The Whiteboard

12:21 AM

> I was reading your blog programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/4570/… and thought that your knowledge would be of great value to our users, who pay our experts a premium for advice.

Priceless.

Shahar

1:54 AM

yo yo

Shahar

2:07 AM

is there anybody in there?

user55340

2:44 AM

6

A: Undefined Behavior Killed My Cat

C (sequence point) deadcat.c: #include <stdio.h> int main() { int i=3; int k=0; k=i+(++i); if (k==7) printf("The cat is fine. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k); else printf("The cat is dead. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k); } Execution (or not): $ clang -w deadcat.c -o deadcat; ./d...

user55340

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    int i=3;
    int k=0;
    k=i+(++i);
    if (k==7)
        printf("The cat is fine. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k);
    else
        printf("The cat is dead. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k);
}

user55340

$ clang -w deadcat.c -o deadcat; ./deadcat
The cat is fine. k=i+(++i) =7
$ gcc deadcat.c -o deadcat; ./deadcat
The cat is dead. k=i+(++i) =8

user15026

@MichaelT ....don't even think of migrating this to me ;)

user55340

@AshleyNunn Its on code golf and contests.

user55340

The bit there is the clear demonstration of undefined behavior and sequence points - which are a place that is easy to trip people up.

user55340

2:46 AM

48

A: Why was this answer hated

Your answer was "hated" because the question asked how to "Create a simple GUI class using windows.h" and you wrote a two-page rant culminating in a bit of code for wxwindows. I don't particularly like writing raw WinAPI GUIs either, but there are reasons for knowing how to write them and if th...

user55340

Yup, that's the one. An excellent reference for anyone who finds themselves in need of a very wordy explanation for why they're not using C++ anymore. — Shog9 Dec 11 '13 at 17:53

user55340

And then from the "blog post" (heh):

user55340

> I wouldn't recommend the FQA to anyone, even if I were trying to dissuade them from using C++.

user55340

@Shahar In the late hours of the US work day, it can be a bit quiet around here.

user55340

If you look at the room info, you can see that it gets a bit quiet at times. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/the-whiteboard

Shog9

2:49 AM

@MichaelT yeah... I'd be hard pressed to think of a reason for quoting that monster unless you were just trying to be a dick.

user55340

@Shog9 There are times when you need to "be a dick" about it though.

Shog9

Shining example of what SE should try to avoid.

user55340

Its an artifact of the usenet days.

Shog9

I'm sure.

user55340

Back when people had the FAQ and (hopefully) read it when getting in a new group.

Shog9

2:51 AM

heh

user55340

And these trolling questions kept coming up - people asking them, trying to get the old timers to get all fired up about it.

user55340

So the FQA was written as "yea, we know, here's our response - now let the adults discuss the actual things with the language and help people who generally want some help.

user55340

Essentially a counter-troll FAQ.

Shog9

yeah, I remember usenet. The endless battle between the clueless, the malicious, and the naive.

user55340

Nothing quite like cross posting between comp.lang.python and comp.lang.perl and alt.fan.pearl.jam

Shog9

2:53 AM

ha

user55340

I was an alt.sysadmin.recovery denizen... and some on the bofh.* hierarchy (the later you can't easily find archived)

user55340

faqs.org/faqs/sysadmin-recovery/#b

user55340

Heh - this will sound familiar to you:

user55340

> 1.2) Special note REE: alt.humor.best-of-usenet

It is prohibited to re-post alt.sysadmin.recovery messages to
alt.humor.best-of-usenet. Most ASR denizens have nothing against that group
itself, but sometimes in the past we have averaged a few messages a day there.
This has drawn the lusers here like moths to a candle -- more unpleasant
for the moths than for the candle, but we don't care about the moths.
We strongly recommend that you put "X-No-Ahbou: yes" in your headers.

user55340

... ?!?! The ballard bofh excuse server is still up? pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofh

amon

12:49 PM

@gnat You have the habit of asking users with questions that belong on SO whether they are question banned over there. I understand why you are doing this, but it isn't exactly polite or productive to put any low-rep user under the general suspicion of being under a Q-ban. Is this a general policy on programmers.se? And if so: is there some meta-post discussing this policy?

gnat

@amon no way! please do not use that at any user, low rep or not. When I ask this (if you check my comments, I sometimes add this part and sometimes skip), it's always after checking the question, user accounts at Programmers and SO

if there is any policy wrt "general suspicion", it is generally no one is under suspicion

ie unless you can provide good reasons to assume possible Q-ban, you better don't ask

Christoph

1:21 PM

I am struggling with a bad alloc exception that stopped occuring when I tried to narrow it down by adding try...catch blocks

Reut Sharabani

2:05 PM

@Christoph can we see it?

