The Whiteboard

2:45 AM

@JimmyHoffa What's up?

@JimmyHoffa Take a look at this for me? Something you might enjoy jozefg.bitbucket.org/posts/2013-09-08-teens-and-fp.html

Jimmy Hoffa

1:54 PM

@jozefg In prolog off hand do you know how to set a constraint across an entire rule? Like I have delicious(Food) :- sweet(Food) but then I can have delicious(dirt) also because those are two different rules; do you know the syntax to make a constraint across all delicious rules that would just act as overriding denials so I could create delicious(fruit) and the overriding rule would automatically trim the allowable fruits to sweet(fruit) and not allow sour(fruit) ?

user55340

2:04 PM

@jozefg Looks good. I tend to have the 'is it practical' question in my theory of recommendation... and thats where Clojure seems to have a leg up over many others.

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg The pervasiveness of the actor model to make Erlang do basically anything would fail the simplicity-of-type system constraint in there, they're not technically part of the type system but it's totally non-idiomatic to try and do just about anything in Erlang without creating a bunch of actors passing messages and as soon as a beginner is told "You can send a message but not get a return value" they're going to get confused

which stinks because it meets many of your other mentions, great available libraries for many things etc

@jozefg though I'm not huge fan of it, you could make a case that F# is a good beginner language as well. It allows coding in imperative form but encourages declarative, it has visual studio as an IDE to make the extraneous tasks of building and executing etc much easier for beginners as well as having .NET on hand means you have all of XNA available for game development stuff as well as tons of high quality libraries

it also has the bonus over schemes that it allows beginners to both create objects and algebraic data types to learn about both while requiring neither.

@jozefg Great post though!

gnat

Reopen queue shows me 43 questions, what gives? 3 or 4 I've checked so far look quite crappy

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Somebody's abusing their privileges?

enderland

I think something changed in how it works

Workplace has a ton in reopen queue too

Jimmy Hoffa

geez

gnat

2:16 PM

@JimmyHoffa doesn't look like that. No edits, only one reopen vote (that I don't agree with but still looks legitimate). I only can imagine this is some new kind of flags

oh wait I got it! there was a recent feature change

will look at MSO

> 2013-09-06: On Stack Overflow, any approved edit on a closed question will push the post into the reopen queue (soon to be live on the rest of the network).

@Matt - there is an incoming change that will make any (approved) edits push closed questions into the review queue. Currently live on SO and pushed to the rest of the network next week. — Oded Sep 6 at 10:50

that's it

401

Q: Recent feature changes to Stack Exchange

This is an unofficial list of new features and various changes to Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange network. It is maintained by the community, but an SO developer would change the Accepted Answer to ensure that the latest changes remain on top (given default user settings). To see the list...

it's essentially a backlog of stuff that would qualify for push to reopen queue

Jimmy Hoffa

ahh I recall seeing whispers of that on Friday..

user55340

@enderland workplaceish question for 'ya... as a salaried consultant at a company, what is your take on adding HR types at other companies to your linked in network?

user41796

@gnat any edit to a closed question will push it to the re-open queue

Jimmy Hoffa

I agree with the feature concept, but I feel this queue is going to become unwieldy...

user41796

it's no longer just the OP's edit auto-pushing to review queue

user55340

2:20 PM

I know a bunch of people at another company (we worked together at our common previous employer) and have them added in Linked In. And HR there is asking to be part of my linked in network.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa it very well may. I ripped through 20 pretty quick this AM by just looking at the revision link. Trivial edits remained closed.

enderland

@MichaelT I don't think people really have a consistent "how to use Linkedin" definitino yet

user41796

@enderland That would include LinkedIn the corporation too

enderland

@GlenH7 yeah haha

@MichaelT also "salaried consultant" seems weird to me, salaried to me normally implies NOT consultant, but meh :P

@MichaelT I think some HR/recruiter types just spam out requests

gnat

> Thank you for reviewing 20 Reopen Votes today; come back in 9 hours to continue reviewing.

"I'll be back"

Jimmy Hoffa

2:25 PM

Ok, here's what I've learned: We shouldn't allow spelling and grammar edits on closed questions.

user41796

@gnat it's weird having two queues maxed out for the day

enderland

5

A: Is Linkedin used as a human resources tool world wide?

Depends upon what you think of as a "recruitment tool" - and I'm going to bet that it varies both by industry and by region. Certainly different cultures (be they national or interest/skill/job related) use social media very differently. For example, the performing artists I know do far more ne...

Jimmy Hoffa

Before this feature change I didn't realize how damn many spelling and grammar edits people commit on closed questions... wth...

user55340

@enderland We're a consulting shop... I work full time for them (salaried). We've got our tool chain we customize for individual clients. Its not a "go on site and fix your problem"

user41796

@JimmyHoffa No, I think we should. But maybe those shouldn't hit the auto review queue

enderland

2:26 PM

@MichaelT ah, gotcha. Thsi one might be a good Q too - workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3183/…

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Why should we? A closed question should be ignored unless changes can be made to open it in my opinion. More over it should be deleted unless changes can be made to open it.

which makes the spelling and grammar changes just wasteful

but that's my opinion

gnat

@GlenH7 think of the badges :) programmers.stackexchange.com/review/reopen/stats

enderland

@MichaelT I generally accept linkedin requests from people who are HR/recruiter types, though sometimes I'll respond, "how do I know you" types of questsions

gnat

17

A: LinkedIn invitations from people I don't know

If you plan to use LinkedIn the way how they recommend themselves, a definitive reference for cases like that is provided at Linkedin Help Center -> Accepting or Declining Invitations: What are my options when responding to invitations to connect? We strongly recommend that you only acce...

enderland

some people keep it much more "people I've worked with"

user41796

2:29 PM

@JimmyHoffa so how would you differentiate between a spelling / grammar edit and a salvage edit?

user41796

Anyone over 2k can edit without needing to have edits reviewed. And it would be confusing as all heck to try and explain "edit for grammar if it's an open question but not if it's closed unless you're editing a closed question to make it re-openable, in which case go ahead and edit for grammar too"

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg btw there's public trial available for fpcomplete.com online Haskell IDE now if you haven't tried it, it's awesome.

