The Whiteboard - 2013-08-26

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12:52 AM

0

Q: I don't know how to solve problems while everybody does

I'm on my third semester of studying programming and I'm starting to have my doubts that I'm not good enough for this. When I get homework and we need to create a code to solve something, everyone does it so fast and great, while I have NO idea what to do and have to ask for help from someone who...

code problem-solving

user image

5

Q: Should we have an "agony aunt" tag?

I can't help feeling that some of the questions on the site are opportunities to offload to a listening pair of ears (or thousands of pairs of ears as the case may be). I'm thinking in particular of this question: Should I take leave before office function? As Oded says in his comments, and I d...

discussion on-topic-definition tags

1:48 AM

my second

meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/help/badges/52/yearling

2

2 hours later…

4:06 AM

sup

user20683

4:27 AM

@MattD not much

1:28 PM

@JimmyHoffa Have you ever coded in ruby? (I know, I'm a software hipster). I was looking at code blocks last night and was wondering if they are somewhat analogous to monads?

user55340

1:54 PM

@gnat I've noticed that Community acts rather quickly when a question is moved into conditions for automatic deletion. Sometimes all it takes is one downvote on a meh answer to get it to clean up automatically (no delete votes necessary). I'll see about writing up a query at some point for how borderline questions that just need a few downvotes to delete.

user55340

For example programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/124408/… and programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/138635/… (its deleted) only required a downvotes on the answer to encourage Community to clean it up.

2:08 PM

@MichaelT interesting! I also noticed that. Would be fun to try the query like you're talking about

Off-topic? Isn't this a general programming related "forum"? — Gunnar Torfi Steinarsson 1 hour ago

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45

A: Shouldn't "off-topic" be only about... off-topic?

History Over time, some close reasons that were carefully named came to be re-interpreted, and ultimately, misused. Example: Too Localized. Other carefully-chosen names repeatedly caused conflict due to the difference between the everyday meaning of the word and the Stack Exchange meaning o...

@gnat Yay, more things about that!

I said something similar back in June.

2:26 PM

@ThomasOwens I see I already upvoted it. And even the answer from the same guy whom I target my bounty to now. Okay, I know now where to put my next bounty after one I plan for Nicol's answer :)

After awarding current one, my second exemplary answer bounty here will probably go to this post. I even already picked a hit-phrase to use in the coming bounty message: "Can new users get used to it? Certainly. But that's incredibly stupid. Remember: we instituted the new system to make it easier for new users. To give them better, more easily digestible close messages. If they have to get used to oddball wording in order to understand things, then the system has failed." — gnat yesterday

2:46 PM

@Ampt No I haven't, but I sincerely doubt code "blocks" are analogous to monads. It sounds like a closure to me off hand, I'll take a poke. A monad is a kleisli triple

yeah that's just a lambda function; a closure; a delegate; a higher order function, whatever you want to call it

err first class function not higher order

though generally it takes higher order functions to use first class functions

it's nothing special

Nothing special. Gotcha.

@Weston.h Telastyn's answer is quite good, there's not much more to say other than "Yes you're just writing C# in F#, and that won't do you any benefit."

Should I pass down a connection to the lowest level classes that care through the above layers, or make some static way to get that connection so that the lowest level classes can access it directly?

it seems odd that I would have to pass it all the way down, but I'm not sure about the best way to do a singleton in python for the low level classes to access the connection

@Ampt Do you have an abstraction interface over the connection?

Well it's an abstract class yes

there are two different intializations depending on whether it's a local socket or a remote (internet) socket

but after that they are identical to the low level classes

so the send method in the connection is in the actual abstract class

3:00 PM

Pass the abstract base class around, or use an IoC container

github.com/rande/python-simple-ioc

code.google.com/p/pinsor

external dependencies are a no go for me. we have a VERY tightly controlled environment

@Weston.h I keep passing by comments about "IoC isn't necessary in python" do you know anything about why that belief may be?