Ampt

@Christoph what compiler/language?

@Christoph My guess is that adding the try catch has changed the size of allocated space due to higher reqs on program space, so now your bad alloc is occuring somewhere else

Christoph

language is C++, compiler is gcc 4.7.2.

sorry for the delay!

I'll see if I can provide the code

Ampt

2:21 PM

Is this a windows app?

Christoph

no, suse linux 12.3

Ampt

@MichaelT @GlenH7 I bit myself in the ass by using the same timer for PWM and a 1ms timer. Found out that we are worried about EMI compliance since we go through rigorous testing for certain departments, so changing the timing could cause us to fail.

user41796

@Ampt I hear a sad trombone playing somewhere

Ampt

@GlenH7 It's coming from my cube

user41796

sorry to hear of it. I'd like to pretend that I warned you against it, but my reasons were unrelated to that issue.

Ampt

2:26 PM

eh, it's a quick fix, I have plenty of timers on this particular chip

I was just too lazy do to more than one calculation. Now I have to redo them both.

It's just that this particular timer has a postscaler which is in base10, so I was able to get to a multiple of 1khz and just time it back, which worked great

user41796

That's what you get for trying to be efficient

Ampt

pretty much, yeah. Whatever. I just want to be done with this silly chip.

user41796

Soon enough you'll be lost in airy-fairy abstractions and will have moved far away from this low-level ugliness

enderland

efficiency is overrated. c/p ftw!

Ampt

@GlenH7 I like them both, but you're right. sometimes this low level efficiency is just awesome.

sometimes it sucks, but sometimes its awesome.

I doubt they'll have any oscilloscopes just lying about at my next gig

enderland

2:30 PM

just bring your own

Ampt

@enderland Lol the one we have here would break my bank...

this thing can process CAN messages

very handy for debugging timing on the CAN bus when stuff just goes sideways

@Christoph are you debugging with GDB?

@enderland plus I'm sure they would frown upon me disassembling a perfectly good laptop to take some readings haha

Christoph

@Ampt no we're currently not debugging due to lack of experience with that. We're using the Code::Blocks IDE and didn't really succeed in setting up the debugger

Ampt

2:45 PM

@Christoph it's really, really easy

just compile it with the -g flag attached

user41796

@Christoph I'd really, really, really recommend using this as the opportunity to start learning the debugger more. You'll spend far more time putting in trace level statements to capture the issue than you would if you just walked it once in the debugger.

Ampt

then run gdb myprog.exe

@Christoph cs.cmu.edu/~gilpin/tutorial

Also, if you're on linux, using command line for compiling is probably easier than you think

user41796

embrace the power of the command line

Christoph

@GlenH7 @Ampt ok so we'll take a step back and set it up as soon as the application finished its current run (It's an evolutional algorithm and we'd like to harvest the first results, no matter how stable it is right now)

Ampt

@Christoph ooooh that sounds really interesting. You should post some stuff in here :)

My coworkers and I had a generational race with one of those browser based javascript evolutionary algorithms

it was one where it would build different cars to go over different terrain

Christoph

2:49 PM

@Ampt it's basically just ParadisEO's SMP Tutorial modified to our needs. The actual number crunching (CFD) is done on several worker machines that wait for a case to be calculated - this worked well with a dummy simulation

Ampt

@Christoph what are you calculating if you don't mind me asking?

Christoph

We're minimizing entropy generation in plate heat exchangers, while changing a wall's geometry

Ampt

@Christoph that sounds awesome.

user55340

Hmm. Had another of those "where did those reps come from" - an edit on another answer in a question that I had an answer on.

