The Whiteboard

shut it you old fart

RUBY IS THE FUTURE! GET WITH IT

user55340

once someone can give me a decent answer to what the difference between Hash.has_key? , Hash.include? , Hash.key? and Hash.member? is...

@Ampt This parts a joke right? Ruby will pass. It's been the fad thing for years already and still hasn't significant penetration in much real development purposes

Javascript appears to be displacing the Ruby fad in my eyes

user55340

Its written for Quick and Dirty CRUD apps... once you get beyond that people start hunting for gems to do it for them because its a pain to write it yourself.

user55340

8:07 PM

@JimmyHoffa And it hasn't displaced Perl and Python for sysadmin tools.

It was a joke!

but RoR is really why I'm learning ruby

not ruby for ruby's sake

@Ampt So you can be a PHP Generation 2 developer? :)

so I can do my senior design project which has been dictated to be in ruby :P

ah

@Ampt what's the project?

A-B Testing framework

something that is more lightweight and lower cost than rolling your own

something that medium size companies can use to increase their web presense

at least that's what I've been told so far

8:10 PM

an A-B testing framework is going to help medium size companies increase their web presence?

well it will help them optimize their site

so they can figure out what serves their customers best

psr

@JimmyHoffa Ruby will never have the kind of chokehold on the soul of enterprise that Haskell enjoys.

user55340

@Ampt you need to forget about your "senior project" and "snowplows" and get back to work on getting 3k rep so you can cast close votes.

2

Q: Do programmers need quiet? Do they get it?

@MichaelT snowplow..snow..plow.. snow-plow? snoplow? snow..snow...ploau...snoplauw.... Nope, I'm sufficiently convinced. "snowplows" are made up and do not in fact exist.

-3

Do programmers need quiet? If they do why do so many places not have quiet and still seem to get something done? Do programmers get quiet? If no, WHY not. PLEASE, references and substantive answers based on notable sources please! DISPOSITION Note this question was asked in a way specificall...

I like that in the middle of the question he just declares DISPOSITION

Pretty sure he meant to break that up with SUPPOSITION but the mistake makes it much more fun

@JimmyHoffa Shhhh you'll blow our cover

8:20 PM

@Ampt Nah, snow blowers are a real thing mate.

@MichaelT and have you guys hound me when I slack in my reviews for a day? Nuh uh, I like my measly 1k rep :D

Alternatively maybe he decided he should declare his current disposition in case we were curious how he was feeling

user55340

You know... I've got 12k rep now... I could "burn off" 2k of it... though I'm sure Ampt would retaliate by giving a bunch of 50 rep bonuses as fast as he could.

@MichaelT I'd do a lot of serious testing on @Gnat's behalf on the effectiveness of bounties to attract attention to questions

ok @JimmyHoffa Hit me with an article

I need a mental break

user55340

paulgraham.com/avg.html

user55340

8:29 PM

Alternatively... Programming is Hard, Let's Go Scripting...

user55340

>Now, however it was initially intended, I think BASIC turned out to be one of the first major scripting languages, especially the extended version that DEC put onto its minicomputers called BASIC/PLUS, which happily included recursive functions with arguments. I started out as a BASIC programmer. Some people would say that I'm permanently damaged. Some people are undoubtedly right.

But I'm not going to apologize for that. All language designers have their occasional idiosyncracies. I'm just better at it than most. :-)

Googling for how to add the header in web.configs for cross-site allowance, I stumbled across a governmental department I never expected to find JSON tips from...Idaho Fish and Wildlife O_O fishandgame.idaho.gov/ifwis/portal/blog/…

8:45 PM

Idaho: Potatoes..... with JSON

user20683

Homework questions must die. September must be avenged! In Advance! ulalating yell

user55340

@Weston.h It takes lots of drinking... I tried.