(they even have a minimal emacs mode)

thorsten müller

Is it possible to add multiple links to the "duplicate" closing reason?

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I get that. I still don't care for it. There are a lot of grammar/spelling edits on closed questions it seems...

@gnat @MichaelT @GlenH7 ok so I see edits from all of you in the reopen queue that are not salvaging edits but just english/formatting clean up, so I gotta ask. This seems silly and meritless to me but if you're all doing it perhaps I'm missing something. Why do you do these types of edits after the question is closed?

Also, side note: How can we perhaps go about making a communication to the community that recommends clarity and specificity in the comments on your edits now that many many more of them will be reviewed and those comments when filled out are exceedingly helpful to a reviewer?

user55340

2:48 PM

@JimmyHoffa Even though its going to be closed, the quality of the question serves as a guide to others for what their quality should be.

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat this was a greatly helpful comment 'spelling cleanup; meta stuff removed' made clear I didn't need to try and nitpick all the changes made to the question because there were a hand full, the comment clarified that you were not editing to salvage

user55340

It also pops up in the notification of the author as "someone edited your question" which helps inform them about what the norms of format and style are for the site for their next question.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Ok your first mention doesn't pass sniff test to me because I still believe it should be open or deleted so it shouldn't be standing as a roadsign to anyone, but this point makes a lot of sense.

@GlenH7 'attempted to make question a bit more general and less localized.' thanks for the comment. I habit to only occasionally comment my edits, but it's helpful that you put that comment in so I know to actually review the whole question for quality post-edit.

(that communication about commenting well may mostly be meant for me ~_~)

gnat

@thorstenmüller every voter can add one dupe link. When different voters suggest different dupe links, only then duplicate can get a "crown" of several links. Also, per my observations, moderators were able to multi-dupe (at least this was so in the past). So...

...in theory one can flag asking moderator to for additional dupe links, but I for one can not imagine how to make sucha flag compelling enough (and no, "I just feel like it" is not compelling:)

@JimmyHoffa well when I edit to salvage, I typically leave the summary containing something like "edit to reopen", I don't want it to be missed neither by reviewers nor by OP :)

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg your mission should you choose to accept it: If you create a trial account on fpcomplete.com there's a security token you are given which can be used to access their public APIs it says; Create an elisp mode that ties emacs onto their APIs given the user's security token so you can use emacs locally to work on your projects there and compile there without installing haskell locally. c-x,c-f will browse your online files with them rather than local filesystem etc.

c-x,c-s will commit to your files saved their, and c-x,c-l will execute up there and pipe the output from them

gnat

3:04 PM

18

Q: Lots of questions in the reopen queue

I've noticed in the last couple of days that there have been a few occasions when there's been a sudden surge of questions in the SO "Reopen" review queue. Normally there's either no questions at all to reopen or at most three or four, and that's still the case, except that for the last couple o...

support review closed-questions vote-to-reopen

user55340

Personally, I'm surprised how few downvotes I've gotten on this. Its +5/-10

user41796

@JimmyHoffa don't underestimate the value of signpost type closed questions. They can serve equally well as indicators of types of questions to avoid on the site. Now, we don't need 30,000 signposts for the same type of thing. 29,999 or so of those should be deleted off

user55340

-5

Q: Question askers should get free down votes on answers to their question

Digging in the archives depths of MSO while thinking about this, I found: Avoiding downvoting because of loss of points - limited number of free downvotes? Some Ways To Promote Down-Voting This made me think a bit about: how to promote down votes in general how to reduce the pain for users ...

discussion feature-request down-votes

user55340

side note, while doing that I found that having the link in both the [] and the () to an SE site will auto populate the title.

user55340

* [meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/46635/…

user55340

3:08 PM

Renders as:

user55340

Avoiding downvoting because of loss of points - limited number of free downvotes?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa - case in point, I decided against voting to delete some questions this AM because I thought they made good signposts. One was about contract insurance and I forget what the other was. Questions deserved to stay closed, but I thought they made for good dangling skeletons to warn off others passing by. :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I thought just having the link at [bla] without the () part would do that if I'm not mistaken. I learned that from meta posts where you always link the Q

Iduno, my opinion is that all sign posts are broken windows and act as attractors not deterrents. I think the best deterrent is quality on-topic questions that make people feel funny when they try to write a question that doesn't fit because it becomes more obvious to them when they look at the site "I want to ask X, but this site doesn't appear to have any content of that nature at all...", plus people who are new to the site are usually:
A) Either not looking at the content so they won't see sign posts or non-sign-posts, or

maybe that persons question was closed, but I'm not them so even though I'm asking the same thing, I'm asking it as it pertains to me therefore perhaps it won't get closed (Their question was probably closed because they're a bad actor on this forum)

