The Whiteboard

lol

Ah, c'mon. That isn't worth immediate deletion?

Why do the mods here make us work so hard? If I saw that kind of shit on Stack Overflow, it wouldn't last 10 seconds before it got nuked from orbit.

user114359

Bonus points because the entire question fits in the summary link in chat.

12:26 AM

I flagged it for something only a mod can do (account burnination).

user55340

@RobertHarvey its at -3 now... and I've cast the first delete vote on it.

I've cast the second.

user114359

Another 8.5k and I could cast the third

I saw Ex Machina today. It was pretty good. As claustrophobic, slow and sterile as The Machine. And with about the same amount of nudity.

user55340

@RobertHarvey but was it fresh and naked?

12:28 AM

Alas, I don't think the wife would like it.

Say what?

user55340

4 hours ago, by Snowman

fresh and naked!

Oh, lol.

user55340

Though you should look at the context there.

user114359

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/284243/…

user114359

Deleted already, so no preview

12:30 AM

Ah, that's good. I stopped being fresh and naked years ago.

user55340

Need @enderland to see that out of context too.

@RobertHarvey and we're all very happy for that

Q: discuss the way that software manufacturers has implemented to protect software manufacture from piracy

Hot, fresh and naked. Pick two.

user55340

Oh, watch that Killer Karaoke clip too...

user114359

I forgot I had to save a link to that question. Never know when it might be useful.

user114359

12:32 AM

anyone else 20k+? This needs another DV:

user114359

-3

! This works with [reference links][blog] as well. [blog]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/ "click here for updates1]

javascript

user55340

Another one...

user55340

Hair Raiser 2 | Killer Karaoke

►

user55340

He's singing "Sweet Home Alabama"

user114359

Wow I just made an entire 20-item sweep through the close review queue without a single audit.

12:35 AM

This question will be closed, not because category theory is bad (it's quite good!), but because it simply doesn't make sense and you don't know that. The reason being: Category Theory is related to Programming like Thermodynamics is to auto maintenance. There's a relation, sure, if you understand Thermodynamics/Category Theory very well, it may make you a better auto mechanic/programmer, but the majority of programmers/auto mechanics know nothing of category theory/thermodynamics, and they don't have to one little bit. Since it's not necessary at all, your question doesn't make sense. — Jimmy Hoffa 22 secs ago

(would thermodynamics make an auto mechanic better at their job? I frankly don't know if I picked the right physics specialty for that analogy)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Possibly. I'm an advocate of the "below and before" level of knowledge for anything that is being worked on (technical). You should know what the framework is doing and the preconditions for it to work right - before and below.

user55340

A person who works with ceramics should have some below and before of chemistry...

user114359

...and how to flip the "on/off" switch on the kiln

@MichaelT yes, but category theory is to programming like synthetic composite engineering is to ceramics

user114359

or hell, even what a kiln is.

user55340

12:39 AM

Thermodynamics I'd argue is two levels rather than just one. It would help, but its an abstraction too deep... that said, I believe its the right analogy in that category theory is at least a level of abstraction from the abstractions we deal with.

@Snowman I still had the tab open. I got distracted.

By The Internet.

user55340

@ThomasOwens You know you are going to go on a Killer Karaoke youtube binge now...

@ThomasOwens The Internet, aka Evil Incarnate?

user114359

@ThomasOwens yeah, the Internet happens sometimes.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa thats null

12:41 AM

@MichaelT compiler removed as it reduced to noop?

user55340

Just the usual pontification by software developers who should know better. For the article you linked, the author is using the phrase "getters and setters are evil" to get your attention, but that doesn't mean the statement is categorically true. — Robert Harvey 10 hours ago

user55340

@IntelliData some people will tell you that java itself is evil. — null 10 hours ago

user55340

I've heard null is evil. — MetaFight 8 hours ago

user55340

@MetaFight setEvil(null); — MichaelT 8 hours ago

user55340

(note user name of the second comment)

12:42 AM

heh aye

> if (null is evil) // TODO: remove unnecessary conditions

user55340

@JimmyHoffa if(null.isAssignableFrom(Evil.class)) { ... }

@MichaelT C# is keyword is good

(walks hierarchy tree as I presume that java code would, very handy language level feature)

@Telastyn @GlenH7 @RobertHarvey @MichaelT what's your rules on the "tkx 4 intarvoow??!!" e-mail post inperson? Do/Don't send one?

