The Whiteboard

@Snowman No such thing as a pig. You have bacon and pre-bacon.

user55340

Anyone want to comment on my design? It feels dirty, but I'm not sure if I can make it cleaned.

user114359

7:13 PM

@ThomasOwens you posting a design review question?

Q: How can I roll-back the execution of a constructor while building a complex data structure?

@Snowman I should write it up. It's actually specific enough.

0

I'm building a complex tree of objects. There are a total of five types, A, B, C, D, and E. There is a single instance of A, which is the root node. A has one or more Bs as children, each B has one or more Cs as children, and so on. I'm attempting to add some level of filtering to my tree. My cu...

Let me know if you guys want more detail.

Duga

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is seeking to hire programmers. — R Sahu just now

@durron597 I don't understand your comment...

@ThomasOwens You haven't given basic information about your question

You say "I am trying to build a tree", build a tree out of what?

A tree of those objects.

Root node of type A, with children of type B. B has children of type C. C has children of type D. D has children of type E.

7:25 PM

that is the tree after it's been built

what is the form of the data before it's been built?

Oh. It doesn't matter, but it's a stream.

a stream of WHAT

5 numbers + metadata. The 5 numbers allow me to go from A through E. Then metadata is assigned to each level.

so those numbers are ids of A/B/C/D/E?

Yeah.

7:26 PM

Can you edit that into your question please? Then I'll answer it.

OK.

I think that explains it

user114359

Sounds like you need a bottom-up approach, maybe a factory to handle it.

@Snowman That's the thing, though. I don't know how to bottom-up approach this...

user114359

@ThomasOwens I think you need to consume the entire stream, then evaluate it before constructing anything.

That means I may not get data for hours...

That's not acceptable.

user114359

7:30 PM

why can't you read enough to make the object? I think there is something about this input data I am not getting

That's just not viable. One portion of the stream could flip E from not matching the filter to E matching the filter and needing to be added.

user114359

@ThomasOwens but at some point you have consumed enough of the stream to know how to build A, right?

@Snowman Every message has the metadata associated with A.

Where a message is one element in the stream.

Only some have the metadata associated with E.

user114359

I think we need a... whiteboard...

Yes.

user114359

7:34 PM

not "the" whiteboard

Gah. This is hard.

user41796

I'm voting to close as unclear.

user41796

:-D

I wonder if there is some kind of factory approach I could take, like the current answer suggests.

user114359

I think if you could draw out the relationship between the input data in the stream and the final objects it would help a lot

7:36 PM

@ThomasOwens I replied

user114359

Even saying "use a factory" is not sufficient. What does the factory do?

yesterday, by ratchet freak

getOrCreateAndAddIfAbsentMyContainer

user41796

@durron597 Needs more ~~cowbell~~ abstract factory

Feb 9 at 16:13, by Jimmy Hoffa

factorycube refers to the AbstractPersistenceFactoryManagerFactoryAdapterFactories that design patterns nuts are so fond of

I like the map idea.

Does that mean I'd perform my filtering in the get() method at each level?

Which would ultimately delegate to the get method in the E to decide if it has anything to get or not?

So I'd build the whole tree, but have get() get me the things that match the filter.

7:42 PM

Oh, you're talking about working with the tree after it's built?

Yeah, wouldn't that approach lend itself well to your method?

That would also allow me to change the filter dynamically.

well, are you searching for a particular E based on E's id?

or are you searching based on all five ids?

No. I'm getting based on properties of E that aren't the ID.

If you use a custom container implementation, you could pass a searching object that would go down the tree looking for matching objects

using the visitor pattern

That's essentially what my filter is now.

A: How do I store multiple views of data in memory?

7:44 PM

5

It appears that the core issue here is you have objects arranged in a hierarchy based on their identity, but are using them in a non-hierarchical manner. An analogy would be storing files in directories based on their file type, but searching through each directory and only loading certain ones ...

Yeah...close. Not exactly. But that gives me some ideas.

In other news, I heard that McDonalds' all-day breakfast does not include hash browns.

WHAT IS THIS?

user114359

@ThomasOwens BLASPHEMY

user41796

@ThomasOwens They have a limited number of fryers available

user41796

And during lunchtime, they can't afford to drop a basket of hashbrowns when people are waiting on fries

user114359

@GlenH7 why would anyone order fries when hash browns are available?

user41796

7:52 PM

But if you know the folk at your local McDs well enough, and ask when it isn't super busy, I bet they'll drop some in for you.