When people are new here they often expect it to be like forums where closed means lots of different things and not "Don't post stuff like this" so much as "This thread got out of hand and needed to be closed" or various other reasons things are closed on forums

that's my take on it anyway. for a long time when I was first here I thought the moderation policy was ridiculous based on "Look how much people want to ask questions like X, Y, and Z, clearly these *should* be allowed because there's so many of them", the whole what the community wants isn't what's good for them stuff is a really poor argument because it's just cliche and lacking substance. However if I hadn't seen so much of that content on this site I would have assumed when it did crop up:
"Well that's not what this site is for!" because it wouldn't have fit with the rest of what I saw …

</rant> :)

@jozefg routing all links to previous posts back to blogger -> dannygratzer.com/feeds/posts/default -> haskell.org/haskellwiki/HXT or attoparsec -> AST -> Hakyll markdown

simple linked list AST:
data Content = Text String Content | NewLine Content | Bold Content Content (first content inside bold, second content follows after bold) et al

@GlenH7 I appended to your edit, what do you think? programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/190105/revisions

I focused it because unless I'm mistaken, I really think it's looking for the monty hall statistics rules etc, I think an appropriate answer could explain how all that works without relating it to his particular problem and letting him figure out how to apply those statistical rules to solve the problem himself. I could be completely wrong and it has nothing to do with that stuff but it seems like it does because it's asking about odds changing in response to discrete events:
player A chooses X dice which alters odds for player B, solve for X

Ampt

3:48 PM

Going to be an interesting semester in Linear Programming... Got new whiteboards and the professor is having an interesting time adapting

just can't quite figure out how to use that beveled edge

jozefg

@JimmyHoffa I know I'm excited!!

@JimmyHoffa Yeah that'd totally work, I'll do that next weekend :)

user41796

@JimmyHoffa good change. I was a bit surprised to be reminded I had made that edit in an attempt to get it reopened. Apparently several months is too long for things to remain in memory for me.

user41796

shameless request - would some folk go look at the suggested edit queue please? There are some wiki edits on greenfield and brownfield that need to be rejected. Editor should have cited Wikipedia and copied in relevant material.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Heh I see on Brownfield he plagiarized without citation, on Greenfield he just linked to wikipedia; it's not good content but that's technically safe, no?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Nah, they should all be rejected

user41796

4:02 PM

providing a link is insufficient for a wiki entry for the same reason that we don't allow link only answers

user41796

And the excerpts should have cited their source too

user41796

I shouldn't have approved the one that I did, so that's why I'm asking in chat to get it rejected. A 2nd rejection will take it down

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Y'know what, I think he did supply citation and content, he just did them in separate edits and the queue doesn't show how it would be constructed wholesale

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I agree. I don't like how those panels display; it's not all that clear as to what will show up

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 and besides, I have to reject them because I get the first review without knowing what his other edits are has to be rejected, and then the other edits are crap without the one I already rejected so I have to reject them too..

@Ampt you still don't have enough rep for non-reviewed edits?

user41796

4:06 PM

@JimmyHoffa If I had more time, I would write an epic MSO rant whinging about it. But I still have the data I want to get into my answer on the collider question. Stupid work getting in the way of SE activities...

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa I've got a whopping 1400 rep haha

You'll note how low my rep per day dropped once I started hanging out on the whiteboard.

user41796

@Ampt you should try answering more questions... :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt ahh I just got an edit review that had you as the editor, I was really confused because it was total gibberish wording (which I guess is the best that can be generated)

Ampt

@GlenH7 honestly? I started hanging in here and realized how little I knew and got very nervous about answering questions, so when I see a question about something I feel comfortable with I'll jump on it, otherwise I won't touch it for fear of making a mess of it

@JimmyHoffa could you link me please?

Jimmy Hoffa

The automated edit review audits are apparently terrible it was just total grammar fail and I'm like "Who the hell would edit this in, I can't even understand this"

user41796

4:08 PM

@Ampt like that stops anyone else? :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt programmers.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/39123

user41796

@Ampt I had one like that the other day from "you" too. It's a review audit check and shows up as Community afterwards

Ampt

It shows up as me when editing though?

user41796

I knew I should have grabbed a snip of it as it was horrifically bad.

Ampt

Because i've never seen that question??

user41796

4:10 PM

@Ampt that audit did, yes. The audit randomly selects users on the site as the "suggested" editor for the audit check

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt Review audits pick random users to claim as the creator of the reviewable content

user41796

trying to make it seem real

Ampt

Ahh, so it's making me look silly in the process

user55340

I got some spam I had previously flagged as a new user audit

Jimmy Hoffa

Yeah

user55340

4:10 PM

4

Q: Poor first post audit selection

I had a first post audit today, and passed it... it was, well, too obvious. And while I realize that this is in part to catch robo reviewers, there can be some things done to improve it for the near-robob poor human choices too. The audit itself was this one. Do not select a first post from ...

feature-request review-audits

Ampt

why even disclose the name of the editor at all?

that, to me, would be the best option if you want to make it so that everyone is on a level playing field

user55340

@Ampt it needs to look like it comes from someone.

Ampt

honestly, if it werent for the fact that shiny rep makes people do silly things, user names on the site as a whole are, in my opinion, part of the problem

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt I would agree except there's good reason: I just reviewed an edit of @GlenH7's and because I had a question about it I was able to speak directly to @GlenH7 about it.

user41796

@Ampt yes, that's what makes it so awesome

Ampt

4:12 PM

except that if someone contacts me about one of these questions it seems like a major bug in the system

user55340

Early on, people who got the edit were about to chew out the person who 'vandalized' the post.

user41796

@Ampt review audits are pretty obvious in this case. And I think the benefit of knowing the history of someones actual actions is helpful as Jimmy points out

Ampt

because I've never even looked at that question, much less edited it

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt Nah... no harm no foul. Besides keep in mind: Privileges to the review queues only come with fairly significant rep so users interacting with them have already proven they're good actors, they're unlikely to give other users grief about such things.

user41796

And it allows patterns to be identified where people need to get a chat with a mod to improve behavior

Ampt

4:14 PM

Oh wait, so to get some 1 on 1 time with @WorldEngineer all I have to do is make a bunch of bad reviews?

