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Programmers Blog

00:06

Programmers Stack Exchange Blog: IT Needs to be a Better Business Partner

Morons on November 08, 2013

Salespeople have a reputation for being just about the worst people to work with when building software. Being in the CRM space myself, this is a constant topic of conversation. Usually the focus is around user adoption, as opposed to mundane complaining about salespeople caring about nothing but their commission checks. But it’s true, that’s all they care about. That’s why when pitching CRM systems to salespeople the pitch always revolves around increased sales\commission. “This will save you time, so you can do more of what you do best, selling!” or “Not only will you have greater visibilit …

psr

00:48

In that post Morons says IT should step up and learn be able to perform the job the user of their system is trying to perform. In my last job where the company was in no way selling software, I spent at least 2 years trying to evangelize the concept of training the programmers on performing other people's jobs (there was a huge disconnect) , and got nowhere. They didn't want to programmers big $ to not program, so the programmers wrote code to do things they didn't understand instead.

jmort253

02:06

@psr Heh, they... as in management. In some organizations, it's the other way around; programmers don't want to learn anything outside of their domain.

Either way, it's sad.

One thing I like about where I work is they encourage that. I sit with the sales and support teams so I see when they hit a pain point with the stuff I'm building, and it's really eye-opening.

Not the same as doing the job, but still helpful.

user20683

@jmort253 I know my long term work as a retail customer service person and my working in receiving and logistics will come in handy down the line.

jmort253

@WorldEngineer It will... I can almost certainly tell you it will. :D

psr

@jmort253 That's really what I was trying to make happen. Some of the users were CPAs and it's delusional to think I could do their job. But it was more delusional to think they could throw requirements over the wall and programmers could maintain the system without spending any time learning about what the CPAs were doing. So strange how hard it can be to pull off.

jmort253

I worked in a call center doing surveys in college

and now I build Voip software for, well, a call center.

So it's like things just nicely fit together...

user20683

@jmort253 I did alumni cold calling years ago

user20683

02:13

never again if I can help it

jmort253

@psr Yeh, it's not like we can become experts, but we can definitely cross the line a little and expand our knowledge.

It can actually be kinda fun to talk to sales and marketing people and be able to keep up with the conversation and sound like you know what you're doing

user20683

yeah

user20683

my sister is looking at working in advertising

user20683

she's a theater tech nut

user20683

and it's a way to actually do what she enjoys and not be broke

jmort253

02:14

sounds like an interesting combination of skills.

for both money, and enjoying the work

user20683

@jmort253 yeah, I'm weird myself, Religion and CS degree and 7 years at a bookstore

user20683

also cover letters are the hardest thing to write

jmort253

lol

prob have to just cut out a lot of stuff.

You remember jonathan heyward?

He posted a question on Workplace about how he couldn't get hired because he had a ton of skills and listed every one of them on his resume/cover letter.

user20683

@jmort253 The name sounds vaguely familiar...

jmort253

He's a self-proclaimed genius.

user20683

02:17

mine is one page

jmort253

You know the types :D

user20683

@jmort253 everyone who complains about Physics.SE...

jmort253

but the question, while it ended up closed, did highlight the importance of staying focused only on pertinent skills.

lol

no comment

lol

but yes....

but it is interesting how, if you're a programmer, you almost do better at your job if youre also somewhat schooled in whatever it is you're building software for.

Building Physics software, it helps to know some physics.

Geology software, you'll prob do good at it if you've spent some time in the geology field.

Business software, same deal....

For instance, we'd never hire a NASA engineer, mostly because she'd get bored writing business apps instead of building the next Mars rover, but she'd also probably not get why sales people don't want to have to click 3 different buttons to create a new lead.

She'd probably complain that they're just whiny babies.

Sort of like this guy who -- gently, mind-you -- demeaned the asker for not reading these horrid Oracle docs: stackoverflow.com/a/19829679/552792

user20683

@jmort253 It's one of the arguments that I've actually considered advocating is that if you are gonna do dev work, either go domain or do Software Engineering. If you are gonna do CS research then go CS but otherwise just take what you need to understand it and move on

jmort253

@WorldEngineer Well, I've had some conversations with devs who didn't have a solid CS background, and it was like trying to teach programming... while also trying to solve critical business problems in a way that wouldn't suck 6 months later when shit started to break. :D

To some extent, I think one can get away with it.