I'm not sending them, unless I can think of a good reason that's specific to a particular employer.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Send it. It doesn't hurt. Others may send it. Its part of the interview arms race escalation. Managers and HR with people skill will appreciate that you acknowledge that you took time away from their schedule (yea, I know...).

user55340

I sent it with current employer... in part because it was a bit of a challenge for them to get the interview together as quickly as they did.

user55340

12:48 AM

As a technical person, I wouldn't care one bit if I got it or not when conducting an interview.

@MichaelT yeah, that's the part that has me pondering. Fella I spoke with was very much the coder... though I think I'll send one anywho- if for no other reason than to bump my skills by pointing at some of my SE answers

user55340

1:10 AM

@JimmyHoffa It is a good opportunity to do followup to questions that were asked or give more opportunity to expand on things (or point to resources that aren't resume material but useful)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa shagie.net/2015/05/18/the-skip-list - I'll write on digging into the performance later.

@MichaelT aye, pointed out my GC answer and repository-monad answers as points to show my written communication skills and to stay competitive with the other candidates. Just sent it

Like you said, it's an arms race, and he did tell me there are I think 3 other candidates this week so, good to give that extra shove. Seems like a cool opportunity

user55340

@JimmyHoffa In another few years, you'll need to send chocolates.

user55340

(btw, ever see what is 'expected' of Uber drivers?)

user55340

uberpeople.net/threads/water-candy-phone-chargers.803

1:16 AM

@MichaelT 10 years from now, one fatted calf and a ~~slave~~ working age unemployed laborer?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa nah... contract for first child as unpaid intern.

@MichaelT ah yes, empires are built by cross-dynastic familial contracts afterall, this only seems the right way to ensure future loyalty between you and your fellow ~~lords~~ corporate opportunists

1:37 AM

@MichaelT what did you use to create the images? Something easy text->image online?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Draw.io

@MichaelT I was almost seeing where you were going and then you confused me here:

> That brings us to 5. Is 5 > 6? Nope. Top of the stack brings us to the end, so move down the stack and to the right. 7 > 6? yes? Move down the base level and insert the 6 between the 5 and the 7.

user55340

Incidentally, they're all png with xml embedded so that I can open the image back up and edit it again if I need to.

user55340

how do you move "down" the stack and "to the right" In the structure? The arrows make it look like you have 3 linked lists

user55340

1:42 AM

So, start at the top of the left hand 'stack' and follow the pointers.

user55340

The top one points to 5.

but down is not a direction in any except the first linked list, and moving to the right would result in comparing 3 > 6

or really I don't see a "down" arrow in any of them?

@MichaelT but the next one points to 3, then 5, then 7

user55340

The 'stack' is a single data structure of arrays to pointers to nodes.

@MichaelT yes this makes sense! Did you just gloss over the 3 and 5 comparisons you need to do before reaching:

> 7 > 6? yes? Move down the base level and insert the 6 between the 5 and the 7.

user55340

There's a data structure that looks like class Node { int value; Node[] pointers; }

user55340

1:45 AM

Nope - because I can skip over them.

user55340

Thats the essence of the skip list.

user55340

That skip list is essentially equivalent to the tree:

user55340

oh because you're on a 5 node, you just go Next and you hit 7 because the bottom list is the only true list?

user55340

Correct.

user55340

1:46 AM

And the structures:

user55340

so the stack on the left is an array of indices into the list, but after you index to one, you're effectively in the bottom list and have it's semantics unless you go back to that stack to skip around?

user55340

Are essentially the same too.

user55340

You have two options when traversing the skip list: to the right, or down.

1:47 AM

@MichaelT but down just means going to that stack on the far left, and trying the next index down, right? Or are the other tall widgets also stacks?

user55340

If you were to do "insert 4" you would go "check vs 5" (first node linked form the top of the structure)... nope, that's greater than. So we go down the starting structure and then test vs 3.