I do have a few python questions...

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt ...if 1 on 1 time with a mod you do want, technically there's a very easy way to get it. Somehow I doubt anybody would find it so particularly appreciable as they might hope.

Ampt

Very easy? Man, do they just leave their phone numbers around? I can just call him up?

Do I get to pick my mod or is one appointed for me by the state?

user55340

1 on 1 time with a mod isn't something one typically wants...

user55340

-13

Q: I've been temporarily suspended. Am I actually a bad user? Should I leave the site?

I have recently asked a question by accident when I was drafting it. I decided not to post, but it was left open in another tab and somehow (I don't even know) it got posted. When I noticed it, a few minutes after, when I opened the tab (mind the question wasn't even downvoted yet) I apologized a...

support account-suspension programmers-se

user55340

If you dive into the comments, you can see the user disclosing his 1 on 1 with Yannis.

Ampt

4:23 PM

I'm not seeing any mention of 1 on 1, just yannis telling him that what he was doing was wrong

user55340

@Ampt Its the comment that starts out "There it is" with a pastebin link.

Cawas

@MichaelT I identify with him

Ampt

> Wouldn't it be cool if there had a programming language

Entire title to the question. A+

user55340

One of the fundamental realizations that is useful in becoming a productive Stack Exchange-ger is to realize that SE isn't a "help site" - it isn't a site for the person asking the question, it is a site to generate content to draw eyeballs from google. For that they need content - and good content.

user55340

The value of SE is based on "it isn't a forum, there is a good question with a good answer"

Ampt

4:31 PM

From what I'm seeing he looks like an outlier to the data set. There are those who don't know better and refuse to learn to make themselves better and quickly leave SE because we're a bunch of power hungry, rep whoring users who downvote their questions out of spite, or there are those who don't know better and quickly learn. He seems to not know better, but genuinely unable to figure out how to make it better.

user55340

When people post the crazy off the wall questions, it doesn't add to the value of the site and leads people to misunderstand what it is for... which further hinders the value of the site.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt This is quite typical, there's just a learning curve to SE; this is why we were glad to see your early contributions and always like to encourage new participants who are clearly adding good content from the beginning.

user55340

The ideal of P.SE is the "practical, answerable questions" rather than the "idle curosity" - the later can lead to good questions too, but its not the ideal. People come here because the have a problem that they want to understand.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa now I just feel like you guys were talking about me behind my back. Do I need to go through the transcripts and look for bashing? haha

user55340

Many of the questions of the user in question are of the 'idle curiosity' - especially those that are deleted. The "wouldn't be cool if..." or "with enough resources, could you pass the turing test" -- there's no practical problem there that can be solved or answered... and encourages more of the "wouldn't it be cool if..." questions.

psr

4:43 PM

@JimmyHoffa True, though primarily by virtue of having almost no one writing code in it.

Ampt

@psr you've got some catching up to do haha

Anyone know of the best way to rewrite the first line of a file in place? Trying to avoid reading in the entire file and re-writing it back out, but want to make sure I don't have any characters left over from the original screen

user41796

@Ampt AFAIK, you can't unless you have an exact length replacement.

user41796

and / or are willing to pad with spaces to get to the original line length

Ampt

@GlenH7 that's what I thought. Darn.

I guess I should specify that I'm doing this in python if anyone has any language specific tricks ;)

user55340

@Ampt #!/usr/bin/perl

user41796

4:49 PM

could be, but my understanding of a file is its just a stream of bytes. You can't create gaps or extend without rewriting the file

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt Just go down to C, find the file system blocks and smidge the BOF forward to shrink appropriately, as for growth well...

just trunc the end of the pryor block to grow. Screw that file, we don't like that file anyway!

user41796

@JimmyHoffa data integrity is SOOOOOOOOOOO overrated

Brant

To be fair, your requirements never stated that the rest of the file should remain unchanged.

user55340

And yea... that (@GlenH7 's comment) is key. This is why databases like to have fixed sized columns - so you can rewrite the data in one column without redoing everything else.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 This varies based on file system, remember when you're specifying your formatting and you get to select 4096 byte blocks? Depending on the file systems format some may allow gap blocks, this is even taken advantage of by for instance people working with SD because contiguity causes uneven wear, so there are some file systems people use on SD that have a more rational spread on the hardware

user41796

4:53 PM

@JimmyHoffa I was referring to a gap within the file itself

Jimmy Hoffa

as was I

user41796

would that sort of a gap be exposed in a standard file handler though? Seems a bit too low level.

Jimmy Hoffa

I could be recalling wrong, but I believe I remember reading about people using file systems on SD that would spread the parts of your files out so your 1gb swap file doesn't just murder the head GB of your SD

@GlenH7 I did say pop down to C and start smidging the file system blocks around :P

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I have heard of that concern, but I'm very light on the details on what's done

user55340

If you have a file that is "123456789" you can't make it "1234abc56789" without rewriting at least from character 5 onwards. You could rewrite it to "1234abc89" without rewriting the entire file.

user55340

4:56 PM

@JimmyHoffa "SD"?