@GlenH7 Clearly they need more fryers. McDonalds' must construct additional fryers.

they have the sausage-egg-mcmuffin; what else do you need?

(the answer of course is the sausage-egg-mcgriddle)

user41796

Most of their kitchens are already crammed full. Introducing new equipment creates major logistics problems for them

I'm partial to the breakfast burrito.

user41796

If new equipment comes in, something else has to be taken out

user41796

7:54 PM

And then you get into the arguments between the corp and franchisees on who pays for what

it's a crisp fall day here; time for tomato soup and tuna sandwiches.

user41796

Why? When you could have a sausage-egg-mcgriddle instead?

user114359

mcgriddles are the ones with maple syrup baked in, right?

user114359

those are too sweet for me, they give me a headache

well, maple-flavored sugar

@Snowman that's what the coffee is for

user114359

7:56 PM

Coffee does make everything better.

if too much coffee gives you a headache, eat sugar. If too much sugar gives you a headache, drink coffee. A balanced diet is key...

user41796

And if you need to wind down from all of that, drink ~~bourbon~~ scotch.

user114359

and I do drink my coffee black, no cream or sugar

user114359

whiskey. Tennessee Whiskey.

as it should be

the sugar should come from syrup... or donuts... or bourbon

now I want a maple-flavored bourbon-filled donut

user114359

8:00 PM

I do like maple flavor, I just can't have it too sweet

user41796

@Shog9 cabinfeverspirits.com Not a donut, but damn tasty

user114359

for some reason too much sugar gives me headaches

user55340

Nov 19 '14 at 19:25, by MichaelT

@GlenH7 Maple Crown Royal + Bacon Vodka?

user41796

@MichaelT Maple crown is good, but I prefer their reserved

user41796

haven't found a good bacon vodka yet

8:01 PM

grade B maple syrup tends to pack a lot of flavor in; used sparingly you can get the taste without going overboard on the sweet

user41796

I have a bottle of cabin fever at home. Really, really good. I'm looking forward to winter time when it will seem more appropriate to drink

not a fan of maple crown; like drinking a maple cough drop

Q: How long should a code review be?

0

Where I work, we are eight software developers and every task done must be reviewed by another developer. Often, I feel like the code reviews are done too quickly (example: a task completed in five hours gets reviewed in 15 minutes). I know I can easily spend an hour reviewing a task that took fi...

code-reviews

X-Y problem?

user55340

Bacon vodka

Bacon vodka is vodka infused with bacon flavor, part of a larger trend of "carnivorous cocktails" and the addition of savory flavor to mixed drinks. The infused alcohol can be sipped but is typically used in mixed drinks like the Bloody Mary or bacon martini. == History and commercial availability == Meat-infused beverages are nothing new to the cocktail world, some famous examples include the "Bull Shot" at Ernest Hemingway's favorite haunt, Harry's Bar, in Venice, Italy, in the 1940s. These type of drinks have been referenced by writers as far back as the 17th century, including by John Locke...

two inches longer than a piece of string

8:02 PM

@MichaelT It tastes like crap.

user55340

@ThomasOwens don't drink it straight. Bloody Mary base.

user41796

@ThomasOwens which brand?

user41796

@Shog9 You may not like cabin fever then. It's thicker / heavier than crown maple.

yeah... not really into "thick liquor"

might be good in something like a white russian I guess; cut it with a healthy amount of vodka

user41796

I have to pace myself with them. Too thick of a liquor is a bit too much

8:05 PM

@GlenH7 Bakon.

So, when will Programmers get Teams?

Because Teams looks so damn useful for Programmers.

user114359

what is Teams?

Q: The Power of Teams: A Proposed Expansion of Stack Overflow

Uh...

13

This past spring, the product team held a multi-week brainstorming session where we thought about how we could build on Stack Overflow's current success of improving the lives of developers. What other valuable information does the programming community need, but is trapped elsewhere online and o...

discussion featured teams

Now that Teams and Documentation are things, I kind of wish Programmers never happened. :(

Stack Overflow is getting FORTIFIED.

user41796

@ThomasOwens huh?

@GlenH7 Hm?

user55340

8:09 PM

i.imgur.com/DGYLNu6.gifv

user41796

I don't understand your comment regarding Programmers never happening

user41796

I see what Teams provides as orthogonal to what Progs offers

It's not just Teams.

It's the new mechanisms for finding questions in given tags, it's Documentation, it's Teams.

Specifically, some of the questions that you'd likely ask on Teams (like the example cross-time zone working question) are more Prog than SO.