Christoph

@Ampt that's what many people say who don't have to program it. It's driving me nuts.

user55340

2:54 PM

@GlenH7 btw, command line... Taskwarrior. I showed it to a co-worker. I've got a little one (default setup) that is useful...

user55340

he did a full on "lets do this" and went head first into it. If its a command line tool, he'll give it a try.

user55340

(now I've gotta see about getting his configs)

Ampt

@Christoph Just because it's not easy doesn't mean it's not cool

user41796

Power to the command line!

user55340

taskwarrior.org

user41796

2:55 PM

The really cool things are frequently not easy

Ampt

I'm about absolutely done with this compiler and chip, but I managed to make the backlight fade in and out while its starting up, which is definitely cool

@MichaelT There's not much documentation there. Is there more elsewhere?

user55340

@Ampt Um... not really.

Christoph

@Ampt the whole thing is a giant en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolpertinger written in C++, bash, perl, and python all glued together with hope.

user55340

Side bit, I'm working on a Github issues -> Taskwarrior translation layer.

user41796

@Christoph watch out for the fangs then. They look sharp.

user55340

2:57 PM

@Ampt though glance at taskwarrior.org/download/task-2.3.0.ref.pdf

Ampt

@Christoph I thought python was always the glue?

user55340

Doesn't tell you how to use it, but gives you an idea of what can be done... in the same way "git help" gives you a glimpse at its power.

Ampt

@MichaelT I love a good cheat sheet for stuff like that

@MichaelT that would be slick.

user41796

It's weird finding a n:1 relationship when you expected a 1:1

Ampt

@Christoph honestly, those combinations of languages don't sound terrible used together. Well, I wouldn't choose perl... but I've got stuff over here using C++, Bash and Python

user55340

2:59 PM

I want to be able to "runSomeApp credentails repository > tasks.json; task import tasks.json"

Christoph

@GlenH7 I'm covered with wounds already!
@Ampt The glue role can't really be assigned to one of the parts, that's why I added hope

user55340

Or something like that... might be a task merge file:///... instead. But some way of doing it.

Ampt

@Christoph what are you using for you're concurrency library?

STL?

Oded

For your entertainment:

0

Q: which design pattern should I use for this?I find 23 kinds of design patterns but think none of them

My customer demand is ask me to design a computing component.Just like this,the component has more than three method.And customer can design which method he would use.For example,he input a value in moring he can design only to use lowmethod,and midmethod,or he input a value in evening he can cho...

Ampt

@Oded Why you gotta bring me down man? I was enjoying all of these cool applications of software and you gotta start throwing around design patterns?

Christoph

3:03 PM

@Ampt The evolutionary algorithm library I'm using uses STL threads, iirc

yes, it's STL

Ampt

Apparently I make my coffee to strong for my co-workers liking...

Christoph

@Ampt more for you then

Ampt

@Christoph eh, they need coffee more than they hate the taste, so they drank it anyway

Christoph

@Ampt students!?

Ampt

@Christoph Nah, they're all full time professionals. I'm just the intern.

user41796

3:10 PM

@Oded Please don't let that get migrated here to Progs

user41796

You could just kill it off there and save everyone the effort...

Oded

@GlenH7 I honestly don't think it has a change. 3 "not clear" CVs already.

user55340

@Oded Its a symptom of the "building block" pattern misphilsophy.

user41796

I'm a low-rep user on SO, so I don't see close counts yet. "unclear" would have been my close reason too

user55340

9

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. ...

Ampt

3:12 PM

If you can't find a design pattern that meets your needs don't use a design pattern — Ampt 21 secs ago

user41796

<self-reflection> I guess it's a bit odd to be in the top 50 of Progs users but not have even 1k on SO. </ruminating>

Oded

Aye. The good old -> patterns emerge, you don't set out to use specific ones (unless you have the exact problem that a pattern solves)

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

And then there's Eric's post:

user55340

12

A: What if I will not use Software Design Patterns?