Jimmy Hoffa

Wear leveling

Wear leveling (also written wear levelling) is a technique for prolonging the service life of some kinds of erasable computer storage media, such as flash memory used in solid-state drives (SSDs) and USB flash drives. There are a few wear leveling mechanisms used in flash memory systems, each with varying levels of longevity enhancement. The term preemptive wear leveling (PWL) has been used by Western Digital to describe their preservation technique used on audio-video hard disks, but hard disk drives are not generally wear-leveled devices in the context of this article. Rationale EEPRO...

user55340

SSD... and yea... funny things happen with SSDs.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT SSD or SDCard both

@MichaelT they mention USB flash drives there as well

user55340

You've got a limited number of writes to any spot on a SSD.

user41796

@MichaelT so you're just writing out 8, 9 where 5 was and then truncating, right?

user55340

4:58 PM

@GlenH7 IIRC, it depends on how you write to a file.

user55340

Its been awhile since I dealt with actual files...

user55340

1

Q: Rewrite only first bytes of file

I have small problem with rewriting first 2,5KB of file. My code should read 2KB and 512 bytes to dynamically allocated memory and then rewrite specific bytes of much larger file. f = fopen(argv[2], "rb"); if(f==NULL) printf("File doesn't exist!"); fseek(f, 0, SEEK_SET); data = calloc(2*102...

c file file-io rewrite stdio

user41796

@MichaelT ditto. What you said seems legit because you just move the EOF marker

user55340

-1

Q: How to overwrite specific bytes in a binary file with C#?

I want to overwrite bytes in an exe. So I need to generate a random string, convert it, and then write it to the exe. I need to overwrite the 4 hex strings you see there in this format xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx (8-4-4-4-12) the dashes are needed so that also was a problem for me. ...

c# binary byte overwrite

user55340

And then, @Ampt the python version of that question

user55340

4:59 PM

5

Q: How to overwrite some bytes in the middle of a file with Python?

I'd like to be able to overwrite some bytes at a given offset in a file using Python. My attempts have failed miserably and resulted : - either in overwriting the bytes at given offset but also truncating the file just after (file mode = "w" or "w+") - or in appending the bytes at the end of the...

python file patching

Jimmy Hoffa

> Yes, of course, knowing more languages and paradigms can only make you a better programmer, but get this straight:
>
> There is not a single tool, a single book, a single programming paradigm that will make you a better programmer.

How does that make any sense?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Um, it's ignoring The Whiteboard's existence.

Jimmy Hoffa

He just said "Obviously learning'll make you a better programmer, but remember: learning won't make you a better programmer"

am I misinterpreting the statement because it doesn't make any sense to me

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa but there is a specific pattern right?

user41796

gibberish === gibberish

user55340

5:02 PM

@Ampt You know... you should be glad I'm not a mod.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 oo even type equality, can't beat that.

user41796

@MichaelT I nearly pinned that one

Ampt

@MichaelT I've already been threatened to be banned and I got the boot out of the room the other day.

@GlenH7 c'mon, you know you want too ;)

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa How does that not make sense?

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens My interpretation must be off; it sounds like he just said "Yes knowing more stuff will make you better, but remember: Learning more stuff won't make you better" ??

Thomas Owens

5:08 PM

@JimmyHoffa What he's saying is that by learning and doing more stuff, you'll be better. But there's no single thing that you can learn to magically become better. You are better because of the collective set of things that you know, "tools in your toolbox", if you will.

Jimmy Hoffa

ahh.. I guess that makes sense..

Thomas Owens

That's how I'm interpreting it anyway.

Oh, yeah. It's in the next paragraph sentence: "Learning different programming languages with different paradigms definitely help you to be a better programmer, learning to solve problems with different aproaches also benefit your logical thinking greatly."

Ampt

@gnat You know for the longest time I thought he was saying "I'll be Bach" and I figured he was just really into classical music

Jimmy Hoffa

5:25 PM

@ThomasOwens I understand you wield a larger hammer than the rest of ours so you can't close vote, but in your opinion am I wrong in close voting that Q? I'm not certain myself.

user55340

@Ampt Terminator XIX (Leipzig in Time) - Skynet, in an attempt to disrupt time sends Arnold to the year 1723 in an attempt to take over the life of the famed composer. The resistance makes use of its Time Leap-zig to attempt to foil this plot.

3

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Everything2?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa It could be... half tempted to...

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa I'm not sure. It may be a duplicate of this question, which maybe should be historically locked.

Ampt

@MichaelT I'm assuming at some point in the story, the Terminators presence disrupts Bachs schedule, forcing Arnold to take his place at the piano, at which point arnold looks directly into the camera just before walking on stage and uttering the now famous lines "I'll be Bach"

Jimmy Hoffa

5:34 PM

@ThomasOwens I disagree with that duplicate. They're fundamentally different questions in my perview.. one is "Why should I learn anything" the other is "What about these things make them worth learning instead of other things?" One is an A vs. B, the other is just a wide open request for advice

user55340

Part of the problem is there are two questions in that question...

user55340

1. What are the advantages of using LISP and Haskell?
2. Will they make me a better programmer?

user55340

The second one is a dup of the why should I learn. The second one is likely a dup of something else.

Jimmy Hoffa

Ampt

Am I just really bad at integrating languages or am I correct in thinking that multi-language programs have a higher cost of implementation?