The example question ""How does [Company X] run PostgreSQL at an enterprise scale?" is also more Proggy. It's architectural. It's likely also DBA-ish. But it's architectural.

user41796

Okay, I can see some overlap. But not enough to where it would impact Progs based upon current defined scope. So I understand your comment now, but disagree with the extent of the analogies you're seeing.

user41796

There's a lot of questions where the answers boil down to "so what, all roads lead to Rome. March on!"

user41796

8:14 PM

We (understandably?) don't allow those types of questions as the signal:noise ratio is poor.

@ThomasOwens that's a little bit of a weird example, because it could be asked on Progse... if the goal wasn't to get an answer "straight from the horse's mouth" so to speak.

user41796

And I saw some of the example questions as being proprietary type things that won't get answered

@Shog9 But what if you didn't have to make the choice?

The goal with "team questions" is more to capture those irritating stuff that only 10 people on earth can answer, where who those 10 people are ahead of time.

True. But I do see a lot of architectural / design / process and methodology questions being applicable to Team.

And those are actually more likely to be interesting and answerable than technical questions, due to proprietary things.

8:16 PM

maybe. I mean, realistically, we're not gonna know until/unless folks actually use this stuff

user41796

@Shog9 Analogous to going to Lippert and asking "Hey, why did you guys do XYZ with the .NET framework?"

It could be 100% customer-support questions

(which would be kinda sad, but still better than folks asking those as normal questions)

user41796

@ThomasOwens Maybe I'll be able to get my SO rep higher then... :-)

I need to see Bridge of Spies.

@GlenH7 No rep for Teams.

Q: How can I keep my cat off my keyboard?

@GlenH7 yeah, well, those questions you remember because Lippert actually answers them sometimes

But there are an awful lot of similar questions that end up being speculative and fairly pointless

user41796

8:17 PM

@Shog9 I know, I VTC a lot of them. :-P

user55340

8

This is a common scenario when typing: When the family assembled for Sunday dinner, With their minds made up that they wouldn't get thinner On Argentine joint, potato^DR&FTGYB`kuhadrggoy867rt98wouth4bfgdhjlkhdsfghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhf This happens beca...

technology pets

So there's this line folks have to walk between asking "why does X behave thusly?" and asking "What were those folks at MS smoking?", and they often cross it inadvertently

user41796

And sometimes, even when it's the constructive form, there's simply no way of knowing

The notion that you could direct such a question at a team and whoever's handling them could look at it & say, "this isn't really a question for our team, I'm converting it to a normal question"... That's pretty powerful, if folks actually want to do that.

user41796

@Shog9 That could be cool - we see a similar form of that here in the whiteboard. Regulars will frequently throw our design issues out for feedback. And sometimes we'll convert those to questions on main if the scope is tight enough.

A: Corporate / Private integration with public sites

8:21 PM

I think we wanna be pretty encouraging of that too, because we don't want good programming questions getting trapped in someone's team inbox with no ability for anyone else to participate. But at the same time, this allows for you to tell your users, "go ask here" and be there to guide them instead of trying to navigate the often-confusing site policies and traditions.

11

There's no support for this sort of thing in the system at all, I'm afraid - the system was simply not designed with strict access control in mind. And I'm not entirely convinced it would be a good idea in any case. The usefulness of a good answer tends to depend heavily on the author's ability...

That ^^^ was a bad idea. But... the need is real.

user41796

It's interesting to observe that knowing how to ask a constructive question on SO / SE / ... is a different skill than what many have.

YEAH FUNNY ABOUT THAT

cough

Asking questions period is a skill that many do not have

user41796

I have toyed with putting together a session for some of the conferences I attend to the effect of "How to ask on SO and not get flamed to the ground."

And I include myself in this group; formulating a good question is hard, and I tend to solve the problem along the way, so...

user41796

Obviously, you can issue sed s/SO/Progs/

user55340

8:25 PM

thecodelesscode.com/case/170

2

user41796

But for the conferences I attend, the interest is in SO and not so much in Progs

user41796

Maybe one day I'll attend conferences where they care about Engineering.SE. Maybe. One day.

discussion burninate-request

20

Q: Ooooh that [code-smell]!