@Ampt Been there before, is it because of licensing? Because a little script is hardly an "external dependency" when you just package the small script into your own code

Stability and long term backwards support (like 7+ years backwards support)

Then pass it down from the top

don't make your stack too deep though

yeah I'm at 3 layers now. Might end up between 4-5

3:03 PM

think about your entry point, and count how many layers of methods you are from there as you go, when you start getting too deep, start flatting some of the layers making upper portions make more calls

(if you don't count interface and concrete as two seperate layers)

4-5 from entry point (service interface or executable main or what have you) is good

nah they aren't

awesome. Finally getting a half decent design out of this I think, and none to soon either, as this project is ending in 2 weeks

when you get 7+ start to beware, 10 is a safe maximum in my opinion, but people have varying stomachs for that stuff

I'd prefer not to get that deep.

trying to model the hardware in as few layers as possible to keep things nice and flat

user55340

3:05 PM

For the badge hunters - data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/128576/… is a fun query to run.

good, I generally don't

but 10 is still debuggable, over 10 tracing issues becomes a pain

You generally don't get that deep or keep things nice and flat?

@Ampt I generally don't get to 10 layers when I can help it, but working in a team everyone get's a say in the design, I only start to whinge around 7 and at 10 I'll start poking people in the eyes if they want to go further

I've worked in lots of code that handily goes 20+ layers without a care, many developers tend to love just stacking more shit deeper down. It makes debugging an enormous pain as well as understanding what any one method call does because it calls so much more shit so far down, which makes maintainability a mess because you can't just swap out a method without significant analysis effort to know exactly the whole scope of it's effects

But people aren't taught to recognize those things as problems, many people just think that's the job and fight alternatives as not what they're used to

3:22 PM

Haha our main system easily has 20+ layers. Theres a DBUS in there, abstracted layers of messages, datums and just about anything else we could abstract

it makes debugging borderline impossible unless you know the system top to bottom

user55340

3:37 PM

@gnat prototype data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/133010/cliff-questions

@JimmyHoffa I think I've finally figured out this design, and it includes factories. I knew that would make you all warm and fuzzy inside :D

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@MichaelT testing in progress... One thing for sure, there are many that are semantically on the cliff; keeping life more because of random upvotes (eg from asker). Wonder if deletion heuristics will kick in in my test cases

@Ampt I wrote a factory last week. Design patterns aren't problems (though they can be), but they're not solutions either, which is the problem people have that bugs me.

user55340

@gnat I should point out that sometimes you find a good answer in there too. I need to work at adding useful parameterization to the query.

Well in this case the Factory ended up being the perfect fit for my problem. Lets me not have to pass in the same two parameters to each new object I create within the device

user55340

3:54 PM

I'm going to see about trying to get the close reason in there too.

@MichaelT I noticed. My guess is, you'd better keep some limit for MaxAnswerLength, like 200-300 chars

user55340

I got close reason in there. That does help (I try to stay away from dups - even though they are meh and ignored they still help google SEO).

this month (or maybe even this year? need to search MSO) in closed date (2013-08-...) also may lead to some disappointment;

@MichaelT one, maybe even two months is probably too early for mark and sweep to kick in

Garbage collection (computer science)

In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The garbage collector, or just collector, attempts to reclaim garbage, or memory occupied by objects that are no longer in use by the program. Garbage collection was invented by John McCarthy around 1959 to solve problems in Lisp. Garbage collection is often portrayed as the opposite of manual memory management, which requires the programmer to specify which objects to deallocate and return to the memory system. However, many systems use a combination of approaches, including other techniques such as s...

user55340

4:10 PM

@gnat I've seen the sweep happen in hours.

@MichaelT interesting! I think I found a "specification" that may explain this...

68

A: Enable automatic deletion of old, unanswered zero-score questions after a year?

Just to formally document the exact policies we have in place to remove old abandoned / dead questions: If the question is more than 30 days old, and ... has −1 or lower score has no answers is not locked ...or... it was closed and migrated to a different site ... it will be automaticall...