I think if the drawing showed the 5 node nested inside something it would be readable as being held in a stack structure

user55340

When doing 6, we can go down on the 5 structure, because we already know that its greater than 5.

yeah I can definitely see some very cool algorithms working with that

user55340

1:49 AM

how do you determine when/where to push something onto your stack structures?

user55340

How 'tall' it should be?

yes, and how many you skip

do you always skip 1 to have a binary tree, skip 2 to have a trinary tree etc?

user55340

There are a number of algorithms there. I chose roll a dice. That image is 'coin flip'

user55340

The initial structure was the idealized skip list.

user55340

But it doesn't have to be at all.

1:51 AM

but what's the deciding factors?

user55340

You pick a random number for the height and then reconnect the pointers.

At what point in tree insertion do you add another level to a stack?

when insertion needs a new level of depth as if it were a tree? Do you add a level to all stacks then?

user55340

In the Pugh paper ( ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/skipLists/skiplists.pdf ) he has a few options.

user55340

Once a node is in the skip list, it stays at the height it is at.

Oh! wierd..why?

how do you decide it's height on insertion?

user55340

1:53 AM

You pick a random number.

O_O

I don't like you anymore

Everytime I dig into the details I find myself even more confused...random number? Why the hell would that be useful?

user55340

Because if you try to maintain some order in the structure of it, you will have to change the height of things.

which is harmful why?

user55340

Because that takes time.

user55340

And if you can get the random height close enough to ok, it doesn't matter.

1:54 AM

I suppose... but it would be constant time if you made it a part of normal iteration

random height just needs to show good distribution?

Is that basically what it comes down to?

user55340

Yep.

user55340

And most of the time, you'll skip a reasonable distance. If you do the random height as a coin flip, you'll get a gaussian distribution of heights... which is about what a binary tree does.

I guess that makes sense; I can see that being logical visually, but it doesn't feel like it would be right, I suppose so though; it's like throwing darts at a board to pick node-locations on an undirected graph, you get a bunch of random locations, draw edges between them all and if the distribution's good you'll have the most likely shortest paths in the space you'llg et

@MichaelT this makes sense. Yeah, this really is a whole bit of cleverness somebody came up with, but you're right it's rationally a lot simpler than trees

who the hell invented them? I never would have come up with the idea, it's a very non-obvious approach

user55340

@JimmyHoffa ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/skipLists/skiplists.pdf

user55340

That's the paper.

user55340

1:58 AM

And its quite readable.

@MichaelT yes; quite modern. These were only invented around '89 then eh?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Yep. There's a trade off they have... they're more memory intensive than trees.

@MichaelT ah, but around that time frame it started mattering much less

user55340

A binary tree has two pointers per node. This would have 10 pointers per node for a list of 1024 length.

user55340

The neat thing with them... because you don't have to lock the data structure when you add a new item (to rebalance it) it means that you can have concurrent readers and writers in it.

user55340

2:01 AM

You can modify a linked list's pointers atomically so that it is always consistent as you add new items (or remove items).

3:02 AM

How much do you guys pay for your Github accounts?

3:22 AM

@RobertHarvey O_o pay?

That's for companies to do, if I need another project and don't have more available on my free I either delete one of the old ones (because it's just fiddly crap anyway) or go to another servicer like bitbucket and open up a project there

Paying is what you do if you want shit private or to have tons of projects, either case being most likely because you're a company, which means I don't pay for that, eff that nonsense

Duga

Honestly, I think this would probably work a lot better on Programmers, but rather than cross-post, I'm flagging for migration. — Nathan Tuggy 38 secs ago

5:05 AM

I made the mistake of looking at this question programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/21802/… and want to slap most of the answerers

Yannis

5:26 AM

@JimmyHoffa ChrisF took care of them.