But there's a lot I learned in CS that just changed the way I think about problem solving.

user20683

02:28

@jmort253 fair enough, I still think I'd have done better with Math/CS than Pure CS

jmort253

If I had to do it all over again I don't think I'd skip the upper division CS classes, even though one of my prof's basically told us after CS 1010 that we could go get a $50k a year job.....

user20683

I'd not trade Analysis of Algorithms or Programming Language Concepts for anything

jmort253

@WorldEngineer Depends on what you're doing I guess.

user20683

I would trade my Blender class I was forced to take because scheduling

jmort253

And with Math... I have a lot of respect for Math folks.... they're able to wrap their heads around complex stuff.

I've worked with engineers, like Mechanical Engineers who somehow ended up as programmers.

They could only think linearly....

they couldn't cut through a recursive algorithm or even write code that could be reused or scaled.

not to say that's every ME.......

just my experience with the few I've encountered.....

I don't wanna stereotype anyone.....

sometimes people just plain suck at their jobs and it wouldn't have mattered what their background was...

So I can't disagree with your earlier statement.... take someone smart with the right combination of hunger for knowledge, and it really doesn't matter what they were educated in.

user20683

02:33

@jmort253 yeah

jmort253

We had a guy with no degree working with us who could sling some code. It was beautiful code

I should add open-mindedness to the list.

user20683

@jmort253 @JimmyHoffa has no degree and can sling code like few I've ever seen.

user20683

yeah, I've few linguistic prejudices

jmort253

If you didn't have a CS background and are humble, you'll do better than if you don't have a CS background and think CS stufff is a waste of time :D

user20683

whatever it takes to get the job done

user20683

02:35

I'm actually intrigued by the idea of using APL or similar to do Image Processing work

jmort253

or maybe 3D printing? :D

user20683

@jmort253 it's funny, 3D printing as a thing holds 0 appeal for me

user20683

I like working with my hands when it comes to making physical stuff.

user20683

too much the artist

jmort253

I like the idea because it brings us closer to the replicators on Star Trek.

user20683

02:38

yeah

jmort253

and reducing dependency on manufacturing.

user20683

I like the idea of being able to make stuff out of just like waste plastic. Just chop it up and sinter.

jmort253

you're your own 3D printer

user20683

@jmort253 yeah, I suspect eventually it will be synthetic microbes that "grow" the parts.

user20683

you just drop a data chip into a vat and out comes you thing a while later

TRiG

11:42

So, the blog is clearly in need of a proofreader. I mean, ouch. Solduses slanting in the wrong direction, using a noun where you should have a verb (setup != set up), and all sorts of other problems. I'll try to go through it properly tomorrow.

gnat

12:58

simple math: 23 answers, 16 answers, 15 answers, 17 answers -- hotness score just doesn't discard answers when voting evidence indicates that these are not good data points — gnat 4 hours ago

Math guys easily exploit the bug in hotness formula. 2% penalty doesn't help, unsurprisingly

gentle 2% penalty for same-site-questions is easily overruled by stuffing more answers into these, as demonstrated by recent example of 4 math questions occupying top of collider. Dropping tiny 2% when QScore is blindly multiplied by AnswerCount straight up to 10 answers looks futile — gnat 2 hours ago

9

Q: Normalize the rankings for the "hot questions" list

Not sure if this is being done already, but... There seems to be a problem with the "hot questions" list, in that it almost always has a lot of questions from the Math.SE site. I imagine two possibilities: All SE users are really into their Cauchy sequences and algebreic theory The Math.SE use...

gnat

13:18

would be interesting to estimate how Math questions would rank at collider if formula would discard answers when voting evidence indicates that these are not good data points -- ie those "having score less than (TopAnswerScore/10-1)". Per my observations, Math guys indeed upvote a lot, but they don't tend to upvote low quality answers (why would they?) — gnat 5 mins ago

gnat

14:37

funny hack for posts you recommend to delete in LQ queue - prior to voting, cast a VLQ flag on that post and voila, number of "Look Good" votes required to drop it out, will increase - giving it more chance to get enough recommend deletion votes. No risk hack - the worst case scenario is you'll get a disputed flag, not a big deal

number of "Looks Good" responses equivalent to the number of flags -- it would be helpful to add an explanation for why "Recommend Deletion" votes from the queue don't follow this approach. It is not obvious why 2 flags (potentially from low rep users) raise the bar higher than 1 flag + 5 deletion votes from 1K+ users (I can ask this in a separate question if you prefer a dedicated post to clarify this). To avoid misunderstanding, I don't challenge this decision, merely wonder about the reasons for it — gnat 13 mins ago

user20683

15:14

@TRiG I do what I can for the blog but I'm only one guy. I corrected a good chunk of the original draft but there are things I miss. This is one of the largest problems with the blog aside from drumming up content. I'm a reasonably good writer but my editing skills are underdeveloped.

user55340

@WorldEngineer Codereview for blogs!

user55340

Gah... when I see things like this I wonder if the poster cared about what they were writing at all...

user55340

> THNKS iN ADvance FoR your COmments

user55340

Its either that, or a cat was playing with the shift key while they were typing.

user20683

@TRiG Also what is a "Soldus"?