**If the question was closed more than `9` days ago, and ...**

- not closed as a duplicate
- has a score of 0 or less
- is not locked
- has no answers with a score > 0
- has no accepted answer
- has no pending reopen votes
- has not been edited in the past `9` days

... it will be automatically deleted.

This check is run every day across all sites.

user55340

Thats the one I was thinking of...

user55340

I need to filter out the accepted answer.

I want to write a query that looks for "bad" (closed, down voted) questions that won't be cleaned up automatically. Haven't had the time yet, though.

In other words, closed and negatively scored questions that have accepted or positive scored answers, optionally with reopen votes.

@MichaelT I think you rather need to "split" than filter out. :) I mean, give part without accepted answers to me, and give the rest (part that is keeping on the cliff only due to having accepted answer) to @ThomasOwens

4:21 PM

From a housekeeping perspective, there's no point in looking for questions that will get automatically cleaned up. You want to look for the ones that are almost bad enough but not quite and then obliterate them from above.

user55340

@ThomasOwens Once I get this query nice, the inverse of it should be helpful for that.

@MichaelT It's not the total inverse. The exact inverse is a list of all good questions.

user55340

Well, the things that I am filtering for - that it is only a vote or two away from getting deleted... you want more than a few votes or has an accepted answer.

@ThomasOwens we were actually looking at the questions that lacked one or two downvotes to get away (you know, it's when OP spits out upvotes to answers indiscriminately, unconsciously blocking the heuristics)

@gnat Yeah. Honestly, I'm not sure answers should be considered for this equation. If the question is bad, does having a good answer mean it should stay?

And it's not always the OP, though. Sometimes, users will come along to a terrible question where someone pulled some magic to produce some kind of reasonable answer and get an up vote for trying.

user55340

4:30 PM

I've got all the tweaks in it, with parameters... data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/133010/…

Is my flag handling about to skyrocket?

user55340

@ThomasOwens I don't think so... these are things where anyone can act to get the questions about to get cleaned up to get cleaned up.

user55340

Its just people casting downvotes.

Or delete votes to throw them into the delete queue, I think, since they are all closed.

I'd recommend throwing that query up on Meta.Prog.

user55340

These are close enough to the cliff that I wouldn't use a delete vote on it.

user55340

4:36 PM

The ones that have accepted answers... those are ones where I would need to cast a delete vote.

I think that you'll get your rep back if it gets deleted quick enough. There's something about age and deletion with regards to rep being returned.

user55340

I'm not worried about rep...

@MichaelT In soviet Russia, rep is worried about you

user55340

The query is looking for things like programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/203708/… - where even a single downvote on the answer will get it deleted.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Today, I'm at a net of +15 rep. I've only gotten one upvote and cast 15 downvotes on answers.

4:39 PM

-4

Q: Am getting Error for below programme please help me out

StudentController.java package com.springs.exceptions; import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller; import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap; import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ExceptionHandler; import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping; import org.springframe...

Glad we had that convo recently on meta about not migrating crap even if it is on-topic for SO

If it's fixed up it should be migrated, but as it is it would likely just be closed on SO too, no reason to burden them with the garbage we don't want.

I suppose another question is if you want to down vote possibly decent answers.

Just to get questions deleted, that is.

user55340

@ThomasOwens That is a grey area... and I try to avoid dv good answers...

I don't think there's anything looking for down votes like that, but I would be careful. If it's a good answer or accepted answer, that's when I'd delete. Other answers down vote appropriately.

user55340

@ThomasOwens Indeed. Currently, its filtering out questions that have an accepted answer so one doesn't send downvotes in hope to delete without any results.

user55340

That said, my personal threshold on ok answers on blatantly improper questions is much lower.

4:53 PM

@ThomasOwens that's a tough one. whenever I sense a possibly good answer, I try to at least abstain of immediate action. Good / even possibly answers are real "roadblocks" in cleanup ;) these usually make me do several rounds of review before deciding whether I want them to stay or go. In that sense, I much prefer bad answers, much easier to deal with :)

guess it's not easier for you either

user55340

There are some that aren't even borderline though...

user55340

1

A: Which free Java language resource editor?

IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition See: 1) http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/i18n_support.html 2) http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/internationalizing-source-code.html

@gnat The only time I consider answers is for locking a question. In order to qualify for something like a historical lock, one of the criteria is the answers.

5:06 PM

@ThomasOwens oh that one is conceptually simple. Although takes much effort. I've been through it already, key thing is to split possibly good to possibly and good. 1) read question and answer, ponder on it a bit. 2) wait for 3-4 days (better for a week). Repeat steps 1-2 few times. If it feels really good or still doesn't split, leave it alone. The remainder is pure possibly, no good there => send to destroy

yesterday, by gnat

@MichaelT tweaked version looks alright. At first, it got me worried that, because of staying at 1 vote, after first sweep it will block. But then I figured that when someone, some other way, comes over crappy answer at +2 and downvotes it, this will naturally replenish your query. Good solid approach, upon thinking it through a bit I especially like that it avoids temptations of gang-voting

5:24 PM

@GlenH7 you're an engineer, get 100 free rep from bounty:

2

Q: Does freezing a solution with water always cause the water to separate and form the ice lattice?

I'm curious, I was trying to look into the affect of freezing a solution with water even when the solution is completely miscible. I came across something that detailed this regarding salt water and basically said when it gets low enough to freeze, the water forms it's tell-tale lattice basically...

inorganic-chemistry water solutions

@JimmyHoffa Damnit jim, he's an engineer not a god.

@Ampt Engineers should know things about water I guess, all I got is: It's cold, and tastes good after a run

user55340

@gnat I've tossed a few more parameters into there - the views and sum of length of answers with a positive score.

user55340

5:41 PM

From MSO:

user55340

StackHarmony: Fall in love for all the geeky reasons. — George Cummins 18 mins ago

I was debating voting to close as primarily opinion based, but now that this answer showed up, it's clear to me I should.

-1

A: name convension for variables in C#

I've seen a lot of capitalization (PascalCase) of member variables and lowercase (camelCase) local variables, so it seems to be the norm, but that's not typically my favorite as I mostly like to reserve capitalization for functions, and so I like to prefix my member variables with "m_". I also li...

The problem with this question, which you didn't know so it's not your fault, is that there is in fact no canonical convention for C#. There are common conventions; unfortunately more than one, but it would be quite difficult for you to get an answer here that's anything but pure opinion. Sorry, voting to close; my suggestion: Spend some time reading code in popular github and codeplex repositories to see what conventions they use as the people who write most of the popular ones are industry-experienced folks, and as canonical to what's common as you'll find. — Jimmy Hoffa 21 secs ago

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Your question is still beyond my knowledge of chemistry. But I'll keep working on that demi-god status.

@GlenH7 And you call yourself an engineer... maybe you're just as fake as the rest of us..

No one gets the classic star trek reference here? Seriously?

user55340

6:02 PM

Nah... just been immunized against them... that and Monty Python quotes too. You need to go with something a bit less tried to get a response.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.

(More obscure version of "damnit jim, he's an engineer not a god)

user55340

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray, and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is a quantization error.

user55340

(from ppmtopgm man page)

user55340

(incidentally, the answer is l = .299 r + .587 g + .114 b)

@MichaelT The Moody we removed your Blues.

user55340

6:12 PM

No we didn't, there are still 11.4% there.

user55340

Its just "The Moody Greens" or "The Moody Greys" isn't... moody enough.

user41796

6:23 PM

@JimmyHoffa I obviously wouldn't be able to comment on that.

@Ampt @MichaelT is a perl expert, which means he programs entire systems in nothing but regexp

incidentally Perl 6 regexps are in fact turing complete.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa You mean PCRE. And I don't think they are.

regexps that are turing complete? madness

also, I figured it out and didn't even need regex so all good.