Duga

6:42 AM

This question is probably too open-ended for StackOverflow - Programmers.StackExchange will probably have several discussions relating to the pros and cons of the various client-server architectural types. — StuartLC 38 secs ago

This question is probably too broad for Programmers too, especially since it seems to have at least four separate questions in it. @user1970395 The really short answer is that if the DAL is implemented well, it can have all those benefits, but most of those are side effects of the key benefit that is decoupling your app code from the database. If your main concern is performance, then it might be worth editing this question to focus primarily on the "How can a DAL improve performance?" aspect; that I think would be a good candidate for migration to for Programmers.SE. — Ixrec 58 secs ago

MetaFight

10:28 AM

My thunder, stolen: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/284215/…

I thought I had made a pretty clever joke ;)

Q: Why are so many things around us rectilinear?

12:34 PM

>_< @GlenH7

0

If you look at the man-made objects around you, you will see that almost all of them are either rectangular, or parallel and perpendicular. There are a few circles here and there, but the overwhelming trend in basically everything humans make now is the rectangle. This is true from the computer u...

mechanical-engineering structural-engineering design engineering-history geometry

Didn't we talk about this in here? Where I was talking about this NPR story that was about this, how it such shapes were easier to manufacture and build up in the past, but how newer 3D printing technology is changing that, and engineers need to have more of an artistic-design side for some products?

1:07 PM

A few companies have been sent me information about job postings. Just to learn more, I've inquired. The biggest turn-off so far has been that no one has provided education benefits that come anywhere close to what I have today. It's kind of sad.

@ThomasOwens What do you have today?

@durron597 For a graduate degree, $25,000/calendar year and $65,000/degree program, paid up-front by the company, billed to me if I fall below a certain grade or GPA. The degree can be anything - doesn't have to be related to my current job.

Certain fees are excluded, and books aren't covered. Only tuition is.

@ThomasOwens That's nuts.

Oh, and multiple degrees are allowed. So I can get multiple MS degrees, or an MS and an MBA, or whatever. PhD programs require approvals up some high level, since it usually means a leave.

Certainly, golden handcuffs!

1:15 PM

@durron597 I can leave the company at any time. No commitments.

PhD programs may have a commitment, though. They are special.

@ThomasOwens Golden carrot, I mean.

The only limit is one degree at a time. So I can't be enrolled in two separate MS programs at once.

We're better than Starbucks, and have been for longer..

Is that your company?

Yeah.

Btw I'm flagging some high view STCI questions for historical lock this AM. Only one flag per question this time though :)

1:18 PM

I saw. Thanks.

1:34 PM

@ThomasOwens whee deputy badge. Thanks STCI!

André

Congratz @durron597 :)

user55340

1:48 PM

@durron597 remember to endeavor to clean them up before locking. (Raw links for example)

user41796

@ThomasOwens Probably yes, or a related theme. There's a number of things wrong with that Engineering post, so I'm fine with it remaining closed.

user41796

@ThomasOwens That's probably the most generous program I've heard of. So you definitely have something going for you there.

@GlenH7 Yeah. I'm not expecting anything close. But one company was $5,000/calendar year, had to be related to my field, and required manager approval. $5000 is a little more than one semester, so I'd be paying for 1/2 to 2/3 of the degree program on my own.

user41796

Yeah, for the colleges in your neck of the woods, that barely gets you in the door.

I cost evaluated the MSIT-Software Engineering Management at CMU and the MS-Engineering Management at Tufts University.

user55340

1:54 PM

@Snowman how about this non golf:

Q: Draw an Image as a Voronoi Map

I could probably afford a lot of schools at their rate, but having a BS that's modeled after course content in MS programs limits a lot of options.

user55340

81

Credits to Calvin's Hobbies for nudging my challenge idea in the right direction. Consider a set of points in the plane, which we will call sites, and associate a colour with each site. Now you can paint the entire plane by colouring each point with the colour of the closest site. This is called...

In order to get an MS that actually adds value, I need to go to a niche school. Something like a CMU or a Tufts or an MIT or Northeastern.

user41796

It's just another few letters after your name... :-)

I wonder if I can get all 26 letters after my name. What can give me a Z?

user41796

1:58 PM

Some of the security ones?