Dearest user, I have need of program to do out the following depending on the need....

user20683

Dearest user of Stack Exchange. The fact that you have showed no effort and put no thought into possible avenues of attack whilst attempting to solve your homework problem is deeply disturbing. The fact that you are incapable of breaking down a problem and asking targeted questions as well as using Google with any level of decent skill is profoundly troubling for your future as a programming professional.

user20683

Your lack of correct English is also troubling as many jobs currently available ask for strong, written English communication skills.

user55340

8:56 PM

The thing that "worries" me about people asking for homework is that these are the people that we (the seniors, and managers) are going to be interviewing next year or so... they are cheating themselves... and will become unhireable in their chosen field, just as badly as a chef who can't differentiate a fruit and vegetable.

duckduckgo actually puts SO answers directly in the search results at the top like how google does the "We think this is precisely what you want" stuff

cool

user55340

I'm also distressed that people ask the question:

user55340

> I still working or should I quit my job and do the course?

@MichaelT So what you're saying is, the Supreme Court can't cook for a damn?

user55340

And kind of expect us to answer "yes, you should quit your job"

8:58 PM

duckduckgo.com/?q=oauth_callback

That is just cool how it has the title of the question and the accepted answer in a little scrollable box straight away thinking "You know what, SO probably has what you need"

@MichaelT I thought about putting my 2 cents in there, but what if his contract is ONLY for 10 months and there is a high demand for microsoft app devs in his area

then it might make sense to do the certification

so I thought better of giving bad advice and just downvoted

but I agree, my knee-jerk reaction was "You have a job, why the hell would you quit for a certification"

user55340

Its more of would you trust us to tell you to quit your job?

user55340

I mean, even Jimmy didn't tell me to quit my old job...

user41796

@MichaelT to be fair, you didn't gripe about it too much either, afaik

@MichaelT This is right up there with that fellow on Reddit posting his non-sanitizing user creation PHP and seeing the responses from the internet..

user55340

9:07 PM

@GlenH7 'twards the end there... I was getting rather gripey.

user41796

I had just about figured out who your old employer was by the time you announced you were bailing. Then again, I'm a little slow

@MichaelT Really? I thought I did.

user55340

Look for a new job != quit your current job.

@GlenH7 It was clearly lowes depot.

user55340

The former implies the later... but the later can be done independently of the former.

9:08 PM

@MichaelT True. The ladder is advice I'd basically never give. People got bills.

user55340

Oh... found a fun blog post from a few years ago...

user41796

positive cash flow is almost always a good thing, especially when you know it can quickly turn negative

user55340

webpages.charter.net/sdulin/2008/04/menards-future.html

user55340

> With that prediction made, here is a list of things that I would fix immediately if I took over Menard's. First, I would upgrade the software for the POS system. The current system is older than I am and needs to be badly upgraded.

user55340

That is the project I was working on.

user55340

9:12 PM

(poking about for the september drinking party event.. found this awful joke I made...)

user55340

Not a WISE thing to do with the provisions that are in perl already.
Not to mention the possible corruption of the path. I'm sure that if
you ASCII'ed you'd GETTY a reasonable ANSI on the best way to do it.

user55340

There it is... the its time for october drinking praty...

user55340

groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.sysadmin.recovery/D56O-Wk7QFo/…

Cool blog, to all the people who are skeered of the NSA, I say no no, the real fear isn't the software written by thoroughly vetted NSA computer scientists, the real fear is the software all over the internet written by the kid down the street

user55340

>Why: BECAUSE IT'S TIME FOR OCTOBER! We want to worship the heady days of
olde when September actually ended, and the Chicken Was Feared.
Commiseration, laughs, and a good time will be had by all!

user55340

9:15 PM

(I'm trying to remember what the chicken was about...)

@MichaelT It really makes ya wonder

user55340

There were lots of in jokes on that usenet group... TTTSNBN was "The Thread That Shall Not Be Named".

@Ampt btw regarding your planning poker suggestion in an answer you wrote, if you haven't seen it there's a decent free online planning poker site planningpoker.com just get everyone to bring their laptop to the meeting like they normally do anyway (if you work in one of those environments) and it automatically logs all of the scoring and stories etc for you so no one needs to take notes and no one needs cards

@JimmyHoffa true, but I've found that unless you have really good discipline, involving technology in meetings is a recipe for disaster. I'll add your link to the answer though!

user55340

In case you are wondering, that thread is alluded to groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.sysadmin.recovery/uWvZRtFqRv8/…

9:21 PM

@Ampt This is a cultural thing; I've worked places where you're right and places where everyone is so attached at the hip to technology non-stop that they're faster with it than without

@JimmyHoffa yep, which is why I'm adding it to the answer! :D How many edits does a question get before being CW'd?

