The Whiteboard

user55340

12:00 AM

Thus, an MIT licensed pull is not going be problematic to your code in the long run.

user55340

Because you will be able to sublicense that to something else that is more restrictive.

Shahar

Darn it, the game ended with 2-2

Kasper

So I should say that if you pull a request, then this pull request is licensed MIT.

user55340

@Kasper That would be part of a CLA... and yes, you could do that.

Kasper

okay, thanks, for the information @MichaelT

user55340

12:04 AM

Look at some other examples of projects to see how a CLA can be written.

user55340

github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

user55340

Though that's a fancy way of doing it that gives discourse even more legal rights... you would probably be ok with just saying "all contributions must be licensed under the MIT license" because its really hard to find a license that is incompatible with MIT.

user55340

Hmm... careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/59283/…

Kasper

Hm.. "all contributions must be licensed under the MIT license" except for mine contributions :P

user41796

@MichaelT You ought to be a shoo-in with that one. Domain expertise, platform stack, and likely language.

user55340

12:19 AM

@GlenH7 I'm thinking of applying... though it involves either a long commute (its on the west side of MSP) or ultimately a move.

user41796

I noticed the location, so had reached the same conclusion.

user55340

(Google sayth 1h 43m for the commute)

Kasper

btw, this is the project: euclidthegame.org/Level1.html

user41796

Is the madison iron still in the fire?

user55340

Last I checked, yep... there are lots of possible irons down there though... especially once it gets into July and companies realize the students/fresh grads aren't what they wanted.

user55340

12:22 AM

user55340

Yep... still in the fire.

user41796

I'm very grateful my boss has a level head about what level of talent we can bring in and when.

Shahar

Michael, do you have a GitHub account?

user55340

@Shahar github.com/shagie

user55340

> The Riverside and Great Northern Railway is looking to hire for the following positions.

Weekday Conductor.
Diesel Engineer.
Gift shop clerk.
Assistant Manager

Shahar

12:23 AM

Do you submit it with your apps?

user55340

Ahh... its a Diesel Engineer... not computer.

user55340

@Shahar If they ask, I do... but its not something I specifically advertise.

user55340

I've gotta sit down and do a nice showcase app.

Shahar

I was about to say, you only have 4 repos

user55340

Four public repos.

Shahar

12:24 AM

Yeah that's what I meant

and 1 follower/starred

user55340

There are some other ones in there too...

Shahar

Project Euler

did you do the hardest one?

user55340

Again, I need to play with them some more...

user55340

@Shahar I've done a hard one that required some thought about modulus arithmetic... though that was awhile back.

user55340

12:27 AM

For practical use/understanding, only the first 50 are really that useful for demonstration of code.

Shahar

By the way, should I send 2 queries with LIMIT 1 or should I JOIN? I feel like JOIN is unnecessary for just 1 line

user55340

And while it says Java there, there's also a perl, scala, and clojure set right next to it.

user55340

Is it the same query / prepared statement with different parameters?

Shahar

Basically it's

First one: get the thread's ID from a comment's ID

Next: Get the poster's ID from the thread's ID

user55340

Do a join.

Shahar

12:29 AM

Won't make my database explode?

user55340

no - its what its designed for.

Shahar

Alright I'll do JOIN

user55340

The overhead for pulling back one row twice vs one row with a join once... the overhead on the connection is far worse.

user55340

I'd have a different opinion if it was something where the same sql with different bound parameters where the difference... because then there's all sorts of caching that would reduce the overhead.

user55340

The 'fear of joining' is something that is perpetuated by the NoSQL sect pointing at really horrendous joins that can cause problems because people don't properly understand normalization or indexes in the first place.

Shahar

12:32 AM

I think I have the 'fear of joining' :|

user55340

Joins are what relational databases are about and what they are designed around.

user55340

You can get some crazy things on older databases that didn't really do good reader locking (old MySQL I'm looking at you) where you would do a query and it would put a read lock on all the tables involved... starving ~~artists~~ writers.

user55340

But modern MySQL is much more sensible about its read locks.