Maybe.

user55340

The quick Thomas Owens jumped over the lazy fox?

user55340

Pangram

A pangram (Greek: παν γράμμα, pan gramma, "every letter") or holoalphabetic sentence for a given alphabet is a sentence using every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding. The best known English pangram is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." It has been used since at least the late 19th century, was utilized by Western Union to test Telex / TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability, and is now used by a number of computer programs (most notably...

Q: What are some things you have read that inspired and guided you as a programmer?

@MichaelT I only have 3k rep. Not a lot I can do to clean up poor answers, and @ThomasOwens told me not to separately flag answers.

user55340

Edit them to be reasonable quality. Down vote bad ones. Ask for delete votes for awful ones. Then flag.

user55340

2:09 PM

While there is the it is intended to be frozen in time, we should avoid freezing our crap in time. Historical locks are partly for preserving what we want to save.

user55340

... Not what we should delete with fire.

user55340

Speaking of deleting with fire... Could we review the lock on:

user55340

32

For example, being a beginner, I find a lot of inspiration and direction from reading this post by Bryan Woods.

learning self-improvement books inspiration

user55340

It has many tags which would impede the deletion of those tags.

user55340

@ThomasOwens btw, that audiobook- wiki lock instead?

2:16 PM

@MichaelT Ohh. Although I think historical tends to imply "we don't want this anymore".

I'm not sure that we want to promote curation of something that is so off-topic.

@MichaelT These are questions that have high SEO (high views) and are clearly off topic - but they serve to drive traffic. It's not so important that they have high quality just as long as they drive traffic and have a huge banner of "this question is not actually on topic"

user55340

They drive traffic and inform new users about quality standards from what they see on that first visit.

@MichaelT I believe (and I am aware this is a belief, there isn't really a way to prove it) that it doesn't matter so much.

user55340

No matter how ugly our basement - we should make it presentable if users are entering through the cellar door... Otherwise their next question may be relegated to the basement too.

@MichaelT You mean the outhouse? ;)

2:21 PM

@MichaelT I'm all for removing things that aren't presentable. But I don't see anything terribly bad about any remaining answers in that question and don't want to encourage curation.

I agree these locked questions should be held to a minimum standard... but that's it. A minimum standard.

user55340

Having non raw links, proper code format and the like is something all posts should have. We should take special care to make sure these highly visible old posts do not reflect badly on our expectations before freezing then.

@MichaelT I agree with that. I've been doing what I can to aid in the cleanup.

Anaryl

hello there - i am not sure if i am in the right place ... i was hoping to ask a quick question as i think ive expended all my brain capital for the day ... hides

@Anaryl Welcome to The Whiteboard. We are usually pretty understanding here.

user55340

2:28 PM

@Anaryl ask away. The worst we'll likely say is "I don't know either"

user41796

@MichaelT No, the worst we'll say is "Have you accepted Haskell into your heart?"

2

user55340

@GlenH7 you saw my comment about maven?

user41796

Saw it, didn't really have enough experience with it for it to fully register

you know you need your morning coffee when you go to type in your password and your fingers simply mash 3 of them together into one incoherent mess

@MichaelT have you ever considered a career in software sales?

Anaryl

I am but a humble newb *holds hat* ... i just have but a simple R question, I am trying to subset data based on string/categorical type variable, i should know this but i keep drawing a blank, and the google searches are kinda fruitless.

So I make a new variable in the data frame which is basically based on the players input device which is joystick mouse or gamepad, then I try and call that thru subset but R studio says no

2:31 PM

so you have an object and need to find out the type?

is R an OO language? Haven't ever used it

user55340

chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/info/106/r

no, that's not for help

Q: Selecting a subset where a categorical variable (column) can have 2 values

2

My data consists of frequency tables listed under each other for different models and scenario's (ie variables). I want to make selections of this database to make graphs for each subset. Most of my variables are categorical and texts (eg weather, scenario). I couln't find a way to allow multiple...

r

R Public

A general room for discussion of all things about and related ...

user55340

... I don't know either... Have you considered Haskell?

