The Whiteboard

12:19 AM

@JimmyHoffa solo mode seems to be playable at least, I might be busy this weekend but if there's time we can find out whether my ping is a deal breaker or not

Thomas Owens

1:02 AM

This licensing thing makes me miss my intellectual property course from college.

We had so many debates there about software IP law.

Kit Z. Fox

I liked the prof a great deal, but I hated that class sooo much.

Thomas Owens

We totally threw out the syllabus on like class 2 or 3.

Kit Z. Fox

I disagreed with half the class. Of course, I had a newborn at home so that didn't help. And the prof required a 15 page paper.

Thomas Owens

We...talked.

It was a discussion class.

Kit Z. Fox

Mostly I learned that I should let other people debate about stuff and then do whatever they tell me.

Thomas Owens

1:09 AM

I want to find Stallman and debate him.

I can take him.

I think he lives in Cambridge, still. Does he still have an office at MIT? Maybe he sleeps there, still.

Kit Z. Fox

Hahaha.

Do you know GIMP?

Thomas Owens

The photo editor? Yeah.

Kit Z. Fox

I lost my sidebar thingy. I don't know what it is called so I can't find it.

Thomas Owens

I don't have it installed...

Kit Z. Fox

The one with all the tools. I sound like an idiot.

Thomas Owens

1:12 AM

I think it's palete.

Pallate.

I hate myself today.

Palate.

Palette.

That.

OK thanks.

So IP really gets you fired up?

Thomas Owens

1:13 AM

I'm really into it

But what I'm into can change. It's usually something related to software development and deeply philosophical. Like what the meaning of software design is.

Kit Z. Fox

Interesting.

What is it that makes you like to think about it?

I mean, what are the sorts of things that you like to reflect on in that regard?

If you get what I'm asking.

Thomas Owens

In software design? Or in general?

Kit Z. Fox

Well, you mentioned software design, but if there's something else in particular...

Thomas Owens

I've come over to the side that says that writing code is design. In fact, it is the most true design. Anything else (like pictures or models or prose) is just a way to look at the design from a particular perspective or viewpoint

Kit Z. Fox

Hmm. I hadn't thought about it like that before.

Thomas Owens

1:21 AM

There's actually quite a bit of reading about it on C2 wiki.

Kit Z. Fox

Like the building is the true form of architecture.

user55340

C2 us the TVTropes of software development.

user55340

Follow at your own risk: c2.com/cgi/wiki?IntellectualProperty

Thomas Owens

Yes, it is.

user55340

I still don't trust this CC-BY-SA 3.0 -> CC-BY-SA 4.0 -> GPL route that some people claim exists.

user55340

1:29 AM

@unor I would love to see someone write a bit of code for an algorithm that is patented and place it under CC-BY-SA and watch it slip into a GPLv3 project that has the patent waiver and see what chaos ensues. Documenting a patented algorithm and explaining it in a CC document doesn't constitute a violation of the patent. And material incorporated with fair use for documentation and explanation in CC material that is under a GPL incompatible license doesn't mean that that can slide into the GPL software via this process either. I wouldn't trust that route at all. — MichaelT 1 min ago

user55340

There are far too many ways for that to end up badly for the GPL code.

user55340

Side bit - for the recipes, the GDFL I'm ok with... especially since recipes get in their own special asterisk in copyright law.

Kit Z. Fox

If you have an EL&U account and don't feel conflicted about doing me a favor, please upvote this meta post to help me get a community ad on the site.

user55340

I am thinking of trying to do an unofficial whiteboard blog (using github pages) as a project... though I've got think more about that.

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT Only if the license of the post is CC-BY or CC-BY-SA.

user55340

1:32 AM

@ThomasOwens I'm wondering if there's anything even tighter than that that would be reasonable.

user55340

as in "even more blog author friendly"

Thomas Owens

What do you want to achieve?

user55340

As I said, gotta think about it more about what I want, want I want authors to be able to do and what I want editors to be able to do (as in 'people not writing original content but might submit an edit')

user55340

FWIW, I don't see anything suggesting a CC license on blog.stackoverflow.com: blog.stackoverflow.com

user55340

I believe all rights reserved with a CLA that states that authors maintain excessive rights to material though have licensed the blog to be able to reproduce it. They may submit a request to remove it form the blog at any time, and it will not be published anymore though recognize that it has been put in the repository history for the blog and unless there are Special Circumstances, the history will not be rewritten.

user55340

1:40 AM

Furthermore, edits and corrections by non-authors to the material have the copyright assignment (? or maybe irrevocable perpetual license for the edit) for the work given to the author of the post.

user55340

As in "I don't want someone submitting a correction to a post of mine on the Unofficial Whiteboard Blog (UWB?) and then when I update my original blog with the correction too... and having the person fussing about that being not licensed for shagie.net"

user55340

Btw, the thing on copyright of recipes: copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

Charles E. Grant

2:01 AM

Can anyone suggest tools for integrating code and end user documentation? We're certainly aware of things like doxygen and javadoc, but we're thinking more of things like the man page for a command line program. It's an irritant having to manually synchronize the argument parsing code, usage statement, and man page.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ixrec cool deal. I figured it would; when settings are tuned down the thing really can perform.

enderland

what gameis this? My wife is gone all weekend, maybe it'd be fun :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

2:29 AM

@enderland FPS; Killing Floor 2

Aaron Hall

2:42 AM

OK, wife shows me picture of cats taking selfies, skeptically I said, "yeah..." and wife says, "oh you think it's the owners?"

