The Whiteboard

RhysW

8:44 AM

@WorldEngineer extremely windows centric yeah!

gnat

Carthago canini lupus est...

0

A: Why are there so many closed, on hold, and down voted questions here?

Site scope and question quality expectations seem to be set, stabilized and well understood by majority of regulars long time ago, as discussed eg here: Are you still confused about what Programmers is for? Per my observations, most troublesome questions are either asked by newcomers or are old ...

> I firmly believe that to large extent, misguiding newcomers about Programmers is caused by the way how questions are selected for exposure at collider...

iCanLearn

12:11 PM

Just a short question... I'm comparing my algorithm to some other algorithms for the same problems, but the results for those algorithms are expressed in "CPU". There's this graph with "n" on x-axis and "CPU" on y-axis, and for n = 100, CPU is around 5000... So, how long is that? Is it 5000 seconds?

This is from Wikipedia: "The CPU time is measured in clock ticks or seconds."... Ok, if it's seconds that's fine, but what if it's "clock ticks"? In the paper, it's just "5000 CPU".

I used Stopwatch in C# and my results are expressed in seconds, am I doing this wrong?

Yannis Rizos

12:36 PM

if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {

    $name = $_POST["user"];
    $pass = $_POST["pass"];

    if (($name == "------") && ($pass == "------------")) {
        $_SESSION["ok"] = 1;
    } else {
        $_SESSION["ok"] = 0;
    }
}

So... I just found this ^^^ on production.

user55340

2:03 PM

@iCanLearn Completely cpu dependent.

user55340

2:53 PM

Ack - I ment collaborative lock in that flag, not historical one.

user55340

(and can't change the flag)

user55340

21

Q: Are there any statistics that show the popularity of Git versus SVN?

I'm writing an essay, and would like to have some empiric evidence, perhaps longitudinal data where the popularity of these technologies is compared over a period of some years. Are there any statistics that show the popularity of Git versus SVN?

Jimmy Hoffa

3:11 PM

@YannisRizos You're the one who chose a PHP shop, what did you expect?

gnat

3:41 PM

@MichaelT just spent all my DV limit on crappy answers to that crappy question. I don't care it it's friggin' collaborative or not, I only want to make sure that incredibly crappy here's'your'friggin'link answers won't ever be used to trick my fellow reviewers in audits as friggin' (give me a friggin' break) "known good" ("good" oh yeah gimme a friggin' break) audits.

Whoever was a mod not acting on my flag on this friggin' post, thank you thank you thank you I wasted my votes on making sure your lenience won't hurt reviewers

13

A: Bring a "human factor" into review audit composition/selection

While there is no "officially implemented" solution for this, one can use whatever means are at their disposal now in order to bring the "human factor" to audits selection. When you spot a slippery audit, go straight to the "item" it uses and do the action opposite to audit direction. If you f...

jozefg

4:19 PM

1 more upvote till close votes..

jozefg

4:30 PM

2 more rep auugh

I'm coming for you poorly worded overly general fluffy questions (cracks knuckles)

gnat

@jozefg tomorrow. I picked two of your posts worth upvoting (there are more than that but more that 2 in a day would be at risk of tripping brainless serial voting script). Can't cast now because of above

53 mins ago, by gnat

@MichaelT just spent all my DV limit on crappy answers to that crappy question. I don't care it it's friggin' collaborative or not, I only want to make sure that incredibly crappy here's'your'friggin'link answers won't ever be used to trick my fellow reviewers in audits as friggin' (give me a friggin' break) "known good" ("good" oh yeah gimme a friggin' break) audits.

jozefg

@gnat I seem to be at 3008 so thank you!

user55340

That was me...

user55340

and yea, I was teasing you with up voting a question to get you to 2 away too

jozefg

Ah you wonderful people :)

user55340

5:04 PM

Ok I agree, but in my case if Java were as hard to decompile as any .exe executable it would be sufficient. Exe programs are cracked everyday but also many resist either because it's too expensive or because it's not worth cracking them. Java instead seems a piece of cake to crack, I would like to be as safe as exe not more. — Sandra G 1 min ago

user55340

Part of Java is the ability for the compiler to introspect any compiler output for linking (or runtime linking too). This inherently makes it rather easy to decompile... just as easy as any library for any language though.

user55340

A Java application is 'just' a library with a main method.

user55340

(though I'm sure that if someone was to write some clojure and compile that to a class file, it would sufficiently confuse many java programmers...)