10 I think

user55340

The 11th edit by the original poster does it.

user55340

(because the first 'edit' is the original post)

@MichaelT he means java not javascript right?

Is that valid java array initialization syntax?

user55340

9:29 PM

            int foo[] = { 1 , 2, 3 };

user55340

That works just fine in my Netbeans.

Ok

because he tagged it javascript

I fixed it though, programming-languages is also the wrong tag so I just changed it to scope

I'm hesitating to vote for migration right now, @MichaelT you think this should just be closed as unclear what you're asking before we migrate it?

user55340

Its unclear more than its migrateable.

user55340

There's also this if you want a custom one...

Q: close reason (and associated expand the close reason count) request

I have no understanding of what he's saying there... something about a for loop, but then he also appears to be getting a runtime error probably because he instantiates p inside a child scope of where he tries using it

user55340

9:31 PM

12

I really don't like migrating crappy questions to SO. This is really the only place where its an issue because of the migration path (no, taking away the migration path would mean more suggestions to repost - there are enough of those for the workplace). The past 90 days, we did 206 migrations ...

discussion feature-request close-reasons

user55340

This question is off topic on Programmers.Stack Exchange. It would best be answered on Stack Overflow, however, the question doesn't meet the minimum requirements for a question on Stack Overflow. Please read the Stack Overflow question checklist to fix up your question for migration.

I don't like hinting at SO if we're not going to migrate

he's likely to just cross post when it's closed then

user55340

1) This question is incredibly unclear and 2) You probably mean to post on StackOverflow with code questions. What are you actually trying to accomplish? — Daenyth 2 mins ago

user55340

The hint is already there.

Fair enough.

user55340

9:32 PM

The best we can do now is discourage him from cross posting by showing the checklist.

user55340

(and noting that if it is cross posted, it will probably get closed too)

user55340

This question is off topic on Programmers.Stack Exchange. It would best be answered on Stack Overflow, however, the question doesn't meet the minimum requirements for a question on Stack Overflow.  Please read the [Stack Overflow question checklist](meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/156810/…) to fix up your question for migration.

user55340

There's the text with stuff if you want it.

user55340

Though... still... unclear.

hey folks... I've got a question which might be better discussed than posted if anyone's interested..

A: Do you find languages with indentation requirements cumbersome?

9:36 PM

18

In general, I'm against bondage and discipline features that are geared towards making it hard to write bad code. However, I don't find that Python's forced indentation fits this mold. The compiler/interpreter needs to know where blocks begin and end somehow, and about the only human-readable w...

what a great answer

@enderland Thanks for asking in here instead of just posting it on the main site. Spill the beans; though it should be drying up in here in a little while. We're all working folks and it's fairly busy in here 8-5 business days

I am beginning a project to essentially develop a project tracking system with a variety of bells and whistles

unfortunately, I am in my current position for only 6 months, and the project will be sustained by.. non tech savvy people

@enderland Bells and whistles are redundant, you only need one or the other for the purpose of alerting people, unless the alerting system is mission critical and requires redundancy.

@JimmyHoffa well there are also things like, for example, automated email/approval processes, automated estimates, and controlling other software

@enderland Controlling other software? Like...robots? @GlenH7 get in here, we've got somebody who needs a real engineer

I guess it's not only a project tracking but also project management system

9:39 PM

@enderland Why are you guys not just looking at using a publically available product for the purpose? There's plenty of them

Is it being developed explicitly for internal use or are you actually developing it as a saleable product?

@JimmyHoffa somewhat, we have some internal systems which uh, well, lets just say they arent the most fun to use - this system will need to basically control them (some of them have nice scripting languages, etc)

@JimmyHoffa it's internal use only

@JimmyHoffa I would absofreakinglutely LOVE to find a pubically available system

but there will be custom work, regardless - specifically related to managing some of the interactions with other systems (at least 2 or 3, unfortunately)

@enderland There's tons, also you will get a huge bonus from this since you have non-tech savvy people to handle it after you leave: Public offerings will have significant public documentation already out there as well as availability of consultants who can be hired that already know how to help maintain it

making anything that non-tech savvy people have to maintain is extremely difficult if not impossible

@Ampt yes indeed :\

psr

@MichaelT Rumor has it that he tried to downvote John Skeet and the system refused to accept it.

