever seen one.

user55340

Software Peter principle

The software Peter principle is used in software engineering to describe a dying project which has little by little become too complex to be understood even by its own developers. It is well known in the industry as a silent killer of projects, and by the time the symptoms arise it is often too late to do anything about it. Good managers can avoid this disaster by establishing clear coding practices where unnecessarily complicated code and design is avoided. The name is used in the book C++ FAQs (see below), and is derived from the Peter Principle — a theory about incompetence in...

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I see 4 in the code I'm working on... I'm the 5th.

EBarr

These are great resource guys. I appreciate the help

Jimmy Hoffa

@EBarr do note I was only trolling you; look at the resources I sent you before you spread them to others or else they'll think you're trolling them (or worse)

user55340

@EBarr Stop by any time. Engineering topics are often a welcome distraction from beer.

EBarr

5:20 PM

ummm...two great tastes that go great together

Ampt

or monads

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I didn't say it was inaccurate, just that it's depressing to view what we create under that lens...

EBarr

@JimmyHoffa - no doubt. I'll read everything.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa that more people will work on our code?

or that our code lasts longer than us?

I'm not seeing the negative connotation

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Compare it to the number of electricians that work on a given building. Or operations guys on the platform...

user55340

5:22 PM

10 seems about right for the lifetime of something before a "big rewrite" becomes necessary.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt that which we create is so flawed it will require 10 generations of maintenance.

user55340

Business requirements change over time. Maintenance is constantly readjusting the product to fit the current requirements.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa Hmm... I guess that's one way to look at it. But maintenance is more than patching holes. It could be that the database changed, or a new feature was needed. Or we need to port it to a new OS

I would be interested to see the % of time spent to fixing bugs and % time adding code to adapt the system to outside changes

I'm willing to bet that there's more time in the latter

user55340

5:50 PM

Ug... 4x reopen votes currently:

user55340

15

Q: Do Design Patterns Stifle Creativity

Many years ago, I was talking with an Economics professor about design patterns, how they were establishing a common language for programmers and how they were solving well known problems in a nice manner, etc etc. Then he talked back to me that this is exactly the opposite approach he would use...

design-patterns

user41796

@MichaelT I think the edit really transformed the question </sarcasm>

user55340

@GlenH7 Still ends with a poll.

user55340

> So I was thinking if the "design pattern" approach is really something that makes programmers smarter or dumber, since they're many times just getting the "right solution for this problem" instead maybe of using creativity and imagination to solve some problem in a new and innovative way.

What do you think?

user41796

forgot my closing tag

user55340

5:53 PM

Ahh...

user55340

You weren't in on round one... could start off round 2.

Robert Harvey

The question is close enough. At least it's not icanhazopinionz.

user55340

@RobertHarvey I'd contend it is such.

Robert Harvey

Or maybe it is. But it seems sufficiently specified.

It is certainly relevant to software development.

user55340

It is a wonderful discussion topic. I absolutely grant it that. A topic for a very good blog post.

Robert Harvey

5:57 PM

It's only discussiony because it's gotten lots of views, and people want to ride on the coattails. But several of those answers don't add anything substantive. The remedy is to downvote the answers.

Ampt

@RobertHarvey says the guy with all the sweet, sweet repz

user41796

@MichaelT If it reopens, I'll start the close review again with the dup that Doc suggested.

Robert Harvey

Hey, I didn't know that people were going to turn it into a love fest. As far as I'm concerned, it only has one correct answer.

Ampt

@RobertHarvey "cough mine cough"

user55340

If we ever had discourse.programmers.SE, I'd be more than happy to migrate it there... if we had discourse.P.SE... its one of those "wishes that would never come about"

user41796

5:59 PM

@RobertHarvey If I were a progs mod, I'd delete the rest

user55340

... of the site

Robert Harvey

@Ampt hack solutely

user55340

Btw, poke at the comments in:

user55340

16

Q: Provide a way to determine which user is spamming stars in chat

As a compliment or alternative* to not refunding cancelled stars, it'd be nice if chat would auto-raise a flag identifying someone starring n items in x minutes, or at least provide a list of unusually active starrers that could be consulted when there was a problem. While star-spam is fairly lo...

feature-request chat moderator-tools chat-stars

user55340

[Goes to the bridge to star every message, just to see what happens] — Robert Harvey ♦ 2 hours ago

user41796

6:01 PM

(obligatory)

user55340

@RobertHarvey you should switch The Bridge and the Lounge chat room names and see what happens.