Shahar

54

Q: Why are joins bad when considering scalability?

Why are joins bad or 'slow'. I know i heard this more then once. I found this quote The problem is joins are relatively slow, especially over very large data sets, and if they are slow your website is slow. It takes a long time to get all those separate bits of information off disk ...

user55340

> The good news is that modern relational databases are good at joins. You shouldn't really think of joins as slow with a good database. The database provides a number of ways to take raw joins and make them much faster:

user55340

12:34 AM

> I would go as far as to say that the main reason relational databases exist at all is to allow you do joins efficiently*. It's certainly not just to store structured data (you could do that with flat file constructs like csv or xml). A few of the options I listed will even let you completely build your join in advance, so the results are already done before you issue the query — just as if you had denormalized the data (admittedly at the cost of slower write operations).

Shahar

By the way, with the hierarchical data thing

I think what I'll do is add a parent_thread field

rather than the loop

For subcomments

user55340

That works too.

Shahar

I always hate adding more int fields, although it's worth it in this case

user55340

The 'old' MyISAM tables of MySQL didn't do row level locking and were optimized for reads... and that's where a lot of people ran into the 'joins can make a database slow' because the writes would cause problems or get starved.

user55340

The only thing you could do when you wanted a transaction was "LOCK TABLES" and... well.. there's your problem.

Shahar

12:39 AM

Wait, was that on an independent project or one at Netapp/other company?

user55340

@Shahar I worked at Netapp for... '98 .. '09

Shahar

Well, then...

When did you use MyISAM tables?

user55340

Netapp was an Oracle shop... well, initially sybase, but it became an oracle shop.

user55340

However, some things like Bugzilla don't really like going into an oracle database... so there was a MySQL database sitting over there that we could fool around on without needing to go through too much red tape.

Shahar

What the heck, Larry Ellison is worth $52 billion

Jesus

user55340

12:46 AM

@GlenH7 my brother built his kids a space ship... 2x 50 gallon garbage cans, hatch in the bottom with hinges, fins on the bottom... its part of "Rocket Park" (what my niece calls the playground behind the house).

user41796

That's so awesome

user41796

Yesterday, I was looking at the play set I built the kids. Trying to decide if I should upgrade it into a castle for them or not.

user41796

They don't spend as much time outside as I'd like, but I also am not as conscientious as I could be about kicking them off of the screens and telling them to get outside.

user41796

And I'm not helping that any by researching how to add an external HDD to the Wii

user55340

My niece and nephew quite enjoy playing outside. Note that the house doesn't have a TV, but does have several pieces of playground equipment and a tree house...

user41796

12:56 AM

The kids have been threatened with losing the TV if they don't stop throwing things inside the house, but I've never considered just taking the thing out.

user55340

My parents haven't had a TV in quite some time. There is a projector for doing movies... but even the local PBS channel now streams the auction so don't need to pull out the eye-tv thing for that. The antenna has fallen into disrepair and its a mess to try to update it (live in the country, on a hill - so you need a tower... its the tallest free standing tower allowed and that's not fun to climb on)

user55340

And then with the switch to HDTV... the old '70s antenna can't even pick up those stations anymore.

user41796

Sounds like they need a sturdier tower.

user41796

Some days I love the fact I'm an engineer.

user41796

"Oh hey, this is your problem. Let me show you...."

user41796

1:02 AM

@Ampt - were you training this weekend or just kivitching about it earlier today?

Ampt

@GlenH7 had to do pre-training online coursework

about 6 hours

i just got to the facility

wow

user55340

@GlenH7 now instead of "HDTV TV" you're talking "HDTV, new antenna, new tower" and that is much more expensive than the TV.