Jimmy Hoffa

5:41 PM

Nobody wants to accept my flag or decline it either heh

@Ampt They do. It increases with the dissonance between the two languages.

python to C is a somewhat large dissonance. runtimes can affect this too for instance if you were using one of the python compilers that goes to native or a common VM or CPython you may find different results

Ampt

Alright, then to defend his point that while new languages often solve the same problems in different ways, unless you're making a trivial program that only aims to solve 1 problem, choosing a new language to solve one particular problem in a program seems rather silly

I agree that using only 1 language ever is a good way to get stuck in the past, but to say that you'll use these new languages to solve different problems is a little lofty unless there is an easy way to bring in that new language easily when you see that problem occuring

@JimmyHoffa boost::python lays claims to solve that but I had a hell of a time making that one work and ended up using good old sockets

user55340

@Ampt The "moving parts" in the system, the more attention needed at integration points, the more it costs to implement.

user55340

(I recall one system that was oracle pl/sql + perl + java that I worked on... with regex as the linkages)

user55340

Java wasn't beefy enough to do practical "lets crunch lots of huge text files and run regexes against them" - but perl wasn't appropriate for the "incoming ejb calls, lets run regexes against the parameters..."

André

@MichaelT that sounds pretty cool :D

user55340

5:51 PM

@André It was. Getting the gears all turnning properly was a bit of a headache. Fortunately the regexes for perl and java are both PCRE. You'd select the regexes from the database, and compile them. On the perl side, it was crunching existing core dump analysis files to identify the "if you see regex #123, pull out this string and that string and store it in the database"

André

@MichaelT Oooh

Ampt

Yeah I took the cheap way out and used sockets

user55340

On the java side, it was "incoming core analysis file from customer site, identify the regex it matches" and then in the database side there was a stored procedure to take the regex match and strings and identify the bugs (inserted by the perl bit) that matched.

Ampt

hard to find a language that doesn't support sockets, but then you're dealing with parsing and building strings in multiple languages

André

I did once some javascripting inside the java, so the client could create it own cost formulas, it worked pretty great and it was fun too :)

Ampt

5:53 PM

@André woah woah woah, don't go around using the 'F' word

we are a strictly serious site.

user55340

This then was sent back through the channels so that when a customer machine crashed, within 5 minutes the sysadmin got an email that said "your machine crashed, it was identified as bug #1114. Installing OS 5.2.3 will resolve this issue."

André

awww man @Ampt, so sorry D:

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Send binary over the socket. Something like ProtoBuf or a customer implementation. Bytes n-m = text, parse as such.

André

I'm not native speaker, my bad, didn't knew about the 'F' word rule here

Ampt

you are allowed to be proud, satisfied, and content but there will be absolutely NO fun

user55340

5:54 PM

@André He's a student... if you say "quiz" or "test" or "exam", he'll consider those to be dirty words too... just like "work"

André

oh, you're talking about Fun, not Formula XD

Ampt

Blog - Stack Exchange: Stack Overflow: Where We Hate Fun

Jeff Atwood on January 04, 2010

I noticed that the Stack Overflow question Strangest language feature has been closed and reopened several times now. The text of the question is brief:

What is in your opinion the most surprising, weird, strange or really “WTF” language feature you have encountered?

I agree this is not exactly an ideal question for Stack Overflow, per the FAQ:

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered! …

I feel like this gets linked more and more....

André

your fault I suppose D:

Ampt

@MichaelT I have a quiz on thursday and am at work right now :P

Well I'm not the one running around talking about how much "Fun" Programming is

if you go around telling everyone, they'll all want to do it and we'll be out of a job with bans from SE to boot!

André

But thinking outside the box and using other programming languages is very exciting @MichaelT

user55340

5:58 PM

Because (in English) vulgar interjections tend to be one syllable with a consonant ending, you'll often find them to be "four letter words" and may see that term used at times. One need not repeat them, though I do find it amusing that "test", "exam", "quiz" and "work" fall into this (well, exam is two syllables... but you get the idea).

Ampt

since were on the subject of syllable count and grouping, I've always found it to be interesting how all the big name groups and websites are 2 syllables. Google, Yahoo, facebook, youtube, twitter, wordpress, eBay, Tumblr, reddit, imgur

user55340

@Ampt You want it to be something that people can say and remember... and type. Too long a funny word and people won't type it.

user55340

bablefish.altavista.com? Meh. translate.google.com? Better.

Ampt

@MichaelT oh, I understand the reasoning behind it, but it's one of those things that you don't often appreciate until you see the absolute scale of it

user55340

Never underestimate the importance of good marketing.

Ampt

6:05 PM

Sites like Tumblr and imgur could almost be 3 syllables but they've shortened it down so that it flows like 2

Tum-ba-lur vs tum-blur

stack exchange vs stack over flow

wait. bad example. I'm an idiot who can't count

2

wait no, I stand by that. Ex-change versus ov-er-flow

user55340

The consideration there is that we programmers think and use those words often.

Ampt

I don't think that the set of people who use google is limited to programmers

(See, I can use those Computer Sciencey terms too)

user55340

No, but with words that are common to the profession, one can easily think/remember it.

Ampt

Ok, who starred me stating that I'm an idiot. Just because it's true doesn't make it any less hurtful.

user55340

@Ampt I'll admit to the first one...

Ampt

6:16 PM

that is awesome. Stuff like that always amazes me that we can mass produce those on such a scale

user55340

@Ampt Look at the Madison Xray Lithography lab sometime...

André

I've seen that they put "Easter eggs" when they etch these chips

Ampt

@ThomasOwens where were you a month ago when I implemented that architectural design?

user55340

nanotech.wisc.edu

André

hidden drawings or messages, I saw it at some magazine, don't remember the source for the pictures

user55340

6:21 PM

Chip art

Chip art, also known as silicon art, chip graffiti or silicon doodling, refers to microscopic artwork built into integrated circuits, also called chips or ICs. Since ICs are printed by photolithography, not constructed a component at a time, there is no additional cost to include features in otherwise unused space on the chip. Designers have used this freedom to put all sorts of artwork on the chips themselves, from designers' simple initials to rather complex drawings. Given the small size of chips, these figures cannot be seen without a microscope. Chip graffiti is sometimes called ...