Robert Harvey

@MichaelT [rubs hands together and laughs maniacally]

I once asked a question on Stack Overflow titled "Are New Programmers Wrapping Themselves Around the Axle with Patterns and Practices?" It was very popular, and stayed on the site for two years before it was finally deleted.

user41796

@RobertHarvey Should've migrated that to Progs ....

Robert Harvey

It was too old.

user41796

@MichaelT April 1st is coming up

user55340

6:03 PM

As an aside... I think that this is completely wrong:

user55340

IMO the creativity is in finding an implementation of the pattern that exactly suits your particular problem, plus, on an application-level scale, gluing all those patterns together in a way that's maintainable and somewhat legible. — Amy Blankenship 22 hours ago

user55340

artima.com/lejava/articles/gammadp.html

user55340

>
Trying to use all the patterns is a bad thing, because you will end up with synthetic designs—speculative designs that have flexibility that no one needs. These days software is too complex. We can't afford to speculate what else it should do. We need to really focus on what it needs. That's why I like refactoring to patterns. People should learn that when they have a particular kind of problem or code smell, as people call it these days, they can go to their patterns toolbox to find a solution.

user55340

If you're trying to get the patterns and glue them together, you're doing it wrong.

user55340

(though adding that comment will just make it more of a discussion)

user41796

6:05 PM

@JeffO - Isn't there a pattern for that too? — GlenH7 30 secs ago

user41796

Couldn't resist

user55340

@GlenH7 s/pattern/anti-pattern/

user41796

Nah, they're just like LEGOs. Pick out a handful and stick 'em together. It'll look cool, run super fast, and scale like all get out.

user55340

10

A: Choosing the right Design Pattern

A key misconception in today's coding world is that patterns are building blocks. You take an AbstractFactory here and a Flyweight there and maybe a Singleton over there and connect them together with XML and presto, you've got a working application. They're not. Hmm, that wasn't big enough. ...

user41796

@MichaelT You're just a gray-beard naysayer trying to keep da youf and their creativity down.

user55340

6:11 PM

@GlenH7 My other suggestion was to create a script that automatically changes the lounge's chat room name every 30 seconds to Lounge: (${lang}) where $lang is one of: VB, PHP, Javascript, Android, CSS, HTML, Excel, Haskell

user55340

and maybe toss C/C++ in there too to get the "there is no language named C/C++!" feedback.

user41796

I'm game so long as you don't mess with the whiteboard

VarunAgw

Is web development harder/easier than desktop application development?

Robert Harvey

@MichaelT How long would it take the Cricketeers to disable it?

user55340

@VarunAgw heh... its different. With its own challenges.

user41796

6:15 PM

Guys, thanks for the comments, they're useful indeed and I see your points as well. — Mahdi yesterday

user55340

The Tao of Programming section 3.4 canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html

user41796

@RobertHarvey Recognize that one? Same person opened up the blatant opinion fest today of "worst decision" or whatever

user55340

> There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: ``Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?''

``An operating system,'' replied the programmer.

The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. ``Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system,'' he said.

``Not so,'' said the programmer, ``when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and…

user55340

@VarunAgw opinions are perfectly acceptable here.

Robert Harvey

Lounge<C++>

Today we're daydreaming about C++26 reflection

8

user55340

6:18 PM

Web programming you've issues of preservation of state, and possibly malicious input. You've got multiple users hitting it at once and serving all the data back in a timely manner. Typically you've got a database somewhere that you need to work with.

user55340

Desktop you've got easy state preservation, only one user... but you've got threads. You've given up browser compatibility for fighting with the windowing system of the target platform.

user41796

in Lounge<T> on Stack Overflow Chat, 44 secs ago, by DeadMG

I don't recall nominating you for room owner.

user55340

Different problems. They are each a challenge in their own ways.