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT or scala or...

I wish that C# implicitly converted properties into their setter or getter function based on the constraint of their reference to be passed as a function ref

jozefg

5:21 PM

I just proved false... dammit

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg That's ok, that just means you're in the codomain. :)

Jimmy Hoffa

5:40 PM

hackaday.com/2011/12/19/ask-hackaday-troll-physics-edition

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I saw a troll-physics as part of a magic act.

user55340

There were 4 switches (red, green, yellow, blue) and four lightbulbs (same colors). No matter how the switches and light bulbs were arraigned, the switch turned on the corresponding light.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT hooray for rf.

user55340

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Jimmy Hoffa

I didn't watch that video so I can't speak to it, but what you describe is a very simple RF trick and considering it involves 4 and was in an act the contraption would have easily been of sufficient size to contain such bits and bobbles. The video I linked I don't know if it's a contraption of sufficient size for that

user55340

6:13 PM

@JimmyHoffa the innards of the trick is actually (rot13) n fcrpvnyvmrq pbzchgre gung lbh cebtenz ol syvccvat guvatf ba va beqre. Gur yvtugf ner nyjnlf ghearq ba va gur beqre sbez bar fvqr gb gur bgure. Bapr cebtenzzrq, gur yvtugf pna or syvccrq gb qrzbafgengr. Syvccvat gur sbhegu yvtug nf gur ynfg bar bss erfrgf gur cebtenz.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT that's stupid, my way is easier than that, and more functional.

user55340

Its still neat.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT True

Interesting that someone came up with that approach

Maybe it's the software engineer in me, but I never would have thought of that, that type of approach in software is thrown out before it even enters your mind

user55340

If you search for magic switchboard revealed on youtube you can see whats under the box.

Jimmy Hoffa

I think the C++ program you're looking for is called Perl — Jimmy Hoffa 11 secs ago

user55340

6:17 PM

Well, he could be after getopt:

user55340

7

Q: Using getopt to parse program arguments in c++

I have a program which takes various command line arguments. For the sake of simplification, we will say it takes 3 flags: -a, -b, and -c and use the following code to parse my arguments int c; while((c = getopt(argc, argv, ":a:b:c")) != EOF) { switch (c) { ...

c++ getopt

user55340

Or it might be that he's supposed to build a state machine for processing it himself...

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT No, I just parsed the gibberish a little closer, it's gotta be spam. He just repeated the same sentence over and over. It's a hard to parse sentence so you don't pick up on it right away

user55340

Very true - its clear if you look to edit it.

Jimmy Hoffa

Call me wrong but I spam flagged it. I'll get a decline if that's the wrong approach but I don't know what else to call it when somebody takes a sentence and just pastes it in repeat 15 times and calls it a question

user55340

6:21 PM

Need to get more 20k delete voters to be able to speedily delete things.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT It'd get closed if people saw the CV on it but I'm not wasting a CV on that. Some mod will notice it in time..

user20683

Anti-Spam blocks are now in place on SO

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT ...alternatively it's somebody using P.SE as their public secret message communication channel. N repeats to represent a relevant N cipher key to the gibberish opts mentioned in the title

user55340

@WorldEngineer They've also got a "abusive user" filter that got put into place that got raised in priority after some issues on EE.SE

user20683

@MichaelT Aye, same deal.

user55340

6:28 PM

83

A: What legal options exist to Stack Exchange to prosecute aggressive users/trolls?