What kind of problems may I face, if I won't use Software Design Patterns? You'll have the problem of not being able to write any software. Variables are a design pattern. Methods are a design pattern. Operators -- addition, subtraction, etc -- are a design pattern. Statements are a des...

user55340

3:17 PM

@GlenH7 We are part of the "N+1" generation of P.SE users. We weren't part of the original SO rush, nor P.SE rush.

user41796

@MichaelT True. Just seems odd every now and then. But it goes back to our conversation the other day of only being able to actively participate in one community.

user55340

(sigh) already out of close votes.

user41796

@MichaelT I'll unleash the chain guns in a bit. Banging my head against some oddly structured data first

user55340

@GlenH7 Yep. SO is a bit too big for me... the FGITW is something for the fast fingers to play and I don't feel I need SO rep that much. Nice when I get it, but not part of my drive.

user41796

I would consider chasing bountied questions on the weekends. That could work out

user55340

3:20 PM

Some of my rep is for things I tried to get migrated to P.SE there.

user55340

4

A: Object Pool Pattern in Java

Consider having multiple object pools depending on what you want to get back. What if you had the package structure of (and forgive me for the naming): com.foo.bar.AbstractTeacher com.foo.bar.Teacher // A factory com.foo.bar.BioTeacher com.foo.bar.PhysicsTeacher ... Each of these classes main...

user55340

And one is a very old prototype for the open letter...

user55340

11

A: How can I split a string into words in Java without using String.split()?

I believe that your teacher is asking you to process the string yourself (without using any other libraries to do it for you). Check to see if this is the case - if you can use them, there are things such as StringTokenizer, Pattern, and Scanner to facilitate string processing. Otherwise... Yo...

user41796

And wow. SO close queue is at 7.6k. The numbers keep going down!

user55340

@Oded something to poke at on SO: in a month or two, of the people who did 50% or more of their first reviews in the first week of the great queue change, how many are still doing at least N close reviews/day?

Oded

3:26 PM

@GlenH7 Once it hits 0, we will drop the threshold again ;)

@MichaelT hehe. Yep. I don't think anyone is under the impression that the current page is maintainable in the long term. It has already slowed down significantly since the start (partially due to having to cast at least 2 more votes to fully close each review item)

user41796

I'm curious to see how the big question (sustained reviews) plays out. Obviously, lots of folk are interested in that answer as well. My sociologist side is curious to know if the thoughts around the "insurmountable number" really were detracting reviewers or not. Or if this is just a burst because the call went out for help.

Oded

I would say that simply seeing the number go down is a huge part of it being sustained. With up to 99k votes you would still see it drop with every 100 items removed. Over that, would take 1000 items removed.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Really? My numbers have only gone up.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa You're doing it wrong

user41796

@MetaFight - your Scrum + Volunteer question just came up as a review audit. I thought you would be pleased. programmers.stackexchange.com/review/close/55525

user41796

3:42 PM

I probably should have voted to close though :-)

enderland

FFS I wish turbotax could just give me source access to fix their software....

user41796

@enderland You could always see if they're hiring

enderland

@GlenH7 hahahahah. my taxes should be simple. but they have some stupid auto calculation which is about a 99% chance it's incorrect and I can't even remove it somehow

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Oh yeah, because working for a tax software company is surely the key to a satsifying job. (for me to poop on!)

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I said nothing of job satisfaction. Merely that he should consider applying there if he really wanted access to the source.

enderland

3:51 PM

stuff like this just drives me nuts

user41796

@enderland It's one of the reasons why I stopped using those types of packages

enderland

the worst part is my taxes have like fricking 5 forms total and I'm single

seriously

/me could rant a long time about this sort of thing

user41796

5 isn't too bad. :-)

Ampt

Could own your own business. Then you'll have fun!

enderland

I know @GlenH7 that's what makes this even worse

user41796

3:55 PM

1040 and Sched A for the first 2?

enderland

it's not even like I have a complicated situation

Ampt

well, something harder than a sole proprietorship anyway

user41796

I forget the # for the lifetime learning credit or student tuition deduction

user41796

Maybe some forms for lots of charitable giving or if you sold some stocks (Sched D)

user55340

@enderland Should have seen the fun back when I worked for 3 companies in 1 calendar year and had stocks tossed in there too.

enderland

3:57 PM

@MichaelT adding W2s is trivial though

user55340

Things like "should have been paid $10k, only got one paycheck for $4k, company no longer exists" is also fun to put into taxes.