TRiG

15:39

@WorldEngineer Sorry, I meant solidus, by which I meant virgule.

@MichaelT bash.org/?100798

user55340

15:56

> (mike): HEH, THIs Is AMuSINg
(mike): I Got a WiNAMP pLUgiN THAt BLInKS THE KEYboARD ledS tO THE MUSIc
(mike): BUT IT acTUALLY turNs THe CAPsLOcK On AND oFF iNSTEad OF JuST the LIGHt

3

user55340

@TRiG Gah... that would be amusing/annoying rather quickly.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I can just picture my cat laying next to the keyboard while I type, just pawing the shift key because he's not being paid attention to

That's a surprisingly plausible cause

Jimmy Hoffa

16:21

@jozefg looking closer at your reify code, and it looks like you only count it as a record if there's 1 type constructor the way I read it, you aren't counting it as a record if there's multiple record constructors in the type?

user55340

0

Q: How to deal with requirement changes in agile development model?

I know that in agile requirement changes should not only be planned for but also embraced. But I still don't know agile how to handle these changes.

agile

Jimmy Hoffa

Any reason for that? You could check length cs > 0, and can you explain this bit to me: cs >>= constrFields where cs is all of the constructors, so are you getting the permutation of fields for all of cs?

user55340

This is a straight forward question that has a fair bit of possibility to generate a bit of activity.

user55340

(but, is also a duplicate...)

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg can't you all (((flip >) 1) . length) $ fmap cs constrFields to then allow multiple type constructors calling it a record when all constructors have multiple fields?

(or does it only need to be > 0 ? I'm not familiar with those Data functions you're using there sorry)

user55340

16:40

{trolling} @GlenH7 i18n keys should be done in a language where there is little change. Like Latin.{/trolling}

user41796

@MichaelT I was trying to think of something smarmy to say about greek, but gave up

user55340

Oh! I know! i18n keys should be done in emoticons!

user55340

emojidick.com

user41796

I have been playing words with friends with one of my brothers. He dropped a latin word in there that completely erased the 50 point lead I had. Was so mad

user55340

user41796

16:43

I didn't have to do a lot of i18n work, but I did a fair share. Handling that in C could get challenging

user55340

user41796

> Emoji-Dick doesn't seem very interesting

user41796

Kind of amazing that they translated the book in just under 44 days

user55340

Mechanical turk on amazon. They had LOTS of people working on it.

user41796

granted, those are full 24 hour days, not working days. But 132 working days ain't bad either

user55340

16:48

800 people doing 3.795M seconds of work with $0.05 / translation and $0.02 / vote / translation.

user55340

So... the thing is, to have that be the keys for translation.

user55340

page.🚂🚦="train schedule"

user41796

@MichaelT unfortunately, my browser (firefox) only shows the "this is a unicode character but we're not telling you which one" symbol

jozefg

@JimmyHoffa Because it becomes ambiguous which one you want to reify too very quickly. By 1.0 I plan to have a recordTAt :: Int -> Maybe RecordT and have RecordT contain the information about constructors

user55340

16:55

See, that way we can get around the native language of the translation service and help those 20 somethings who only know how to type in such a way.

user55340

This can be extended to contractor code too! class 💩ThirdPartyCode - just add the 'pile of poo' as the prefix to all externally written code to make it easy to do code reviews on.

user41796

@TRiG - just now reading the recent blog post. I see what you mean regarding editing.

Jimmy Hoffa

17:16

@jozefg That's fair, but there's a proper solution

Hear me out: Match up the constructor lexicographically, and then you do the permutation. If there's one type constructor that matches thats all that will float through; a list of one, but if there's 4 you'll end up with a list of all 4 reified. It's up to the consumer to solve ambiguities at that point

you're already working in the list monad (I think?) when you're doing the cs >>= constrFields, so just follow the list monad through to it's conclusion filtering down to possibilities and let consumers of your code filter further

Jimmy Hoffa

17:30

Make sense or am I spouting incoherent babble again?