Update (10/30/13) This has been implemented, and is now live in testing (and, actively mitigating the very impetus for its design). The person responsible for this is 'that guy' in don't be that guy. He's the guy that lost a chess game years ago and returns to the park every day to throw the ...

user55340

Eh. The idea that you should keep a spanner out of your toolbox because it is supposedly evil (according to the anti-spanner coalition, I guess) doesn't seem like the best plan. Nor is just having a toolbox with only a spanner in it. Which is why I'm working on a framework to punch people through the internet. You guys can beta for me. — Won't Sep 16 at 16:47

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Not closing that Q as spam?

user20683

@JimmyHoffa haven't gotten to the list yet

user55340

@JimmyHoffa the cut and paste was likely to get it above a minimum quality threshold. Might want to ask shog9 about that filter and see what can be done to address this one.

user20683

7:07 PM

This is kind of neat.

user55340

7:25 PM

@JimmyHoffa Its been deleted and user deleted, I'll bet your spam has been marked helpful.

user55340

8:12 PM

RAII is #2 on the collider. I wonder if we'll get one of the luminaries of language design on SO showing up.

enderland

speaking of the collider, Workplace has hit it nearly every day for a while now

tylerl

@WorldEngineer browsing through the code looks like it's somewhat incomplete

user20683

@tylerl Yeah, to be expected

tylerl

8:28 PM

@WorldEngineer It seemed a bit ambitious

user20683

@tylerl Linux was too

user55340

@WorldEngineer failed migration there?

user20683

@MichaelT aye, typing as we speak

tylerl

@WorldEngineer So was hurd. Linux is the exception

user55340

Well, its good that I was out of close votes that I didn't cast one for migration only to have it fail.

tylerl

8:30 PM

@WorldEngineer Or perhaps the key lesson was that linux wasn't ambitious. Hurd was.

user20683

@tylerl I'm not overly familiar with the history of Hurd.

user55340

@WorldEngineer You just need to follow it.

user20683

I'll read it sometime when I'm not doing cover letters and cramming Ruby into my head.

user20683

@MichaelT note the last half of that sentence.

user55340

@WorldEngineer You missed the pun?

user20683

8:32 PM

@MichaelT nope, but think about what I just said

user20683

I'm learning more Ruby

user55340

I try not to. Whenever I think in ruby I get a headache.

tylerl

@WorldEngineer It's the GNU operating system. Pre-dates linux by a fair margin, never really went anywhere because it was so heavily engineered from the beginning. Linus explicitly stated that he wasn't going to do anything nearly as big as GNU in his original usenet post.

user55340

though, I'll certainly admit that in today's market if you don't have professional experience, its a good language to know as people are looking for it.

user55340

@tylerl The mouseover for...

user55340

8:34 PM

You can either hang out in the Android Loop or the HURD loop.

tylerl

@MichaelT :)

user55340

Ruby... avoid the temptation to be clever in your code.

Robert Harvey

[insert language here] ... avoid the temptation to be clever in your code.

user55340

There's LOTS of clever ruby code. The culture seems to delight in code golfing or esoteric approaches.

user20683

@RobertHarvey Unless Haskell

tylerl

8:37 PM

@RobertHarvey Ruby has "clever" as a core language feature

user55340

"We'll use a lambda here because we can"

user55340

13

Q: What's an example of Ruby code that's "too clever"?

I was having a discussion with some programmer friends who said that they see Ruby programmers (in particular) producing a lot of code that's "too clever". So I'm wondering what would that look like? I'm referring to the unnecessary use of an obscure language feature in a context in which somethi...

ruby

tylerl

Ruby is a bit like writing poetry in a foreign language. You look smart, you feel smart, but not even you understand what you wrote.

user55340

The metaprogramming and open classes as parts of the language make it very neat to play in when you get there... but at the same time one person's "neat playing" is another person's "maintenance nightmare"

Robert Harvey

@tylerl That's how I feel when I see stuff written in C# for the CodeDom, using Reflection.

It might as well be a foreign language. And it's not even poetic.

tylerl

8:40 PM

@RobertHarvey it was better in the original Klingon

Robert Harvey

Ah.

user55340

(heh - closed by RobertHarvey 1 minute ago)

Robert Harvey

11

Q: Why can't Java/C# implement RAII?