Ampt

room is small, but it's really really nice

really nice

anyway, off to dinner/beers/whatever else may come

user41796

@Ampt See, they're teaching you to be billable already.

user41796

@MichaelT HD antennas can be surprisingly affordable I've found.

user55340

1:04 AM

@GlenH7 towers aren't. tessco.com/products/…

user41796

New tower is generally not so much

user55340

And that's the type of thing they have now.

user41796

Yeah, I'd get a bit nervous climbing up something like that too

user41796

And installation has got to be a bugger

user41796

Do most folk use some sort of concrete pad to bolt it down to?

user55340

1:06 AM

So... you want to pay a good $5k to watch TV?

user55340

> (8) 1800SRWD standard 10ft sections
(1) 1800SRWD standard 5ft section for concrete embedment
(81) Section bolt assemblies
(3) Leg cap assemblies with bolts

user55340

And yep, my parents have a concrete block for that.

user55340

Kick it up another couple hundred more and you can get one that has 'step bolts'

user41796

Out of curiosity, why did they go the freestanding route instead of putting down guide (guy?) wires to help keep it in place. Granted, they are a helluva trip hazard, but if no one is around it that shouldn't be an issue.

user55340

Its behind the house rather than in the lawn area... the house is up against a hill. There's no room for it.

user55340

1:09 AM

The space between the back wall of the house and the bank of the hill is about 10'... maybe less now (erosion).

user41796

That makes sense. And they can certainly eat up a lot of room

user55340

The foot print for a wired tower is a triangle... thats quite big. With 80 feet, that could easily be a 20 feet out from the base of the tower.

user55340

Though, I'd have to ask an engineer about the specifics for the safety requirements for that.

user41796

Right. Although if there was any space to throw one or two of those in place, it would help the perceived stability of the existing tower. So it might be less nerve wracking to climb it.

user55340

And it means instead of '80 foot tower up against the back of the house with minimal additional wiring' you've got '80 foot tower, with wires sitting in the back lawn area for another hundred or two feet of wire...'

user55340

1:12 AM

and there's not actually that much area where its flat where one could do this given the landscape.

user41796

No site plan means I can dream all day long about how to fix things...

user55340

Hill on one side, drainage ditch and on the other... lots of tall trees too (thats part of the problem... reception in the 80s vs 2010s... the trees are taller...)

user41796

I could make suggestions for that problem too, but I'm pretty sure I'm well past any point of usefulness.

user55340

So... all that... its just easier to not watch TV... and given broadcast TV now days...

user41796

Not missing much / anything at all IMO

user41796

1:15 AM

I keep the TV for video games and movies.

user41796

Kids watch a lot of netflix on it too

user41796

There is an HDTV antenna hooked up, but it's rarely used.

user55340

(nearest town of >3k people is 10 miles away... so cable would be $$$$)

user41796

Only times the HD antenna is used would be to watch the local soccer team playing.

user41796

@MichaelT DirecTV or Dish would be potential options so long as there's a decent line of site unblocked by the trees.

user41796

1:17 AM

but again, what are they really missing out on?

user55340

Had DishPC networking some time back... and yea, the hill is to the south.

user41796

<sigh>

user55340

(you would use modem for uplink and dish for downlink... so you didn't share any bandwidth on the modem... you could get a pure 19.2k uplink)

user41796

I think it's time to circle back to "they're not missing out on much."

user55340

Recently stumbled across the "the only good programs from History / Discovery / BBC" section of Youtube.

user55340

1:20 AM

Things like...

user55340

►

user41796

The Beeb has produced some amazing content.

user55340

1:31 AM

(FWIW, submitted the application to Target too)

user55340

Important aspect there - greater than 1 year since I worked at company in related field (any non-competes have expired).

user41796

I have been fortunate enough to work for companies that don't actively enforce their non-competes, if they have any. Then again, I've always been small fry from their point of view, so very little value in pursuing anything against me.

user41796

Employer^ could potentially have made an issue, but it would been a heck of a stretch to claim I was covered under a non-compete in that case.

user55340

Employer^^ made a stink with the "don't solicit co-workers for positions" with some former co-workers... it might have impacted my chances when trying to get a job there.

user55340

(that's part of the contract... they are worried about someone leaving and pulling the entire team with them...)

user41796

1:38 AM

The Pied Piper effect is very much real

user55340

And I have seen that happen in Cali... where entire teams get hired by other companies.