Q: R- how subset lines of data based on column values in a data frame

2:32 PM

-1

I would like to plot things like (where C is column): C4 vs C2 for all similar C1 and C1 vs C4 for all similar C2 The data frame in question is: C1 C2 C3 C4 1 2012-12-28 0 NA 10773 2 2012-12-28 5 NA 34112 3 2012-12-28 10 NA 30901 4 2012-12-28 0 NA 12421 5 ...

r plot extract subset

3

Q: How do I filter a data.frame in R by categorical variable?

Just learning R. Given a data.frame in R with two columns, one numeric and one categorical, how do I extract a portion of the data.frame for usage? str(ex0331) 'data.frame': 36 obs. of 2 variables: $ Iron : num 0.71 1.66 2.01 2.16 2.42 ... $ Supplement: Factor w/ 2 levels "Fe3","Fe4"...

r statistics data.frame

user55340

@Ampt my search fu on mobile is severely compromised.

Any of those help?

@MichaelT All good, got your back!

You know, the earlier you get here, the less cynical we are. look at how helpful we're trying to be

@Ampt It also helps to have no Jimmy Hoffa to stick the knife in deeper

2

where is that haskell wielding fiend

Anaryl

2:35 PM

stackoverflow.com/questions/23122771/… kind of like this.

okay but those arent exactly what i am looking for - but i think they have prodded my brain into kicking over

I think. but also thank you!

enderland

@Ampt it's more or less functional, afaik

I actually couldn't stand working with R since it was not "real" programming to me

3:28 PM

@Ampt hey I fixed somebody's question completely yesterday when everyone else was just trying to slough him off, I can be a helpful and positive

Very positive person here!

It's raining outside and I'm still optimistic!

@enderland R is more a DSL than a functional language, like SQL; declarative sure, but very focused on a particular thing so it does it well and doesn't have a great deal of extra behaviours, including not really having many functional like behaviours. It's like math more than anything from what I've seen

(I haven't really worked with it particularly)

I have been thru some good videos on UML here, But am looking for some case study other than ATM system ):

Can somebody help me on finding such resource?

@JimmyHoffa awesome at what it does but turing tarpit for things it isn't good at?

@overexchange have you tried realizing UML is trying to kill you slowly with diagrams?

@ratchetfreak this is my grep of it, having not worked with it

No

@overexchange on the bright side your demise will be well documented

3:36 PM

In real time, Do we just use usecase/sequence/class diagrams?

user55340

I sneak out of meetings when uml diagrams show up.

ok

they are nice for management but the ones actually coding have nearly no use for them

ok

sequence diagrams look crucial to me, to understand wht your code does

user55340

thecodelesscode.com/case/137?topic=UML

user41796

3:39 PM

UML is convenient enough for discussing high level class structure. But really falls apart when you need to get down to details.

All this UML hate makes me cry.

It probably stems from people not using UML properly.

user41796

@ThomasOwens Not hatred, or at least not from me

user41796

Just recognizing that it has a specific arena for usefulness

user55340

Find a place where UML is used properly, and you will find unicorns in front of the lobby.

here is a video series wth case study that try relates how UML leads to coding, he used this approach when he worked for apple

3:41 PM

they are good for quick whiteboard brainstorms but not much more

@ratchetfreak MDA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkC7HKtiZC0&list=PLGLfVvz_LVvQ5G-LdJ8RLqe-ndo7QITYc - UML
youtube.com/…  - OOD
youtube.com/…  - Desgn pattern
youtube.com/… - Code refact
youtube.com/… - Java algo

But you're generally right. UML as sketches and notes tends to work better than fully detailed models for most people.

user55340

High level concepts and relations. They fall apart as soon as code hits the ide and it's been refactored once... Because no one updates the uml and things get hairy for all the lines.

the only way to use UML properly is to not use it

3:45 PM

and updating uml to remain current is a time sink that no-one wants to deal with

user41796

@ThomasOwens Of the projects I worked on with Rational Software Architect and the ability to derive and build classes from the UML, it was generally a "one time only" step. Once the developers got their hands on the autobuilt classes, it was impossible to keep the UML model in synch with the actual code.

user55340

The only people who used them at Employer^^ were the "architecture" team... Some ivory tower ideal that they never cared about past the first pass of the design document.

anyone that uses UML to actually generate code should be banned from computers for life and forced to work as a blacksmith

UML's diagrams from architect and programmers code them, correct?