(I didn't ask you @MichaelT, though maybe I should, you write Perl which means you're an expert in incoherent babble)

gnat

free spam flags, and (not surprisingly) in a close-worthy question...

-2

A: What pricing model has more benefits in mobile app stores: free or paid?

Very nice article.. thanks for the effort... eBook Conersion

user55340

Can't even spell "Conversion" right though.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Been setting up couchDB on my local machine... and documenting how.

user55340

There's an issue I need to fix thats an internal one... its not "fix" so much as for some databases, we only have production. And that makes me sad when I want to test a change that requires some data to change.

jozefg

@JimmyHoffa I suppose you could do this, but this would change all function signatures to the corresponding type wrapped in a list.. which strikes me as icky. I'd rather implement it so that you specify what sort of reflection you're interested in and we'll go with that. It'd be trivial to implement a combinator taking [RecordT a] -> Map String Dynamic -> [a]

gnat

18:14

I'm leeet

gnat

13.3k 9 45 81

java testing issue-tracking project-management terminology documentation agile

> 13337

user41796

@gnat You beat me to the punch on advertising the spam flags - I just protected the question

gnat

18:34

@GlenH7 unfortunately, protection doesn't always save questions fro getting low quality answers...

-1

A: What makes C so popular in the age of OOP?

Because C has a huge user base. Yes it is a bit of a catch-22, but when I ask a question about C over on StackOverflow, I get the answer almost instantly. The same question about Python could take hours to get answered. With respect to C++, it's IMO more complicated to learn. Furthermore, after ...

user41796

@gnat The protection was to fend off future spam. Just seemed like a question that had the right words to attract spammers like honey.

user41796

@gnat Note that the user had all of 10 points earned on the site, so was able to bypass the protection on that Q. Kinda funny.

gnat

@GlenH7 yeah. I understand the difference. In some cases, the only protection against low quality are downvotes ("answer" I ranted about is a pure meh, not even remotely flaggable)

user41796

definitely meh. I was tempted to leave a comment to the effect of "and how does this add anything beyond what was already answered?!?!"

gnat

@GlenH7 so did I. Until I discovered that there's simple hole in the reasoning there...

did you compare asking SO questions for C# or Java? — gnat 13 mins ago

for the purpose of user base size, guy compares C against Python. For purpose of simplicity, against C++. How convenient

Straw man

A straw man or straw person, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. The misrepresentation can be intentional or accidental. It is possible to unintentionally misrepresent an opponent's argument by failing to understand it in the first place and honestly communicating what one (wrongly) thinks is the actual argument. This can lead to opposition believing the creation of a straw man argument to be intended, when it may or may not be. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusi...

user41796

18:48

Kind of a shame that Q went CW back in august. Oh well.

user41796

19

Q: How do I prove or disprove "god" objects are wrong?

Problem Summary: Long story short, I inherited a code base and an development team I am not allowed to replace and the use of God Objects is a big issue. Going forward, I want to have us re-factor things but I am getting push-back from the teams who want to do everything with God Objects "becau...

object-oriented class object srp

user41796

is my reading for the day. For one of the areas I own, I have ended up with a god object. I'm not convinced it's a bad thing though

gnat

my reading of the day is this Editor Manifesto...

3

A: Is it necessary to edit out the phrase "Good luck" from answers?

Let's Build an Encyclopedia The goal of Stack Exchange is to form an encyclopedia of knowledge that's helpful to future visitors for years to come, using a Questions and Answers format, and every time you post a question or an answer, you're planting a seed that helps grow that knowledge. It's i...

Jeremy Dicaire

Hi, I never used this chat before. I have a subjective question about programming language

gnat

It's important to recognize that most of the people who visit Workplace SE aren't people with actual accounts. Instead, they're people with real problems who typed that problem into the Google search box and landed on one of our posts.

We never see these people nor do we directly interact with them, but they're there, watching everything we do and soaking up the knowledge we've built here...

user41796

18:56

@JeremyDicaire Hi. Feel free to lay out the broad lines of your question here and we'll help identify if it's a good fit for any of the main sites

Jeremy Dicaire

Thanks GlenH7! I recently switched from Microsoft Windows crap to Linux. I'm now looking to develop a cross-platform FOSS and I'm wondering what is "the best" language to do it. I though about Python with qt4 (or qt5) as they are both open source and cross platform

thorsten müller

As often (and that's why those questions are off topic and get closed), this depends on a lot of details.

user41796

That's a better question for chat. Generally questions like yours end up being closed on main for one of three reasons. 1) it's close to a "what language should I learn next" type Q. 2) it's very heavily opinion based. 3) it could also be seen as a request for an off-site resource. And "best" tends to be highly subjective.

thorsten müller

What language are you comfortable with, what kind of projects you want to write.