user41796

@MichaelT the alternative is they end up withholding too much FICA taxes for you

user55340

@GlenH7 '98 was a mess.

user55340

It got into formal declarations of what "unemployment" is.

user41796

@MichaelT blech

user55340

4:01 PM

If you are working for a company, but they don't have the funds to pay you (and never do) are you unemployed?

user41796

No

user55340

And IIRC, it was different for state vs federal definitions.

user41796

You're a first-in-line creditor with the bankrupt organization

user55340

So yea... it was a mess.

user55340

It was before the dot com bust when CA got its rules in line with federal.

user41796

4:03 PM

Could've been more fun by moving to another state the same year...

Ampt

@GlenH7 wouldn't that be second, after loaning institutions?

I guess you could argue that you loaned the resource of your time...

user55340

cv-plz

Ampt

-2

Q: Who is the genius Japanese assembly programmer?

I apologize for this silly and straightforward question. Once in the comments to a StackOverflow question about x86 assembly language, someone wrote something along the lines of, "You shouldn't concern yourself with hand-tuning assembly language unless you are Firstname Lastname. I searched for ...

assembly famous-people

user41796

@Ampt No, employees are given preferential treatment in that case

user55340

that one... thanks @Ampt

Ampt

4:04 PM

@MichaelT already had it in the clipboard intending to bring it here when I saw the talk about taxes ;)

@GlenH7 That makes sense, which is why I figured that it couldn't be the way it actually worked.

> Please don't downvote this question. I don't mind if it's deleted after I get the name. You would be suprised how many hours I've spent Googling for this guy.

that just begs for more downvotes.

user41796

@Ampt guaranteed way to pick up a DV from me

Ampt

The number of hours googling does not directly correlate with the on-topic-ness of a question, but you're welcome to join us in chat — Ampt 31 secs ago

enderland

ok sanity check, there's nothing wrong with this super simple SQL query (? represents a parameter):

INSERT INTO Images (ProjectsID, Description, FileName, Image) VALUES (1669,'test','test',?);

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland Yes there is - ? isn't valid for anything :P

Ampt

As someone with absolute minimal knowledge of SQL and has never had to actually use an SQL statement, that looks perfect to me!

Jimmy Hoffa

4:08 PM

Otherwise it looks right to me so long as those fields are of the right types for the mapped values

enderland

@JimmyHoffa I've got a parameter I'm passing. but the problem IS related to the parameter unfortunately, which is ironic since I copied/pasted it from something else

user55340

Explore SO data in Data.SE (and tweak away). — MichaelT 35 secs ago

enderland

man this is just not my week. everything wants to break, I'm sick, my taxes are f-ed up, i'm hitting annoyingly obscure "why won't this work" problems

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland What's the "parameter" ? I mean, whats the actual SQL you have written?

enderland

@JimmyHoffa it's worse than that, it's via ADODB in VBA...

user41796

4:09 PM

@enderland Take things one at a time. You've got another month to deal with the taxes if you need

enderland

true. but STILL MAN bugs everywhere. in my code, in my body, in my taxes

Ampt

@enderland You know I'm 2 for 2 on obscure errors being either directly the compiler's fault, or at least related to the compiler

I know that 99.99999% of the time it's not the compiler but... those edge cases

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland ADODB.RecordSet! Oh how I missed you! Wait, No I didn't. I fucking HATED using that shit.

user55340

@Ampt did you see that code challenge I linked last night?

enderland

@JimmyHoffa yeah me too. me... too

Jimmy Hoffa

4:12 PM

Gah, it's been at least 10 years since I ever touched that...

user55340

13 hours ago, by MichaelT

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    int i=3;
    int k=0;
    k=i+(++i);
    if (k==7)
        printf("The cat is fine. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k);
    else
        printf("The cat is dead. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k);
}

user55340

13 hours ago, by MichaelT

$ clang -w deadcat.c -o deadcat; ./deadcat
The cat is fine. k=i+(++i) =7
$ gcc deadcat.c -o deadcat; ./deadcat
The cat is dead. k=i+(++i) =8

enderland

I use DAO.RecordSet exclusively but commands/etc are ADODB

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland either way, ? is still wrong unless you're in the Jet Engine at which case F U is all I have to say.

gnat

0

Q: Is it technically feasible to have 2-3 aging factors for hot questions at Programmers?