> They're actually designed so you can use them to alter the way the language is parsed within a lexical scope.

user55340

@Ampt PCRE are more powerful than a standard RE.

6:32 PM

@MichaelT everything in Perl could be described with that statement

user55340

And they can't match some context sensitive languages, therefore they are less powerful than a linearly bound turing machine.

> Turing complete regex; has science gone to far? More at 8

@MichaelT Doesn't really make a difference anyway; even you still stick to Perl 5

user55340

(hmm... looks like someone tried implementing rule 110 perlmonks.org/?node_id=809842 )

user55340

However it still uses some control structures...

user55340

6:35 PM

The significance of rule 110 is...

user55340

The Rule 110 cellular automaton (often simply Rule 110) is an elementary cellular automaton with interesting behavior on the boundary between stability and chaos. In this respect it is similar to Game of Life. Rule 110 is known to be Turing complete. This implies that, in principle, any calculation or computer program can be simulated using this automaton. Definition In an elementary cellular automaton, a one-dimensional pattern of 0's and 1's evolves according to a simple set of rules. Whether a point in the pattern will be 0 or 1 in the new generation depends on its current value, as...

user55340

As to a paper for how to write a finite automata that implements PCRE - arl.wustl.edu/~pcrowley/a25-becchi.pdf

user55340

So far today, I have 49 lines of reputation transactions... and yet a net 0 rep change.

Odd. That's quite a number of changes for a 0 net difference

user55340

:10953157 Most of them are +1 or -1. I did a lot of downvoting today, and a few things that I downvoted were deleted...

user55340

6:42 PM

One of them was +10

Hahaha I'm just giving you a hard time I always get hit with the -1 for downvoting

user55340

@Ampt Think of it as an investment in the quality of the site.

> Problem in installing python3.3 in ubantu 12.04 [migrated]

Well there's your problem! You're using some bad chinese ubuntu knockoff, those things never work...

Well you can't blame him, have you seen what they're charging for a legitimate copy of ubuntu nowadays?

HAH! Bounty worked; I got two answers within 2 minutes of eachother alla sudden

5

Q: Does freezing a solution with water always cause the water to separate and form the ice lattice?

I'm curious, I was trying to look into the affect of freezing a solution with water even when the solution is completely miscible. I came across something that detailed this regarding salt water and basically said when it gets low enough to freeze, the water forms it's tell-tale lattice basically...

inorganic-chemistry water solutions

user55340

6:50 PM

> As mentioned above, the process is not limited to just water, and freeze crystallization is use to eliminate the purities of silicon wafers and has been known for many years as a way to make hard liquor.

user55340

Bonus!

@MichaelT Eliminate the purities of silicon wafers? Is that supposed to be "impurities"?

@MichaelT haha, so when you accidentally leave that beer in the fridge a bit too long and it get's slushy, what's not frozen is much stronger

@ThomasOwens That guy had some interesting verbiage, he also referred to purifying species later in his answer which I don't quite condone.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Thats the whole 'cold filtered' thing.

The second answer is actually more informative towards what I was curious about, but the first answer has a chart and involved alcohol... I don't know which one to choose...

6:54 PM

@JimmyHoffa Fractional freezing is how you turn hard cider into applejack.

user55340

We're from P.SE - you always going with the alcholol.

user55340

@ThomasOwens I thought it was through this process dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Applejack

alcohol > knowledge

@MichaelT You could plausibly use distillation as well...

user55340

Yep... you need alchemy 2 though to do that.

7:00 PM

@ThomasOwens Fractional freezing is how you turn a pumpkin into meade (the water crystalization breaks down the cell walls), also same trick turns peppers into holy-crap-peppers

@JimmyHoffa "holy-crap-peppers"? Sounds...awesome?

@ThomasOwens Fun science experiment, get some peppers, whatever kind you like, keep a couple out on the counter, put a couple in the freezer (the colder the better), two days later try them independently. Let me know how that goes for ya :)

I see. DOes this work with bell peppers or only spicy peppers?