9:42 PM

@psr That's weird, he must have been confused for his brother Jon.

@enderland Have you started any work already?

What languages/platforms does the company currently have expertise in?

@JimmyHoffa not development work, no

what are the other components you need to 'control'

(although when googling you'll be looking for "Interface with X" or "API for X"

@enderland do not do it from scratch. get a public offering. All of the public options for systems like this are largely extendable.

@JimmyHoffa I'm going to be the only developer person, which is a huge plus and a huge negative (I'm in an engineering org, where there are nearly no people who "get" progrmaming)

@JimmyHoffa I think the MS stuff, such as Access/SharePoint (yuck) are going to be the "best" way to go asa result

I can't stress enough that doing this from scratch would be suicide

9:44 PM

Access for project management?

@JimmyHoffa I'm definitely not going to do it from scratch

If the largest knowledge is regarding .NET, then look at Team Foundation Server

@Ampt right now the workflow is a giant shared Excel workbook - I'm not even joking, the entire depart uses this

user55340

A good project tracking piece of software is a LOT of code. Doing it from scratch as a solo developer is a LOT of work. I'm talking about years to get it to where they want it.

TFS will work for not software projects?

and I think he gets it, don't roll your own management software :)

9:45 PM

@MichaelT errr, I should clarify - what I want to "implement" is a workflow management system - I'm not planning on coding the "guts"

(I don't want THAT kind of job security lol)

@Ampt it may be a bit of abuse, but I'm not off-hand aware of other .NET based products, perhaps FogCreek would likely have things

but TFS has a large ticketing and work tracking system

what are you trying to manage @enderland

You can just ignore the source control portions

user55340

@Ampt has a very good point there.

it integrates with sharepoint for documentation storing and tracking, and sql server reports server for analyzing the work tracking data with charting and reporting.

9:47 PM

@Ampt 1) handle project requests and, well, basically create tickets for projectwrk (ie a "project" with steps, approvals, etc), 2) be able to easily use whatever this tool is to interface with other tools (stuff like SAP, etc)

On the other hand sharepoint + microsoft project might be all that's needed there..

user20683

groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/haskell-cafe/agDRueqFUFk/…

user20683

@JimmyHoffa

user20683

see above

@JimmyHoffa I "like" sharepoint because it makes a front end really easy

9:48 PM

why not use sharepoint then?

@Weston.h ! Awesome

@Ampt I'm not sure, hence asking questinos here ;)

(yes, that was RPN.)

though Access seems considerably faster for doing work in as compared with SP

well all you've got from us is to not roll your own haha. I think you'll find most of our experience is with management software for software

@enderland I guess if you like making forms....

9:49 PM

@enderland Sharepoint has workflow stuff built in and may be all you need. Have you looked at Microsoft Project? Y'know what you guys need? You need to bring in an MS training consultant to help y'all decide.

user55340

(I've got quite a bit of 'modify workflow software' under my belt... and seriously... don't roll your own)

honestly, you might be better asking over at workplace. We're better at making software than picking it

@Ampt the other people on my team (non-technical) are at least interested in doing the access work (setting views, all that annoying stuff which is not really dev)

which is fortunate :)

@enderland Don't. you'll regret it

user55340

Or rather, don't expect it to be done on any sort of reasonable timetable... I'm working on my own test / requirement / bug tracking software... maybe I'll be done before I'm 50.