I am pondering particular feature request, but before diving deep into polishing its presentation and details, I would like to understand whether the change it would require is technically feasible at all. I wonder if it is technically possible to implement a different aging factor for Programme...

support answer-quality hot-questions

user41796

4:12 PM

@JimmyHoffa No, no. That's the Jet engine saying "F U" to you.

user55340

12

A: Undefined Behavior Killed My Cat

C (sequence point) deadcat.c: #include <stdio.h> int main() { int i=3; int k=0; k=i+(++i); if (k==7) printf("The cat is fine. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k); else printf("The cat is dead. k=i+(++i) =%d\n",k); } Execution (or not): $ clang -w deadcat.c -o deadcat; ./d...

Ampt

@MichaelT what is clang?

Jimmy Hoffa

I think I vaguely remember using ? back in those days when dealing with the Jet Engine...somehow supposed to be easier than @actuallyNamedParameter

enderland

right, @NamedParameter doesn't work for some gawdawful reason

user55340

Clang

Clang is a compiler front end for the C, C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++ programming languages. It uses LLVM as its back end and has been part of the LLVM release cycle since LLVM 2.6. It is designed to offer a complete replacement to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). It is open-source, and several major software development companies are involved, including Google and Apple. Its source code is available under the University of Illinois/NCSA License. The Clang project includes the Clang front end and the Clang static analyzer and several code analysis tools. Background Starting...

Jimmy Hoffa

4:13 PM

@Ampt The sound of your head getting hit with a hardback copy of the KnR

gnat

@GlenH7 ^^^ you might recognize there some ideas we discussed yesterday, "more entertaining" and such

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland Yeah, Jet Engine shit I believe.

user55340

Its a BSD licensed C compiler (rather than GNU licensed).

Jimmy Hoffa

alternatively if you're not using Jet Engine you may just need to escape the @ somehow

user41796

@gnat I have it open and will give it a read. I might troll you with a "don't be experimenting with our site!" type comment.

Ampt

4:14 PM

@JimmyHoffa KnR?

enderland

@JimmyHoffa oh hey cool, I guess I can do something different that actually works

gnat

@GlenH7 thanks! preparing all my battery of comments flags :)

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland ok, you are using Jet Engine right? Because if you're using proper SQL, I might go as far as to say you'd be better off dropping all the way to OLE

enderland

@JimmyHoffa I actually have no idea how to check that (wow that feels like a noob thing to say)

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland Sorry; you're using Access for the DB right?

user41796

4:15 PM

@gnat Oh, I'll write it in a way that if you flag it you'll just seem petty. :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

The Access DB driver is the "Jet Engine"

enderland

Yeah

Jimmy Hoffa

it's not the same as normal real SQL and has oddities like the ? thing

user41796

@JimmyHoffa and doesn't accept comments!

gnat

@GlenH7 ha! I'll do flag message in haiku and moderator will delete comment without even reading it

poetry of flagging

Feb 28 at 16:55, 27 minutes total – 44 messages, 5 users, 10 stars

Bookmarked Feb 28 at 20:10 by gnat

enderland

4:16 PM

well I guess I can change the ? thing to work right. but I can't convince it to not throw a "syntax error in insert statement" on the insert (???)

user55340

@Shog9 Btw, I just got that spam message too.

user55340

> I was reading your blog programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/188455/… and thought that your knowledge would be of great value to our users, who pay our experts a premium for advice.

Shog9

Ah, that's a good blog right there.

user55340

(well, not just... but it was 12:22 AM CST).

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 I got that last night.

I was unaware Programmers was my blog.

Shog9

4:18 PM

no, no, not Programmers - just that question

user41796

@MichaelT Some of your answers are long enough to be blog entries. But I feel left out of the club since I didn't get anything to that effect.

Shog9

Presumably you should be posting regular updates to it now. If anyone says anything, just tell 'em it's your blog.