user55340

Granted, when your staff is evaporating (dead sea effect) its not so much pulling people but people escaping.

user55340

However, still has a chilling effect on hiring someone if you've got other people working for you who were co-workers previously.

user41796

That puts the right perspective on it. Pied Piper is generally only an issue when things are already dead.

user55340

But again, Employer^^ was > 1 year ago, so that shouldn't be an issue for me.

user55340

1:40 AM

And I had another employer between then and now with no Employer^^ co-workers.

user41796

Seems like a lot of (unfortunate) hoop jumping / worrying about on your part.

user55340

2:34 AM

btw, @Ampt you won't be writing in the language you mentioned - you will be looking at existing applications written in the language that you will need to be able to read and understand and possibly interface with.

Stack Exchange

2:55 AM

The Codeless Code: Case 150: Undone

posted on June 22, 2014

A monk asked master Kaimu, “What is the ideal behavior of ‘undo’?” Kaimu answered, “To undo the last significant action of the user, then the action before that, and so on to the beginning of time.” The monk asked, “What about the resizing of a window?” Kaimu answered, “Ideally, that would be undone.” The monk asked, “The saving of a file?” Kaimu answered, “Also undone.” The monk as…

user55340

@RobertHarvey didn't you answer a question about cancel / undo recently?

Robert Harvey

4:04 AM

@MichaelT I mentioned CSLA in a comment.

Malky.Kid

7:16 AM

Hi! I was wondering if I could ask this question here at Programmers, or if it's a bad fit. If it is, where should I ask this?

I've recently watch "The Internship" movie which is about two interns trying to land a job at Google, and there was this scene where Vince Vaugn and Owen Wilson along with the whole team had the task of finding a bug from a program written by one of Google's employees.

What happened next confused me. The other three interns along with the team leader started writing code on the Glass. The task was to find the bug, so why were they writing code? is this just a movi…

it just seemed to me that they should be looking at the code written by the developer, not writing code themselves.

deostroll

8:34 AM

Perhaps they were writing their version of the program given to them...sort of like a reverse engineering approach

what was the program btw?

Malky.Kid

I think it was about adding items to carts.. let me check again

Malky.Kid

10:37 AM

Is that okay though? write your own version, like reverse engineering? won't that take days to accomplish?

deostroll

11:19 AM

perhaps they were writing pseudo code - its possible it looked like a modern language...

deostroll

11:43 AM

Anyway the goal is to understand the code, and the program...reverse engineering only in parts, not the whole system. And that is just one approach; usually adopted when you can't really figure from code what its trying to do...perhaps it probably in a different language. Therefore we look for similar structures - variables, arrays, etc...

user55340

2:44 PM

@Malky.Kid Staring at some code and scrolling up and down doesn't make for good movie moments.

AJ Henderson

2:58 PM

@MichaelT right, they should have shown them flying through crappy VR instead

totally more interesting

user55340

@AJHenderson ever seen Swordfish?

AJ Henderson

I was thinking "Hackers" but either works

user55340

Hackers isn't that bad in terms of impracticality... its bad, but not truly awful in the way Swordfish was.

AJ Henderson

@Malky.Kid mostly though, they probably just wanted to get to a punch line and couldn't be bothered by how dull it would look, so they did something that looked less dull

Jimmy Hoffa

4:42 PM

@MichaelT yeah, but swordfish wasn't even about technology. Swordfish was just an action movie.

it was about technology in the same way that the bourne identity was about nascar because it had car chases

@ThomasOwens I would question whether there is such a thing as being good at Microsoft Project, that's akin to being the best at painting in feces, even if you're rembrandt you're still just making a pile of shit.

Robert Harvey

5:04 PM

codemyownroad.com/fastest-way-programmer-make-money-online/…

> Can you teach me C++? and some C#? Ok, im 12 but I have already have experience with Visual Basic and hacking, CMD ect but can you teach me C++ plz?
Email me im [admin removed for privacy]

This is what about 80% of the problems on Stack Overflow are about.