André

that's it @MichaelT

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Here, working with a custom implementation because ProtoBuf didn't exist when this project was started.

user55340

smithsonianchips.si.edu/chipfun/graff.htm

Thomas Owens

But same idea.

user55340

6:24 PM

Here's a famous one...

user55340

Ampt

F. F.?

user55340

The initials of Frederico Faggin on the 4004. circa 1971

user55340

(and that cut and paste mangled his name)

user55340

Federico Faggin

Federico Faggin (born December 1, 1941) is an Italian-born and educated physicist, naturalized US citizen, widely known for designing the first commercial microprocessor. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. He was founder and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors. In 2010 he received the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the United States confers for achievements related to technological progress. Life Born in Vicenza, Federico Faggin received a...

Ampt

6:26 PM

Funny, the 4004 is only 3 generations removed from a processor running one of our systems...

4004->8008->8080->8086

user55340

@Ampt It works, its proven, its likely fairly fault tolerant too.

Ampt

oh not saying that's a bad thing, just crazy how far it came so fast

the 8086 is one hell of a chip, and was only the 4th generation (unless my counting is, once again, completely off) of majorly manufactured chips, in a matter of only 6 years

user55340

If you get into embedded devices, you'll find the 6502 all over the place (apparently). Thats the old Apple ][.

Ampt

@MichaelT wow didn't know that chip was so prevalent. looking at the wiki it was in just about everything

user55340

It even found its way into the Macintosh IIfx.

user55340

6:33 PM

> The IIfx also included two special dedicated processors for sound and serial communications. These I/O chips featured a pair of embedded 6502 CPUs, meaning that this Mac also had the core of two Apple II machines inside it (albeit at 10 MHz rather than the 1 MHz of the Apple II). However the machine's architecture did not expose these CPUs to developers.

Ampt

on an unrelated note, I have a colleague on the phone describing how a USB drive works... we provide them as supervisor keys with our latest system so they don't have to put in the password all the time, and he was explaining that it can hold anything, music, spreadsheets, pictures. I almost thought he was selling the USB lmao

Jimmy Hoffa

6:49 PM

@MichaelT My boss said he wrote tons of assembly for these ages ago, he tries to find them on ebay sometimes but they're fairly expensive because the demand is still high due to the chip quality; they are still used widely in embedded stuff according to him as you said

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa your boss wasn't kidding... ebay.com/itm/MOS-Technology-6502-8-Bit-Microprocessor-/…

20 bucks for a single chip

(For comparison, most atmel and microchip embedded processors are $.50 to $6 depending on how much you want. The higher end ones are 32 bit processors with literally everything but the kitchen sink added)

microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?product=PIC32MX795F512L

user55340

@JimmyHoffa if he wants some nostalga, visual6502.org

Ampt

user55340

The neat thing with that, they photos of each layer of the chip and then aligned the photos, vectorized them, and made a hardware level emulator of the chip.

user55340

Or to read about how things were done back then... research.swtch.com/6502

user55340

6:58 PM

> The photomask for the 6502 was the size of a large table—large enough that the engineers crawled around on top of it to perform the job of cutting the layout out of the mask, all the while being careful to wear clean socks with no holes, so that stray toenails didn't insert traces in the mask where they didn't belong.

user55340

> The most amazing part about the whole process is that they got the 6502 right in one try.

Ampt

@MichaelT holy crap... one try?

André

woah

Ampt

> “He built seven different chips without ever having an error,” says Peddle with disbelief in his voice. “Almost all done by hand. When I tell people that, they don't believe me, but it's true. This guy is a unique person. He is the best layout guy in the world.”

user55340

I remember my father working on cards for the Apple 2 when I was a kid. The leaf table was opened wide, leafs removed, glass plate over the hole, light underneath, and exacto knives and black tape.

Ampt

7:06 PM

wait wait wait, your father did traces for the apple 2?

user55340

I also remeber when he did the first card using Mac Draw (Mac plus computer) and the electronics shop didn't believe you could do it on a computer...

user55340

@Ampt Not the 2, but cards for it. He had a custom interface company.

Ampt

and no one has tried to kill you to use your blood in some sort of black magic ritual for being the son of a king?

user55340

Here's a... laser disk player. Here's an apple ][. Make them talk to each other. here's an electronic scale...

user55340

So you find out what the protocol it spoke was, how it got its data out to a serial line, and made a card that read that (program in the roms), with the right connectors... etc...

user55340

7:08 PM

I remeber well into the 90s in the chem lab there were still apples being used with the cards he made for specific chem type hardware (viscometer, etc...) You wanted the data collection to not be "read paper tape" but 'data on disk'

Jimmy Hoffa

I do find it interesting how common programmers come from programmers. Suppose your average person just find it all so foreign at first compared to those raised around it

user55340

@JimmyHoffa he wasn't a programmer... or rather, he never got too far into it. Some fortran and pascal (and 6502 assembly) was all he did. Its just that sometimes you needed the right tool and a computer was it.