@ThomasOwens Any peppers, but the end-spiciness is going to be relative to the beginning-spiciness

@JimmyHoffa So I should do this with a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion?

user55340

7:08 PM

Fractional freezing also makes ice wine... mmm...

I grew up in Colorado, bell peppers have zero spiciness (they're kind of sweet) to me, but in Pittsburgh I had people argue that bell peppers are indeed quite spicy

Anyone who says bell peppers are spicy are either wrong or eating ones that have been cooked and soaked in something else.

@ThomasOwens I haven't tested fractional freezing on Scorpions, my inclination is you will end up with a dead scorpion which is considerably less potent than a live one, due to the lack of resultant attack prowess, but don't take my word for it, feel free to find out with science!

user55340

(... ice apple wine?! I've got to find some...)

@ThomasOwens They don't have spicy food there, something to do with the fact that they don't have anybody who's not ethnically northern or eastern european

user55340

7:26 PM

I've seen a wide range of what is considered 'hot', and it really depends on what you've been exposed to. There's also the difference between 'hot things you eat' and 'absurdly hot things you eat on a dare'

user55340

Btw, it would be amusing to make a 'hot or not' site and fill it with pictures of peppers.

@MichaelT I'm comfortable with most things, but I absolutely love anaheim chiles for the flavor. I can't think of any meat I won't put a nice grilled anaheim chile on; burger, hot dog, steak, chicken, maybe not fish... overall they're like mushrooms; juicy and rich but more flavorful in my book

Just gotta be careful not to get the hatch ones which people rave about, those are frequently too spicy for me, there's great ones from southern colorado that are more robust in flavor and less stinging

I had spicy, peppery beer once.

Pepper beer is delicious.

I didn't like that. But I generally like flavorful peppers on salads, burgers, and sandwiches.

7:39 PM

Nice blonde ale with a pepper stuck in during bottling and left to condition is one of my favorites.

made a batch of those once and they went fast. Haven't gotten a chance to do another batch... yet

@ThomasOwens I had one of these just this weekend for the first time, was a bit too funky for my tastes

user55340

(and see? we went from fractional freezing to alcohol to pepper to alcohol)

user20683

7:55 PM

@JimmyHoffa This SO post explains well: stackoverflow.com/questions/2461702/…

user20683

as far as IoC and the like

user55340

Mod types...

user55340

0

Q: MongoDB - recommended schema for quiz application to keep track of attempted questions for future quiz generation

I am working on school Quiz application. We do not have 'test paper' kind of scenario rather in our application student selects a chapter & then a topic and system fires relative questions to student randomly. We have a 'Chapter' collection and below is its document structure. { _id: "505b...

mongodb nosql database-schema document-database

user55340

0

Q: MongoDB - best schema for quiz application to keep track of attempted question and fire next question accordingly

I am working on school Quiz application. We do not have 'test paper' kind of scenario rather in our application student selects a chapter & then a topic and system fires relative questions to student randomly. We have a 'Chapter' collection and below is its document structure. { _id: "505b...

nosql mongodb document-databases

user55340

Which way should that cross post go?

user20683

7:58 PM

DBA?

PM!

user55340

CR!

QF!

user55340

MSO!

user20683

@Ampt FAIL!

7:59 PM

Oh we aren't just shouting out letters?

user20683

no

aww shucks

user20683

all of those are SE site abbreviations

user55340

You could have gone with QF.

user55340

user20683

8:00 PM

true

Fixed! Nothing to see here

user20683

uh huh

user20683

I know what you did

user20683

I can see the edit history

user20683

:P

user55340

8:01 PM

I like how The Great Outdoors (outdoors.SE) is just "O"

user55340

Everyone can see the edit history...

false

everyone who is a room owner/moderator

user20683

@MichaelT you are a room owner

user55340

chat.stackexchange.com/messages/10954685/history

user20683

so is Jimmy

8:02 PM

I can only see if something was edited, not what it was edited from

user55340

I'm fairly sure @Ampt can see that page.