MetaFight

@GlenH7 heh... yeah, I was hoping I'd be able to make a better question out of it... but I struggled.

user41796

Pinning that one as evidence of official approval.

enderland

> This problem may occur if your database table contains column names that use Microsoft Jet 4.0 reserved words.

user41796

4:20 PM

@MetaFight Kind of a fuzzy question; worked well enough.

enderland

I bet "Image" is a f-ing keyword in Microsot Jet

user55340

@gnat my limerick delete was acted on faster than the haiku. I'm wondering if I should try a sonnet.

user41796

@enderland box it. TableName.[Image]

MetaFight

lol, I awarded the bounty, but forgot to accept the answer.

enderland

@GlenH7 that works. I hate my life

user41796

4:21 PM

Well, here's your reminder

user41796

@enderland I hate MS Access

MetaFight

+2 rep. woot

user41796

stupid typos

MetaFight

I love that green rounded rectangle.

enderland

I am starting to

gnat

4:21 PM

Sonnet cycle

A sonnet cycle is a group of sonnets, arranged to address a particular person or theme, and designed to be read both as a collection of fully realized individual poems and as a single poetic work comprising all the individual sonnets. A sonnet cycle may have any theme, but unrequited love is the most common. The arrangement of the sonnets generally reflects thematic concerns, with chronological arrangements (whether linear, like a progression, or cyclical, like the seasons) being the most common. A sonnet cycle may also have allegorical or argumentative structures which replace or comple...

MetaFight

it's like green rounded crack

user55340

@gnat I see your cycle and raise you an RFC 1605

enderland

so the question is, do I change the table name to something Access likes? oh who am I kidding, I don't want to curse someone else with this by mistake (ie myself in 3 years when something breaks and I wonder "why did I write [] around Image?)

Thanks @GlenH7

gnat

@MichaelT that's... hilarious

user41796

@enderland I would just fully qualify all tables & columns. It's more effort but it helps protect you from Jet's braindead operations.

user55340

4:24 PM

@gnat Note the date posted... and also the Author's Address.

user41796

Future maintainers will either know why you did it, or will change things and suffer accordingly

user55340

Bleh! Leave this for Robert to deal with.

Nov 21 '13 at 20:08, 3 minutes total – 6 messages, 3 users, 1 star

Bookmarked Nov 23 '13 at 23:58 by MichaelT

user55340

4:30 PM

Actually, @RobertHarvey could cast the third speedy delete on it.

user55340

If you get the first delete vote, I get the first chat message.

2

user41796

According to the OP's "last seen" in their user profile, they dropped that gem on us and walked away...

user41796

We need more 20k users:

user41796

> Voting to delete questions with a score of -3 or lower immediately after they are closed

gnat

"Please don't downvote this question" Oh, you mean people just have to ask to not be downvoted? Also, if you've been googling for so long, what have you turned up? Any leads at all that you could share here? — FrustratedWithFormsDesigner 6 mins ago

Jimmy Hoffa

4:35 PM

@enderland haha like I said, Jet Engine WOO!

Microsoft Jet Database Engine

The Microsoft Jet Database Engine is a database engine on which several Microsoft products have been built. A database engine is the underlying component of a database, a collection of information stored on a computer in a systematic way. The first version of Jet was developed in 1992, consisting of three modules which could be used to manipulate a database. JET stands for Joint Engine Technology, sometimes being referred to as Microsoft JET Engine or simply Jet. Microsoft Access and Visual Basic use or have used Jet as their underlying database engine. It has since been superseded for g...

gnat

I am particularly frustrated because this seeker of Japanese programmers managed to grab my last vote for today

user41796

@gnat It was a worthy cause. That blight has been on the site for too long.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa I've somewhat seriously wondered whether or not I should have just written an entire app from scratch using some UI/SQL framework

user55340

@GlenH7 I suspect I also need to get a "answers with delete votes" query to find those.

user41796

@MichaelT that's a good thought. I don't think they age off, so there very well may be quite a few hanging out there that ought to be nuked.

user55340

4:39 PM

Who knows how many stray delete votes on bad answers are out there from the old days that haven't been stumbled across since then.