@CharlesE.Grant pydoc

user55340

2:56 AM

@CharlesE.Grant Man pages are typically a nroff format...

user55340

Roff

roff was the first Unix text-formatting computer program, the most important application run on the first machine specifically purchased to run UNIX, and a predecessor of the nroff and troff document processing systems. It was a Unix version of the runoff text-formatting program from Multics, which was a descendant of RUNOFF for CTSS (the first computerized text-formatting application). == History == The first UNIX version was a transliteration of the BCPL version of runoff into PDP-7 assembly, for the prototype UNIX on the PDP-7, circa 1970. When the first PDP-11 was acquired for UNIX in late...

user55340

At which point, digging I would believe that: ronn rtomayko.github.io/ronn/ronn.1.html would be something to consider.

user55340

SYNOPSIS
ronn [format...] file...
ronn -m|--man file...
ronn -S|--server file...
ronn --pipe file
ronn < file

DESCRIPTION
Ronn converts textfiles to standard roff-formatted UNIX manpages or HTML. ronn-format(7) is based on markdown(7) but includes additional rules and syntax geared toward authoring manuals.

In its default mode, ronn converts one or more input files to HTML or roff output files. The --roff, --html, and --fragment options dictate which output files are generated. Multiple format arguments may be specified to generate multiple output files. Output files are named after and w…

Aaron Hall

I knew that.

Pydoc is just better though. Every program should be a Python program. You can extend it with C or any other compiled language too. :P

user55340

@AaronHall perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html

Aaron Hall

3:02 AM

Perl? why would you want to extend Python with Perl?

Man, the craziness in here.

user55340

But see, you can: search.cpan.org/~iamcal/Acme-Python-0.01/Python.pm

user55340

use Acme::Python;

print "Hello world\n";

user55340

And that that becomes:

user55340

        use Acme::Python;
        Hisssssssssssssssss
        hiss Hiss hiss Hiss hisssssssss Hissss hisss
        Hiss hisss Hissss hiss Hiss hisss Hiss hiss
        Hisss hisss Hissss hiss Hisss hissss Hiss
        hiss Hissss hisssssss Hiss hissss Hiss hissss
        Hiss hissssss Hiss hisss Hiss hiss Hiss hiss
        Hiss hisss Hisss hissss Hisss hiss Hisss
        hissss Hisss hiss Hisss hiss Hisssss hiss
        Hisss hisssssss Hiss hisss Hissss hiss Hiss
        hiss Hiss hiss Hisssss hiss Hisss hisss Hiss

user55340

Perfect python.

user55340

3:04 AM

Though slightly more seriously:

user55340

 use Acme::Pythonic; # this semicolon yet needed

 sub delete_edges:
     my $G = shift
     while my ($u, $v) = splice(@_, 0, 2):
         if defined $v:
             $G->delete_edge($u, $v)
         else:
             my @e = $G->edges($u)
             while ($u, $v) = splice(@e, 0, 2):
                 $G->delete_edge($u, $v)

user55340

search.cpan.org/~fxn/Acme-Pythonic/lib/Acme/Pythonic.pm

Charles E. Grant

4:35 AM

@AaronHall, Pydoc is in the same ballpark as JavaDoc and Doxygen. It's great for documenting API, but what we need is a little different.

@Mi

@MichaelT, Wow! ROFF! That's a blast from my past. My first job was writing TROFF macros for typesetting documentation! However, when I said "man" page, I meant notional man pages. Currently we just use HTML styled to look like a traditional man page.

Doubtless I was much too vague about what we need. We're writing command line applications in C++. Each command has a zillion supported options. We currently create a man page documenting the options, and also providing some expository text and simple examples. In addition each command has a usage statement summarizing the options.

Aaron Hall

Sounds like you need to document API?

Charles E. Grant

@AaronHall, no, that's just it, we don't want to document the API, we want to document the command line usage. Doxygen is great for documenting API, picking up method signatures and such, but want to pick up command line options.

In fact we've written our own utility that can generate the docs from strings embedded in the code, just like pydoc, but picking up the command line options rather than the method signatures. However it's incredibly clunky to have the long expository sections in these embedded strings.

I was hoping that there might be some standard tool for this that I somehow missed hearing about it. Actually this conversation has started me thinking: maybe was should write the docs in XML/XHTML and then use XSLT to generate the code to implement the command line argument parsing and usage statement.

Except that I hate XML, and I REALLY hate XSLT.

Duga

8:21 AM

This site is purely for programming related concerns and answers to this can be purely opinionated and biased, I think programmers.stackexchange.com would be correct place to ask this ask question. Programmers Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional programmers interested in conceptual questions about software development. — Nimesh 38 secs ago

Duga

8:49 AM

@Nimesh While on-topic for Programmers.SE, this would be very quickly closed as "too broad" or "unclear" over there, not to mention heavily downvoted as it appears to be a copy-pasted homework/exam question without any effort or context. — Ixrec 46 secs ago

Duga

10:11 AM

Not on-topic here. Check on rules for programmers.stackexchange.com — Bill Woodger 17 secs ago

Wai Ha Lee

10:43 AM

Is this question on StackOverflow on-topic here? Is it appropriate to use a series of lambda functions to define class functionality?

I think it's off-topic for StackOverflow (it seems opinion-based), but think it may be on-topic here.

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