only for my own edits

@MichaelT @KronoS can't. I think he just idles in here to ensure we have some scary lookin feller in the room keeping us in line. Either that or he's one of your managers monitoring you.

user55340

Ahh.. oh well.

user55340

o_O

user55340

8:03 PM

1

Q: Sunblock for clothing-optional camping

What should I look for in a suntan lotion for a nude camping trip? I don't know what to look for when it goes on the whole body. Are there any ingredients that I should watch out for?

equipment camping preparation

user55340

The things you find out there...

user55340

Anyways... back to that cross post... any ideas of where it should go?

user20683

@MichaelT I'll ask

user20683

either Programmers or DBA I'd think

user20683

it's not really an implementation question far as I can tell

user55340

8:06 PM

(part of the frustrating part with that question is I think he's really doing it wrong... that mongo isn't the right answer to it at all)

user20683

is NoSQL ever the "right" answer?

user55340

It can be in the right spot...

@Weston.h Unambiguously Yes.

user55340

or if you're a ruby hipster.

user55340

(ThoughtWorks is also a prefered NoSQL shop...)

8:08 PM

Don't let the hipster nonsense confuse the fact that it is actually a great approach to a variety of situations

user55340

martinfowler.com/tags/noSQL.html martinfowler.com/nosql.html

The important thing is recognizing the tradeoffs you're making; really understanding WHY ACID matters, and when

user55340

If you've just got a bunch of read only data that you want to access like a structured file system... its not bad.

understanding data modeling and when structuring your data in aggregate query fashion is the right approach and when simple-key-query is going to yield the best approach

But that's something I've come to understand is absolutely not taught in schools

and it grieves me. Data modeling is good fun and ever so important to do well

user55340

I've got some NoSQL data... its 99.9% read only (and the 0.1% is hand entered)... and there's a validation function on it so you can't enter the wrong data. I'm just pulling in chunks of JSON on multiple systems and processing it.

8:13 PM

I've found that just using csv files works really well for mission critical information.

2

user55340

@Ampt Couple points there - no validation inherent in them, and they don't play nice on a network (I need to access it from a bunch of machines... ok, now we've got a network file system, btw, you really shouldn't be accessing files from Java EE environment)

@MichaelT Yeah, but can you open your DB in excel? I didn't think so. Case Closed.

user55340

@Ampt Point in favor of noCSV there.

@MichaelT I'm not sure what you're implying. Excel is the only way to edit your important information in a completely safe and stable way. Just ask Microsoft.

user55340

That M.P.SE question might be something to migrate to MSO.

8:45 PM

@Weston.h I don't often disagree with Jorg Noon, but this seems an oversimplification of IoC to we enterprisey folks

He basically boils DI and IoC down to late binding, which it can be, but that's just one possible (not necessary or even often preferable) piece of what people use them for

user20683

@JimmyHoffa from my standpoint it's largely because most of my python programming isn't terribly object oriented

more commonly they're used to manage your dependencies for you

they manage their scope, some aspects of thread safety, and mapping Interface->Concrete where sometimes the concrete will vary

as an added benefit they will often times be used to dynamically find the concrete for you like a plugin, but that's just a side effect, not at all their main purpose

Jorg is usually spot on with things, but in my book he missed the mark there..

@JimmyHoffa I'd like to find a book about features different DI frameworks have. Rather than reading 6,000 pages of random DI documentation.

9:47 PM

@Ampt Yes.

@MichaelT see, even @YannisRizos agrees. CSVs are hands down the best way to store all your most important information.

user55340

@Ampt Tell me that again when someone puts your payroll information in a csv. I want to edit it.

@MichaelT And you could use excel 97 to do so! How handy is that?

@YannisRizos The High PHP Oracle Hath Spake ...and our ears are defiled.

@JimmyHoffa Yes.

9:58 PM

@YannisRizos Can you just continue being generally agreeable?

@Ampt No.

Drat. There goes my bingo.

10:14 PM

@JimmyHoffa both

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