Question: Why can't Java/C# implement RAII? Clarification: I am aware the garbage collector is not deterministic. So with the current language features it is not possible for an object's Dispose() method to be called automatically on scope exit. But could such a deterministic feature be added? ...

java c# resources smart-pointer raii

[sigh] Everytime I answer one of these Language Lawyer questions, I get pummeled by the pedants.

This one is especially dangerous, because it requires Language Lawyer skills in Java, C# and C++.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:46 PM

@RobertHarvey yeah that was a total mine field, that's why I avoided it, even though I'm a C# lawyer.

@RobertHarvey you making the migration from SO to P.SE? You seem to have been more active around here lately than in a while it seems

Asking a mathematician what the most advanced math is, is like asking an artist what the most advanced color is. This question relies on a relationship between maths that doesn't exist. — Jimmy Hoffa 19 secs ago

user20683

I'd argue that Cryptography does because Elliptical Curves but it's a total toss-up

tylerl

@WorldEngineer Yeah... crypto involves some head-scratching sort of math, because the security margins need to be calculable. In graphics, if the output looks right then congratulations. In crypto, well, don't even bother, 'cause you're going to do it wrong.

user20683

@tylerl Graphics can have some pretty seriously advanced stuff but for the common usage, yeah it's straightforward. Clifford Algebras can come into play but that's more experimental than anything else.

Jimmy Hoffa

10:06 PM

Then there's scientific predictive data modeling, nobody should think meteorological or nasa type maths are easy. Oh and don't forget zygohistomorphic foundational categorically classifiable perspective analysis, or there's always quantitative analysis which is like the scientific stuff but using probabilities and normalization techniques instead of proofs.

...point being there's lots of totally different exceedingly complex maths, which is most complex is a matter of personal skills and experience

user20683

Yeah, Dynamical Systems are no joke

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa I'm hoping that Programmers gradually evolves into the site that I thought Stack Overflow was going to be. Stack Overflow has turned into a code troubleshooting site, which I have little interest in.

I have plenty of my own code to troubleshoot, thanks.

user20683

@RobertHarvey Yeah, that's one of the big reasons my rep is so low there. I find more value troubleshooting my own code and don't really see the point of fixing bugs for free.

user20683

unless it's an open source project

Robert Harvey

People who can't troubleshoot their own code also have trouble writing good questions. People who can troubleshoot their code have no use for Stack Overflow unless their question is conceptual, and that's Programmers.

vimeo.com/6192765

Two more and I become "leet".

When I get to 2000 I get a set of steak knives.

user20683

10:22 PM

@RobertHarvey

user20683

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user20683

This song almost perfectly defines what it's like to "flow" as a programmer.

Robert Harvey

10:43 PM

Mmm... Trance.

Boy, that's a hot signal.

@WorldEngineer Kraftwerk meets Depeche Mode.

user20683

@RobertHarvey VNV nation is fantastic

Robert Harvey

I'll have to listen to some of their other songs.

user20683

@RobertHarvey

user20683

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iCanLearn

VNV Nation is ok, but this is my favorite coding music: youtube.com/watch?v=r4jpy836IJo

user20683

10:55 PM

@iCanLearn I tend to like Wizzy Noise

Robert Harvey

If you're really good, you can compose this kind of music on your computer while you're programming. Chuck Norris can probably do it with one hand tied behind his back.

Just to make it fair.

user20683

@RobertHarvey There's actually a set of C one liners that make music

Robert Harvey

It probably sounds like the Aflac duck.

►

user20683

@RobertHarvey

user20683

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user20683

11:00 PM

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iCanLearn

11:32 PM

@WorldEngineer: Never heard of them (Wizzy Noise) before, but now I googled them and I see they made a trance song out of "Djurdjevdan", which is interesting.

user20683

@iCanLearn Their early stuff is fairly typical Goa, the later stuff is more psytrance than anything else

iCanLearn

@WorldEngineer: Oh... Well, I like both, but only sometimes and in small doses. I mostly listened to Hallucinogen, Shpongle and related projects.

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