One little problem that confronts you Got a monkey on your back Just one more fix, Lord might do the trick One hell of a price for you to get your kicks Lynyrd Skynyrd That smell? It's ...

user55340

4

A: The Power of Teams: A Proposed Expansion of Stack Overflow

This sounds like a recipe for worse fragmentation than with Documentation (aka Null Reference), at least as far as the question feature is concerned. It might be a fair assumption that team members will be active and motivated enough to move actual programming questions onto the main site, but i...

user55340

Teams going inactive or lacking tooling to be able to moderate their own questions are going to be challenging.

user55340

8:30 PM

How many dead projects are out there.

user55340

Teams: where support questions go to die.

user55340

And we know how well the Facebook team will keep up with their questions.

user55340

139

Q: Is it time to re-evaluate the Facebook-Stack Overflow partnership?

It has been 6 months since the Facebook-StackOverflow partnership and mini-site were launched. Is there any data that can be shared publicly about whether the Facebook mini-site has been a success or a failure? To me, it has generally felt like there has been little, and now dwindling, support...

discussion status-completed facebook.stackoverflow mini-site

A: The Power of Teams: A Proposed Expansion of Stack Overflow

@MichaelT yeah, there's gonna be a lot of learning and adjusting here for sure... Flagging and moderator access needs to exist from day 1.

@MichaelT see, if only we'd built teams then instead of investing all those resources into that...

LUNCH!

user15026

That looks way better than the lunch I just ate (but I only have myself to blame for that)

user55340

8:39 PM

2

If the team feels it’s a question that should be on Stack Overflow, they can move that question out into the general questions area. How will this work with questions that are clearly out of Stack Overflow's scope? Will there be other "migration paths" (for want of a better term) to Server F...

user55340

@Shog9 I would suggest having teams orthogonal to S[OEUF]. A team can sign up for one or more sites.

user55340

So facebook team is on SO and webapps

user55340

And oracle on SO and dba.

user41796

That's a very good suggestion

user55340

And redhat on P.SE and open source.

8:44 PM

@MichaelT post this on the meta question...

user55340

@Shog9 I assume you recall my so account status?

@MichaelT Not currently suspended? Yes.

user41796

I think it's especially of value if the point is to help shepherd "too localized" questions into something that can be pushed to a main site. Having cross-SE team members would make it easier to push to the right site

(and yes, it's possible to suspend accounts that don't exist yet)

user41796

@Shog9 It's an MSO post

user55340

8:45 PM

Keeping my blood pressure and frustrations down.

user41796

@MichaelT - if you don't mind, I'll steal the idea and post it for you

@MichaelT so badger Glen into... Well, looks like you won't even have to badger

user55340

You are welcome to it.

user41796

jynx

user55340

Snake! Snake!

user114359

8:47 PM

wtf? no SO account?

user41796

@Snowman Doctor's orders

user55340

@Snowman there are some data.se queries you can craft if you know where to look. My interactions where becoming less positive and I decided to step away.

user114359

@MichaelT fair enough. I don't care enough to dig, I was just surprised.

user41796

Mos Eisley certainly has interesting conversations

user55340

Gnat was the first to notice when it became difficult to find dups and related questions from my profile awhile back. If you dig (and it does take some sql digging) you can find the conversations that spanned posts... Which grew more and more frustrating.

user114359

8:54 PM

are you trying to tell me there was arguing... on the internet?

good, spirited discussion

user55340

At which point it became - my investment in the site isn't worth the time I'm wasting and frustrations. So, deleted that account.

sometimes you gotta walk away. This is either fun and productive - both of those - or... not worth doing.

user114359

I agree, I have quit internet communities over drama. I don't need it in my life.

2

user55340

Yep. I don't see returning to be a productive thing either.

user41796

8:58 PM

Nothing like realizing you have 30 minutes left to put together a soccer practice plan, and then putting together one of the best plans you've had all season.

if you put it off till the last minute, it will always only take a minute

2

Ampt

@enderland I need this tattooed on my forehead

user55340

The other bit to work out: the "beginners team questions (no down votes allowed)" with the inevitable slums of quality one will find there.

Ampt

maybe everyone will finally understand!

Q: Is it time to re-evaluate the Facebook-Stack Overflow partnership?

teams strikes me as a better version of glassdoor

where you can, assuming companies allow it, ask questions of the company - but i'm not sure very many non-startups will participate?

user55340

9:07 PM

@enderland Facebook tried for awhile.

user55340

139

It has been 6 months since the Facebook-StackOverflow partnership and mini-site were launched. Is there any data that can be shared publicly about whether the Facebook mini-site has been a success or a failure? To me, it has generally felt like there has been little, and now dwindling, support...

discussion status-completed facebook.stackoverflow mini-site

A: The Power of Teams: A Proposed Expansion of Stack Overflow

9:21 PM

0

What problem is this trying to solve? I'm probably biased as one of the top users and a moderator on Workplace. But my thoughts... but: It helps you hire and recruit other developers. After salary, two of the top job search considerations for developers are team culture and what...