user55340

His most complex programs were written for a professor... one was counting the lattice paths... the other was dealing special bridge hands.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT In the 80s writing fortran and pascal and assembly at all puts you head and shoulders above the common person in amount of programming. That's kind of my point; to you and I it's totally mundane, but to the 90% of people who never learn a single thing about that stuff (especially in that era) it's likely very foreign to the point that you or I can't really see their perspective on this stuff

user55340

The thing was, he challenged me to write programs of moderate complexity (for a kid). That pi = 4 * (1/1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 ...) sequence and a prime number generator... wrote those in Jr. High (as a challenge that he paid me for).

user55340

7:15 PM

$10 to write a program to compute pi. $5 for each additional way to compute it. $20 to compute prime numbers, $5 for each performance enhancement.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT and the average person never would have had anything like that because their parents not having any contact with programming wouldn't know the first thing about having their kid do it. Like I said, programmers come from programmers at a rate rather higher than GenPop it seems.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa There is likely some correlation in children follow similar career paths as parents.

user55340

Not always... but some. My brother is a yoga instructor... (who dabbles with Filemaker (incidentally, the database my father used to record grades for the lab) as a side job... and uses it for his own studio... and most recently wrote a program to properly calculate the "moon days")

André

I only had contact with programming at University, it is uncommon here to have parents that were/are programmers.

user55340

The program was web scraping the naval observatory moon data... and then he had the challenge of the math for "Moon is n% full" to "how to render that image..."

André

7:21 PM

I suppose it is related to the technological/economical development

user55340

@André There's also a bit of the "professionals have the ability to send their children to higher education to become other professionals" while more... vocational types tend to have the "children take over the family business" or "apprentice in their father's/mother's line of work"

André

My parents wanted to support me in whatever I wanted to do, if it was "high paid". I wanted to be a professional composer at the time. Choose computer science because I had affinity with computers. No regrets, but still play the guitar sometimes :)

Jimmy Hoffa

Possibly the most ridiculous website I've stumbled across in a while

code.org

Opinions on who and why people should learn to code from such luminaries as ashton kutcher, snoop dogg, and enrique iglecias

André

If you want be credible, have a testimonial from Bill Clinton. Hmm

user55340

> A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

user55340

7:28 PM

note the "program a computer" is rather far down on that list.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT ...I don't know what conn a ship even means

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Take the helm. Navigate. "Sulu to the conn"

user55340

Conn (nautical)

The conn, also spelled con, cun, conne, cond, conde, and cund, is the act of controlling a ship's movements while at sea. The following quote summarizes the use of the term: Within the U.S. Navy, the captain of a vessel typically selects a junior officer to perform the role of conning for him or her. Such an individual has the title of "Officer of the Deck" (abbreviated OOD) or "the conning officer" while on duty, and he or she will stand watches at four-hour intervals carrying out the captain's commands. However, the captain can immediately take the conn by simply issuing an order to ...

Thomas Owens

I don't want everyone to learn how to write code in school.

I think it's a dumb idea.

user55340

Its important to understand the computer isn't a magic box, but there are more important skills.

Thomas Owens

7:30 PM

Also, his name is Snoop Lion now.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Shy of conn a ship, and set a bone I suspect I could manage most of those to varying skill levels...

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa I'd like to think I'd be really good at planning an invasion, but I don't know how to test that theory.

user55340

@ThomasOwens Starcraft!

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens I agree. That said I agree with @MichaelT too, the general concept of how a turing machine works by sequential instruction execution that is stored in a form of memory (that it's digital or what that means isn't even relevant) is worth understanding by all in this day and age.

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT I suck at Starcraft because I try to micromanage.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:32 PM

@ThomasOwens Well, I can follow orders so whenever you come up with your P.SE->SO invasion plan I'm all ears (can't conn a ship though)

Thomas Owens

I either need to be micromanaging at a unit level or I need to direct at a really high level and let others worry about the details.

But wait! Cory Booker says everyone needs to learn to program. I mean, he RUNS INTO BURNING BUILDINGS and GIVES PEOPLE FREE POWER IN HURRICANES.

Jimmy Hoffa

Further annoying bullshit is that website states

> Sign your name if you think every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn to code.

I of course think everyone should have the opportunity, but what they say you're signing and what they're representing (that everyone should be forced to) are totally different things

user55340

7:52 PM

@JimmyHoffa So here's a debate thought, how many years of what classes should be part of the required curriculum for a highschool student? Pretend we can ignore any stupid laws or required tests for this thought.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT @GlenH7 the argumentativeness and topicality, this smells like our un-friend. Though I don't suspect it is based on the name, but the attitude still smells..

0

Q: How do I actually run an assembly program?

I'm reading the assembly language for x86 processors and currently I'm struggling to run by assembly program. I've download the mas version 6 (the one that doesn't require you to have visual studio 2005) from www.bsit.zxq.net. I have visual studio 2012 and whenever i save my assembly program on n...

assembly x86 visual-studio-2012 x64

user55340

For example, should "home accounting and basic cooking skills" be required for 1 semester?

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Fuck I only graduated 2 of them, and that was in a dropout school to begin with (we didn't have grades and most periods taking a class was optional), I really can't even imagine

user55340

@JimmyHoffa the comments aren't as... "I know what I'm doing" as the unfriend has been in the past.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT True, but there's just that trollish twinge of "I hear you, but I'm going to ignore what you said and say it's not helpful!"

user55340

7:55 PM

My take on it - its a tooling question about specific use of specific tools.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Back in Jr. High, I had a year's worth of home ec (one year was cooking, the next was fabrics and the 'ec' part (econ). I can put a button back on my shirt if I need to and have the sewing kit. I can even use a sewing machine if I need to (would have to figure out how to thread it again...)

user55340

And then the other part was industrial arts. Wood working. I remember one year's project was a scale model of a house (miniature stud walls and such).

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