9:50 PM

@Ampt I'm a regular there hah ;)

Access will become a mess quickly and then when it doesn't work for them anymore you'll be the one stuck holding the bag.

just don't use access ever

is really the solution

if you need a db, use SQL

@JimmyHoffa yeah, this is my concern - though... I'm somewhat getting the feel no matter what I do, it will be this problem :)

user55340

@Ampt Access is better than Excel for doing the stuff..

if you need project management, use anything else

user20683

9:51 PM

Tracking software? Sign up for the Startup version of Fogbugz/Kiln

@MichaelT until someone non-tech savvy has to manage it

@Ampt you can use Access as a frontend for SQL - which would be the plan, if it ends up eing access

user55340

Or even Trello.

user55340

I kind of like You Track jetbrains.com/youtrack

I like trello but I'm hesitant to suggest it to a team looking for forms and checks

you need to be very open to doing things different to use trello

user55340

9:52 PM

Identify the requirements, call vendors.

hm. I wonder if MS project would be useful?

user55340

What types of projects are you managing?

so I'm a (lone) software dev person in a design group, which gets CAD projects

these projects are requested by others in the company, and currently the process here is so bad literally trello with no explanation to them would be better :)

@enderland You're just running in circles. Identify requirements like @MichaelT said, then make a selection of options worth looking at (FogCreek stuff, trello, sharepoint, ms project, youtrack, whatever else), then do a short technical analysis of each one individually to see how they stand up to your requirements, pick the strongest 2-3 after that initial analysis and do an in-depth analysis of each one to see how they'll meet your requirements and more, then make the decision

user55340

> The trouble with Microsoft Project is that it assumes that you want to spend a lot of time worrying about dependencies… I’ve found that with software, the dependencies are so obvious that it’s just not worth the effort to formally keep track of them

user55340

9:55 PM

> Another problem with Project is that it assumes that you’re going to want to be able to press a little button and "rebalance" the schedule… For software, this just doesn’t make sense [in practice]… The bottom line is that Project is designed for building office buildings, not software

user55340

(Those two quotes from Joel)

@MichaelT He's not managing software projects

yeah, my experience with it is complete overkill for small projects

correct @JimmyHoffa

@MichaelT Joel also sells management software to pay his bills so take his opinion of his competitors with a grain of salt :)

most importantly you need to do step 1 I listed above though: Identify requirements, write them down, be thorough and as comprehensive as you can, this will be your yard stick to use when you do the analysis of your options.

9:56 PM

not that I don't like joel, but perspective is everything

user55340

@Ampt True... How about...

user55340

> Chris Peters, Microsoft’s Vice President in charge of Office, also said that Microsoft Project is more appropriate for managing the design of airplanes and buildings, rather than software.

user55340

From chapter 4 of:

user55340

amazon.com/MICROSOFT-SECRETS-Powerful-Software-Technology/dp/…

@MichaelT see @JimmyHoffa's comment in this case :P

9:57 PM

hm. I guess I'm having a hard time articulating requirements here :) I'm going to need a system which does:

1) request system (ie create custom forms with custom data inputs, this is basic)
2) approval process (email/web/whatever is fine)
3) ability to have projects be easily viewed on a daily basis
4) ability for the solution to interact with other software on users machines

@MichaelT Chris Peters is VP in charge of MS Office to pay his bills so take his opinion of his competitors with a grain of salt :)

oh and be sustainable after the developer is gone (no big deal :P)

@JimmyHoffa well put. Them vertical stacks.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa And he's saying don't use project for software projects

@MichaelT that's great, hah, though software projects might be unique

9:58 PM

MS Office competes with project does it not? two different groups?

different groups at MS might as well be different companies

what is given to the left hand is taken from the right. Our lord Bill hath spoken.

user55340

@Ampt We went over that awhile back... Microsoft is dumb about internal competition.

the main problem I have might just be trying to make a solutino which fundamentally is impossible (sustainable by non-techy people)

@enderland Don't articulate your reqs to us, articulate them in a word document, and it should be more than a couple bullet points because this is going to be a bit of a big project

unless you get a premade app that requires 0 software development, yes

@Ampt right - alas.... :)

user55340

10:00 PM

Everywhere I've been that has had a successful project tracking system has had a team for its care and feeding.

user55340

Premade means you have fewer people on the team... but there are still people dedicated to the care and feeding of the application.

@JimmyHoffa hmmm. I think this conversation has, very beneficially, made me realize I've not quite translated the "end goals" I've gotten and understand into a bit more technical requirements

@MichaelT I'm the only "team" for this too :\

@enderland Hope you like a support role

it's just not feasible

user55340

The 'dedicated' part.