Robert Harvey

Should have called it Lounge<Babel>

VarunAgw

@MichaelT Thanks for reply. So, I am concluding that no one is superior over other. :)

user55340

6:21 PM

@VarunAgw Superior implies some hierarchy. There isn't. They are application domains. None is greater or lesser than another - its just a matter of what the client asks for.

user55340

Web development got a bad rap back in the early days of CGI when everyone and their brother copied a buggy web counter, put it on their website and said they were a web programmer.

user55340

There is much more to it than that.

user55340

And just as you can make a simple window pop up with hello world - thats not desktop programming, copying some code and putting it on a web page doesn't make you a web programmer.

VarunAgw

@MichaelT lol

user55340

The rabbit hole of each application domain goes down a LONG ways that isn't always immediately obvious to the person looking at it from the high level.

user55340

6:24 PM

> There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. ``Look at how well off I am here,'' he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, ``I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self- consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?''

The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying ``The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery.…

Robert Harvey

6:35 PM

... and then they were enlightened.

user41796

@RobertHarvey I was really tempted to riff off of Waffles and wax poetic about what an awesome new language it is

Robert Harvey

That guy is just trolling. Or maybe he just wants someone to talk to.

user41796

both?

Robert Harvey

Oh, this is good.

in Lounge<T> on Stack Overflow Chat, 25 secs ago, by SomeKittens Ux2666

@RobertHarvey thanks, Buddah.

user41796

Someone already said Haskell. Was about to throw that obligatory one in there

Robert Harvey

6:39 PM

Pro Tip: When you're making a joke involving a Buddha, make sure you spell Buddha correctly.

Wouldn't want to incur the wrath of teh buddaz.

Ampt

40 secs ago, by Robert Harvey

Pro Tip: When you're making a joke involving a Buddha, make sure you spell Buddha correctly.

Robert Harvey

>_<

Ampt

I thought you guys said the lounge was hardcore... They're comparing their prescription eyeglass strengths...

Robert Harvey

[sigh]

They only think they're hardcore.

Ampt

Oh

user41796

6:46 PM

And they like to bash on C

Robert Harvey

They're hardcore about the thing that they happen to be talking about right now. They don't like to be interrupted.

Ampt

So they like C++ but hate C

...interesting.

Robert Harvey

Well, they are, y'know, the C++ room.

Ampt

"I like water but hate that it's wet."

Robert Harvey

What should you expect when you wander into Macy's looking for a stripper outfit?

user41796

6:48 PM

They ought to design a new language called Waffles and resolve the C/C++ issue for eternity

user41796

@RobertHarvey high price tags

Ampt

@RobertHarvey Walked into macys expecting 4chan. Dissapointment all around.

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 IT's called D.

Robert Harvey

@ThomasOwens Tell the folks in the Lounge that. I'm sure they'll have some choice words for you.

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey I'm never going in there, unless it's to moderate all of them.

user55340

6:50 PM

(oh, where was that awful 'D' answer that I cast a delete vote on recently...)

Thomas Owens

They don't like me after I suspended one of their users on Programmers.

Robert Harvey

I have my flame-proof suit on.

user41796

I noticed they didn't change the room name back

user55340

Ahh, Thomas got it instead: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97207/…

user55340

> It seems to me D is a C# machine code compiled version of C++. It also seems to me there is no niche for the language to fill in.

Robert Harvey

6:51 PM

omg ! you just destroyed the world as i know it ! let me google a bit and will be back, unless you care to elaborate more !... *feeling stupid — Zalaboza 1 min ago

Achievement unlocked.

user55340

@RobertHarvey And then you've got MVVM...

Thomas Owens

I'm slowly turning into a component-based software engineering fanboy.

user55340

and MVA, and MVP, and PAC, and HMVC, and MVA...

Robert Harvey

Components are cool. Doing them right is challenging.

Making them reusable... even more challenging. Making them broadly applicable to a wide variety of scenarios... Priceless.

Diagram doesn't seem quite right.

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey That's where product-line software engineering comes in as well.

Oh, new use case? What components does it affect? Fork those components and add new ones to the repository. Next time, we have a choice between Component A, Component B, and making a Component C.

Of course, that requires you to be able to correctly identify points of variation in your product line architecture...

cultural clash

Lounge<C++>

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