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland Welcome to the argument I had with my boss 10+ years ago about how he my think access is "easier" - for actually doing development, SQL is far easier.

enderland

yeah. I do like ACcess in the "easy to get other non devs using" aspect but... that's also a curse sometimes

user41796

@enderland "always" not "sometimes" :-)

enderland

so you and @robertharvey both started doing access dev huh

@GlenH7 no I have no interest in microformatting things, other people can do that just fine thank you very much :)

user41796

@enderland fortunately, no. I cut my teeth in C.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:43 PM

I started in classic ASP/VB, access was the cheap way of doing persistence at the time, the place I was at avoided adding SQL servers where it could early on until they realized they were paying me more for the time to deal with access weirdness than they would be paying to have the SQL servers

user41796

@JimmyHoffa with the availability of high quality, free RDBMSs, that's not really an excuse anymore IMO

user41796

Of course, you're older than dirt too, so I understand that was common "back in the day"

Jimmy Hoffa

and I highly doubt that @RobertHarvey's years were started with Access; he's no spring chicken.

user41796

@RobertHarvey - Delete please: programmers.stackexchange.com/q/231367/53019

user41796

(Saves you the effort of reading through the chat history)

Thomas Owens

4:44 PM

You guys are way too delete happy, I think.

enderland

@GlenH7 that's already deleted

user41796

@RobertHarvey - thanks!

Thomas Owens

Especially for things that are off the home page and will get eaten by the cleanup bot anyway.

user41796

@ThomasOwens With that garbage?

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa Benton Harbor Basic, on the Heathkit H-8.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:45 PM

Delete happy?

1 min ago, 41 seconds total – 5 messages, 3 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked 5 secs ago by Jimmy Hoffa

user41796

@ThomasOwens - the kicker for me was the closing to his question. Knew it was off-topic. Knew it wouldn't last on the site. But still asked anyway.

user41796

@MichaelT - and I was first to delete! :-)

user55340

Heh.

user55340

> I don't mind if it's deleted after I get the name.

user41796

And wow, google caches fast.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:48 PM

@MichaelT To which I can only say: I sure hope you don't get the name, or else you'll just crap on our front page again next time you have some errant garbage thought better left between you and the voices in your head.

user55340

He knew it was going to be closed and deleted. Just that he didn't get the answer first...

user41796

ratchet freak

it helps when there are people searching for it I think

user55340

10

Q: How frequently are new questions indexed by search engines?

How frequently are the trilogy sites indexed by search engines? Are the more popular trilogy sites indexed more frequently than the others? What I've asked is a search-engine-independent question, but an answer relating only to Google should be sufficient.

discussion questions stackexchange seo search-engine

Robert Harvey

If the guy is that hard to Google, he's not really all that famous.

user55340

4:50 PM

And then there's also

user55340

40

Q: SEO in Stack Overflow

We've been out of private beta for only two days, and stackoverflow.com is already ranking high in Google Search. Are there any specific techinques applied in the site? I've been researching the subject for some time and haven't found it to be so easy Searching 'stackoverflow' even returns site...

discussion google seo

user55340

IIRC, google indexes SO several times a minute. (several being up to 10 I think)... having trouble finding the exact link for that.

user55340

Off by an order of time magnitude... businessinsider.com/google-stackoverflow-2011-3

user55340

10x/second

Robert Harvey

Thought experiment: One day Reddit starts pushing back on the crap that we won't accept as valid questions, and suddenly they can't complain anymore about the despots at Stack Exchange.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:52 PM

@RobertHarvey Chances are likely the guy heard some ruby "programmer" fawning over Matz in a comment and totally mistook it. That or it was somebody talking about the dude famous for making Mario

Robert Harvey

That's what I was thinking. The Ruby guy.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I've heard nothing that would give inclination he has special assembly prowess, you'd think Ruby would perform better and have less concurrency problems if he did.

Robert Harvey

People are sometimes endowed with special powers they don't actually have. They make this thing call Rails, and suddenly they can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey But only of certain shapes, odd buildings and they trip and fall to their death.

user55340

@GlenH7 that M.P.SE question is for you.

user41796

4:57 PM

@MichaelT Answered

poetry of flagging

Bleh! Leave this for Robert to deal with.

Delete happy?

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