@JimmyHoffa Assuming you need a Gantt chart, are there better tools?

Or is the problem the Gantt chart?

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I definitely wouldn't make Gantt chart's in shit...oh wait, that's not what you meant...

@RobertHarvey I was making jest, but to be honest, I don't think Gantt chart's are a particularly good thing, they tend to oversimplify and obscure the reality of how non-linear and unpredictable our time is actually spent

I don't propose anything better, but if I gave two shits, I mean MS Projects, about the topic I'd probably do what's in my power to try and come up with something that accounts for reality a little better, or at least cooperates with the reality better

Shahar

Can you teach me C++

user55340

@Shahar Try asking in the Lounge...

Shahar

I'm joking

Although I haven't touched C++ in a while.

Shahar

5:28 PM

Do you think it's possible to convert a GIF to MP4 on the client's side?

Or at least resize an MP4 on the client's side

enderland

5:50 PM

Almost anything is possible, you might want to clarify a bit more constraints than that...

user55340

7:38 PM

So...

user55340

watch this:

user55340

►

user55340

Think about gkoberger.github.io/stacksort

user55340

And then read atom.io/packages/ask-stack

user55340

(the feature:

user55340

7:39 PM

user41796

@MichaelT notepad++ FTW!

user55340

@GlenH7 The "I search for things on the net and then past them into my code" part.

user55340

Notice the 'insert' button in that interface.

user41796

SO and Google FTW!

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT wow... just...wow...

@Ampt how ya settling in? Getting towards the part where you'll actually start learning your way into any code bases yet?

user55340

7:44 PM

I don't want to make too much fun of javascript programmers... but... and yea, I know thats an example... the demo could have stopped at 'java' (but then, who writes Java in Atom?)

user41796

Delete vote therapy FTW

user41796

I recently nuked this one. I was half-tempted to leave a comment of "I break up the monotony by curating this site and deleting off questions like this." prior to casting the 3rd VTD.

user41796

Can I get some VTC's please?

user41796

0

Q: Pair-programming and company privacy guidelines

At our office new privacy regulations are introduced requiring every employee to protect his or her computer with a personal password. The employees are required not to share these passwords. Prior to this, everybody could access everybody's computer. No, there is little doubt that this is an imp...

teamwork pair-programming office privacy

user41796

Off-topic and is already attracting low quality answers.

Jimmy Hoffa

8:01 PM

Most of these are terrible but for the classic web-scale one, this however is a pretty spectacular one:

►

"We need you in at 8am" "If it's so urgent, why aren't you in at 8am?" "Be reasonable."

user55340

8:12 PM

> This isn't something that should be handed to a pack of monkeys bashing away at a keyboard from a short list of google searches.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT hey, quit griping about how I write C++...

I'm not convinced any new C++ has been written in the past 20 years, I presume it's just combinations of copy-pasta as it's the only explanation for all the arbitrary weird single-letter identifiers instead of unambiguous words in variables and types and things...

user41796

@JimmyHoffa don't be hating on i, j, k. Their legacy is a lot older than just C++

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 nah i, j, k aren't so bad, it's the _T and _T and w_T and variations thereof I'm complaining about

user41796

Trying to imply those aren't perfectly clear? :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 yeah, the T_ and T and T_ and __T_W crap is totally clear! Just like that tooltip I got when mousing over something to find out what it was...

I've learned type signatures are abhorently useless in C++, so I don't bother looking at them now... I'll just guess the parameters until it compiles.

sounds like a safe way to program in a language known for it's memory leaks, right?