@GlenH7 That's a misuse of the tool. I've never used Software Architect, but Rhapsody has forward and reverse engineering.

3:46 PM

or a horseshoer

It even plugs into IDEs to make it easy to update the Rhapsody project.

@whatsisname doing it once after the general design is fine but doing is constantly ...

i think doing it once isn't fine because whoevers using it is clearly not thinking straight

user41796

@ThomasOwens Well, RSA intended for the architects to lay "everything out" and then keep updating based upon continued design

user55340

There is eclipse... Who are these mythical places (with unicorns) who give developers costly non-free IDEs?

3:47 PM

why do we get into scenarios like, at coding stage, one needs to update UML diagrams?

@ratchetfreak Forward and reverse engineering is part of model-driven architecture, which has seen success in some industries.

user41796

but lots of changes made directly to the classes wouldn't port back into the model.

user41796

And also keep in mind that this was a while ago. The RSA code to generate was fairly stable, but limited to Java only.

@GlenH7 Rhapsody supports C++ and Java for everything. There's some support for C, but I've never even looked at that beyond seeing the option.

user55340

... And costs how much?

3:50 PM

@MichaelT Rhapsody? Too much. I wanted to evaluate Enterprise Architect. It's like 15% of the cost of Rhapsody, even after buying a ton of plugins and extra support.

Based on the demos and reviews, it's just as fully featured, if not more so.

And also plugs into IDEs.

user55340

Which is how much more than eclipse?

Enterprise Architect is between $150-$700 depending on the license, with discounts for bulk purchases. But I think having a tool like that is worth it if you're doing MDA.

In fact, you really can't do MDA without the tood.

MDA stands for?

user55340

Companies that have tons of code are trying to have their devs on machines with 8gb of ram and cut every corner. 50-100 * $150-700 = $$$$

@overexchange Model-Driven Architecture. It's sometimes called Model-Driven Engineering.

@MichaelT You don't need a license for every developer.

user55340

3:53 PM

Companies that are "agile" eschew any documents at all.

We have a size of about 40 software engineers. We would have gotten 5 floating licenses at $775/license.

user55340

Startups and those who want to have a startup atmosphere avoid anything that takes dev time away from code or ping pong.

@ThomasOwens model driven engineering leads to object oriented programming, correct?

@overexchange Usually, yes. That's what most tools are built around.

But at a higher level, not necessarily. Take a look at MATLAB/Simulink. You can generate C code, which isn't autogenerated, and that can fit into an MDA approach.

Alternatively, in your model, you can have pieces that aren't autogenerated at all. It's harder to keep in sync, but if you have well-defined interfaces, they become black boxes.

@ThomasOwens How can one think of other than "model driven engineering"? I think any complex/simple system is made of objects. Is there any other kind of engineering that people practice?

3:56 PM

@MichaelT When I interviewed at Google, I walked by one of their game rooms at lunch. There were two people playing Smash Bros Game cube, two people playing FIFA, and 6 people playing ping pong and at least 4 others watching/waiting on line to play ping pong. That is all of the people that were in the game room

@overexchange Component-based engineering is an option.

component is package in java terms, correct?

Component-based software engineering

No.

It's much higher level than that.

Component-based software engineering (CBSE) (also known as component-based development (CBD)) is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns in respect of the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a given software system. It is a reuse-based approach to defining, implementing and composing loosely coupled independent components into systems. This practice aims to bring about an equally wide-ranging degree of benefits in both the short-term and the long-term for the software itself and for organizations that sponsor such software. Software engineerin...

But UML also talks about component diagrams, where UML is used for model driven engg

True. But take a look at the holiday reservation system in that Wikipedia article.

3:59 PM

Simulink is a pox upon humanity

CreditCardBilling could be a Java software package, CarRes could be a Ruby app, AirRes could be a Python app.