10:01 PM

You can't have a completely hand tailored application and have no software development

@Ampt aww. you can't lie to me and tell me the problems will fix themselves? :)

@Ampt Untrue, have you spoken to an idea man lately? I'm convinced they have the most amazing software without any developers!

user55340

At Netapp, there was a Build and Tools team that managed the build scripts, build servers, and bug tracking. Previous employer didn't have one... it was scattered amougst the teams who implemented it first (and each one had a bus factor of 1)

Q: How can I prepare for getting hit by a bus?

@MichaelT yeah - this makes so much sense... I asked a Q about this on workplace, lol

the busfactor is absoltuely going to be 1 on this project (which si interesting because there is actually teh potential I will be moving positions mid project, but... that's another problem lol)

@JimmyHoffa I'm, for whatever reason, as an engineer who has done software dev/likes it, almost not opposed to this, so long as it (this is idealistic for sure) gets me into a role making software or even "lame software" work (like putting together some systems and making them talk)

85

As a member of small teams, I had significant responsibility. Whether driving progress by organizing meetings or maintaining/creating/understanding a large percentage of specific technical information, I often had such responsibilities. Sometimes I was the only person working on technical aspects...

work-environment team resignation knowledge-transfer

user55340

My previous employer has an entire street of busses hitting them right now... another guy is preparing to leave.

Q: In java,is that the only way to access an array elements by using for loop?

10:06 PM

How is there only one close vote on this rambling nonsense question?

-1

Why the following loop give errors in Java while compiling, not the run time error... if( x1 < x2) { int[] p={ 0, 0, 0, 1}; } If that condition is true, I wanna set up that p array with the values mentioned.. Is anything like that," We can access the elements of an array with for loop only...

java scope

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Out of close votes for the day.

@MichaelT hah. You should call them up and suggest a little twilight consulting to help them out at an inflated rate for like 2 evenings a week and one saturday for a month. Pay for a vacation.

user55340

(In the past 3 months or so, they've had four people leave... each one is a bus factor 1 in some way)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa given what they've done to their other consultants, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

@MichaelT I've spent the past two weeks watching a bus factor hit my previous project as I trasnitioned off it - trying to basically communicate the entire dev process (compiling/building/debugging an application) to people who have only limited VBA knowledge at best :\

hard to watch a train wreck

user55340

10:09 PM

I'd want it up front, in escrow.... and I know they wouldn't accept that.

@MichaelT They're one of the "We're a big company, have fun dealing with our accounts payable staff" corps eh?

I cannot stand how pervasive that crap is in our industry which should be an aboveboard professional damn industry.

user55340

"We think you're done with the project and just billing us for stuff, so we're going to terminate the contract on everyone in that consulting team but one or two people."

@MichaelT Not even in their current situation with the fire on the masts being put out by the water it's plunging under?

@JimmyHoffa because most of the people making those decisions have NO clue how development actually works

user55340

In actuality, they weren't done and it was clear in the status reports... still... sigh

user55340

10:11 PM

"we're about to get into integration testing" was somehow translated to "we don't need the people who are writing the tests anymore"

user55340

Which became really fun when it was "oh, the other group wasn't done, so we have to rewind back from that testing to actually get stuff working again... and oh yea... no testers to see if this is working"

@MichaelT but you're saving money!!!!!

user55340

Consultants doing overtime at $150/h is not saving money.

user55340

(that $150 was base pay...)

@MichaelT See what I mean? Get yourself a free vacation man!

tinker with something for two evenings a week for a month, voila all expenses paid trip to the bahamas for a week :)

(I've been pondering doing this lately...)

user55340

10:14 PM

Nah... if I'm going to tinker with something, I'm going to get my testing / bug tracker written before I'm 50.

@MichaelT 48?

user55340

40.

user55340

(well, in a bit over a month)

user55340

See? I have reasonable expectations on software development timelines.

user55340

Anwayways... 5:15. Dredmor time.

10:15 PM

anyways folks, I'm out for a bit - thanks for all the insight, though I'm pretty sure you primarily dashed any of my hopes that the light in the tunnel wasn't a train... :)

@enderland Train? No way dude, that light's an ogre with a headlamp.