(I plan to continue bitching about C++ until I'm done with this tiny app)

Shahar

8:25 PM

That's actually pretty useful, the ask SO thing

user41796

@JimmyHoffa orthogonal problems, actually

user41796

Compiler can tell you if you're passing the correct object or not. It can't tell if you remember to free the memory when you're done with it.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:11 PM

@GlenH7 yes but if that's my approach to getting function calls made, considering the compiler can't tell me when I'm leaking memory.... it might not be the sharpest idea to throw random types at things when you've no idea how those types may or may not get collected

Here's a fun one, this makes me really like C++:

		int br;
		char buff[1000];
		br = mqSocket->Receive(buff,1000);
		if (br == 0)
			break;
		buff[br] = '\0';

		printf("%s", buff);

in the debug window, I break right on br = blabla, and br is undefined

user41796

9:25 PM

Well, at least we got chat back.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa possibly because you didn't initialize it to a value?

user41796

As a rule, I always initialize variables I declare in C or C++, and I always memset to 0x00 any buffer that's going to be used for strings.

user41796

int br = 0;
char buff[1000];
memset(buff, 0x00, 1000); //double check the syntax

user41796

And yes, you should be able to use 0 or 0x0 but I'm old school and specify both nibbles of the byte.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:48 PM

@GlenH7 at first I had written int br = 0; and still same thing below it

and something tells me in C++ I'm not supposed to be using like membla stuff?

that's C stuff I thought and if you go jiggering with the C memory management functions in C++ I was under the impression you'll start running over C++'s memory management shit

user41796

I didn't think a character buffer like that would fall under any sort of memory management. You're declaring that on the stack after all. It'll go away when the function exits out of scope.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 not a character buffer, it's an int

user41796

memset is done on buff not br

user41796

I must be misunderstanding what you're saying

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 buff is fine, it has value etc

it's the buff[br] = '\0' line blowing up complaining that br is undefined even though you can see it defined immediately above (I tried initializing it to 0 immediately but was no help)

user41796

9:52 PM

What's the value of br?

Jimmy Hoffa

I probably have a memory leak somewhere entirely separately and this is how C++ likes to do things "You corrupted memory...I will just continue on until something actually blows up"

@GlenH7 undefined

that's the problem

(I completely admit these struggles come from me being supremely ignorant regarding C++)

user41796

So even after br = mqSocket->Receive(buff,1000);, br doesn't have a value?

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 after int br = 0; br doesn't have a value...

but yes after that it also doesn't have a value

user41796

thinking

Jimmy Hoffa

I'm not sure it's not having a value, it's "undefined" like it doesn't know what the heck I'm refering to

user41796

9:55 PM

(and initial thought is "that's effed up")

user41796

yeah

user41796

is that a direct copy and paste from your code? What's above int br?

Jimmy Hoffa

I suspect it's reordering my code and I need to hint it to like "No, you have to do this one first..."

or I do have a crazy memory leak

user41796

nah, I'm betting you've got a #define replacement taking place immediately before declaring int br and there's a problem in that preprocessor replacement which is hosing up br's creation

user41796

Undefined in this case means it doesn't exist. Which is why I think something above is hosing up the declaration

user41796

9:59 PM

Odd that the if( br == 0 ) clears, but it probably also depends upon your compiler warning level.

Jimmy Hoffa

doesn't matter now luckily because I found out a totally separate reason that Receive() call can't even be made there anyway so I'm now on the hunt for a new C++ networking library as my boss as agreed this old MFC one may not be the best one for us.

user41796

The best way to solve problems is to avoid them...

user41796

What's scary though is it makes perfect sense to me how the variable ends up disappearing but all the FP stuff floats over my pretty little head.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 or as my kickboxing instructor used to put it, your first line of defense is your legs, as in running

user41796

Heck yeah. Best way to win a fight is to not be there.

Jimmy Hoffa

10:07 PM

►

Robert Harvey

10:41 PM

@JimmyHoffa Seems less unsettling to be slammed by a couple of cartoon characters than it does these more realistic avatars. The cartoon characters are humorously snarky; the Ken and Barbie avatars just seem like assholes.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I don't look at either, it just plays in the background giving me something to larf at as I tune in and out browsing the web

though it is a little depressing being reminded I could have used my intellectual capacity to just get a business degree and claim other peoples work my own instead of actually doing my own, and I'd make a lot more money for the symbol of effort

stupid morals. screwed me again.

user41796

10:59 PM

@JimmyHoffa okay, that one was ridiculously harsh. And funny.

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