9:33 PM

hello everyone

@Ampt just schedule a tattoo session and put off deciding what to have done until the last moment...

ugh lack of UX/HCI design on Teams.... /soapbox

@Ampt That wouldn't help you remember

@RobertHarvey This seems interesting. Now for the other part of my question, how would you apply new migrations to both databases? — Cubia 4 mins ago

Um... The same way you apply new migrations to one database? — Robert Harvey 2 mins ago

user114359

Do it once, then do it again?

9:39 PM

Yeah, not sure what he's asking there. The whole point of migrations is to be able to do it to n databases. I think he thinks he needs two separate EF instances, but he doesn't.

Question for everyone here. I'm working in Xamarin (Mac's version of Visual Studio; the two are pretty similar and whatnot) and I'm building a small cellular automaton simulation desktop app. Now, within the app, there should be an array (say, 50 by 50) of "cubes" that change color (i.e., in a binary sense; from white to black) every second, so as to reflect the different states of the simulation.
Would it make sense to literally create 2500 different small cubes, or is there an easier way to do it? (i.e., a visual array of some sort?)

(also, would this sort of question be appropriate to ask in the Q&A section, or is it OT?)

2500 cubes would be the way to do it.

You can make it a two-dimensional array of cube objects.

user55340

2.5k objects is nothing.

Yeah, I figured not- I might be a bit unsure how to create them, as a beginner.

If I look up something like "visual arrays in C#" I know I'm going to get results for "Visual studio"

user55340

How much data does each imply? Just a bit? Or more state?

9:47 PM

Xamarin/VS doesn't matter here.

each should just imply "yes/no," I guess

or "white/black"

UI objects, or POCO's?

also Xamarin isn't even remotely "Mac's version of Visual Studio"

in some cases, 3 different conditions

also you shouldn't say cube if you mean two-dimensional objects

9:48 PM

Unless you're building a wall.

@daOnlyBG: there is nothing "visual" about the arrays of your data structure

@whatisname, thanks.

think of the data structure holding all your information, and what draws stuff on the screen, as two mostly independent things

right; I'm having trouble with the latter, not so much the former

well if you are having trouble drawing stuff to the screen then arrays aren't what you need

9:51 PM

what would you suggest I use?

you're going to have to think about how you can transform your data structure from the simulation into lines and rectangles and other graphics primitives

(I've implemented this using in a text editor and just ran it in the terminal; it worked out nicely)

OK, I'll see what I can come up with

@whatsisname since Xamarin isn't remotely Mac's version of VS (a comparison I made, regarding usage of C#), what would you say is the closest Mac counterpart? Xcode?

saying "Xamarin is Mono's version of VS" is closer to correct

Xamarin is a corporate overlord or whatever you want to call it, of Mono

Mono is a cross-platform reimplementation of the C# language and .net framework

user55340

Write a program to draw one rectangle.

Ah- I didn't exactly mean that in terms of ownership, but I understand you

9:57 PM

@MichaelT Sorry, we don't accept homework questions here.

I need a Family Feud buzzer for those folks who don't read the Help Center before asking questions.

BZZTT! Sorry, try again.

user55340

I was more getting at "the stuff to change a 50x50 array is no harder than drawing a 1x1 array"

Just add water... I mean, a loop.

(Fresh out of water here in California)

user55340

Or two.

Ah, right. Two loops.

user55340

I hear South Carolina has some to spare.

user55340

10:02 PM

2

user55340

Now, need to find that photo of a Cali dry lakebed with a spot for life preservers.

user55340

Close enough:

user55340

BTW, only people not from Cali use the word "Cali."

user55340

Blame lazy and autocorrect on a phone.

Ixrec

10:09 PM

@RobertHarvey this is true

if you're actually from California, you either say "California", or you're one of those weird people who says "NoCal" and "SoCal"

user55340

U don't want me 2 go all txtspeak on u now?

user55340

(Ghads that was painful to type)

user114359

Tomorrow is my last day at this job. I have a single task on my todo list: turn in my computer and ID card.

user114359

I think I will also take a long lunch and screw around all day.

@Snowman You should play tetris while talking to your boss and disassemble your cube so you can see out the window

user114359

10:28 PM

@durron597 I think the only other thing on my schedule is celebratory whiskey.