Python is a nice language for many things. On the other side qt is natively C++, so this would be another option.

Jeremy Dicaire

under windows I was using media monkey for all my multimedia need, from music to tv shows and movies etc

so i want to create my own version of it

Im normally a web dev so php node.js sql etc but I know a bit of C# and java

(I'm a good learner)

Jimmy Hoffa

19:03

@jozefg Yeah, the list interface isn't super nice here, though that is kind of what it's for, undecidability like that, but yeah perhaps it is nicer just to say "Don't allow ambiguity" than "You can be ambiguous, but my whole API presents a LIST"

user41796

C# & Java + frameworks are huge areas, so the learning curve can be steep.

user41796

I haven't played (much) with python or Qt, but they are both worthy considerations.

Jeremy Dicaire

yeah i know :S... C++ is an opensource language right?

user41796

C++ has an ISO language specification, which is different from being an "open source language." But it does have many opensource compilers available for it

thorsten müller

Well, I just try to do a fast read on this MM thing to get some idea. I think Python is much nearer to it than C++. And C++ has a steep learning curve.

lots of OSS projects are done on C++.

Jeremy Dicaire

19:06

hmm ok so I can choose between python or C++... thats good at least im getting somewhere :)

user41796

For platform independence, C++ (and Qt) as well as python are good considerations. C# ties you down to Mono or a Windows system. Java is pretty available on most platforms, but you'll have difficulties if you want to run java in a browser

Jeremy Dicaire

do you know which one runs faster? (lightweight)

user41796

@JeremyDicaire both

thorsten müller

Or mix them as you like. Enhance Qt library and then make use of your new lib from Python

Jeremy Dicaire

I dont want to use java its a huge memory eater

user41796

19:07

or said another way, they'll be equivalent to you at this point in time. worrying about performance at this stage is akin to premature optimization.

Jeremy Dicaire

@thorsten I think it's a good idea

HAha yeah I know but like I said, java like memory... so I was concerned that one of those was too

thorsten müller

Well Python is interpreted, but has a reputation to have a lot of very fast libraries for heavy computations (it's often used in science)

Jeremy Dicaire

Thank you very much for your help ;) I'll start my journey with python then

thorsten müller

I think for something like MM you will preferably use a lot of existing audio and video libraries.

All that stuff exists in Linux, several times :) And that's part pf the pain there. Maybe start looking into existing media player projects. There are many like VLC (not sure if OSS), Amarok, Dragon Player, Audacious. All of them act slightly different in Linux audio streaming.

Jeremy Dicaire

yeah I might make a fork from an existing project

thorsten müller

19:12

For example it was more or less impossible to get Amarok stream 24/96 audio to mu external DAC

while it was three mouse clicks for Audacious. Same system setup.

A big one would be LMMS. Linux Multi Media System.

Jimmy Hoffa

@thorstenmüller Of course not, mu lacks audio streams, and everything else

thorsten müller

Ah and if you use Qtm then maybe KDE would be the more interesting windows manager instead of Gnome, since KDE is wtitten with Qt

@Jimmy ??? just a typom should be "my external DAC". What is mu? is this a thing too?

Jeremy Dicaire

nice thanks , I'm not used to that so ill need to read a lot (like windows manager etc)

its different from windows where you tyoe in C# and you press play

thorsten müller

Windows manager is roughly that thing that controls your windows and desktop stuff. How they look and behave. MS Windows has only a single one. In Linux you can choose between many. Gnome the most used I think and default for Ubuntu.

Jimmy Hoffa

@thorstenmüller No, mu is not a thing.

user41796

19:18

@JimmyHoffa I don't believe @thorstenmüller was part of the conversation weeks ago.

user41796

Mu is a state of not being something.

thorsten müller

Otherwise I know mu only from Zen and I think this Hofstadter book

@GlenH7 ok, now i get it. I just thought there is another media player or library by that name (which would not be the strangest of all names)

user41796

@thorstenmüller it was a stretch for me too until his follow-up comment. And I was part of the conversation about mu back then.

thorsten müller

When I talk about Linux my first interpretation is always that it's yet another weird abbrevation.

user41796

@thorstenmüller which is generally a pretty safe assumption

thorsten müller

19:22

Maybe I should write a library for something by that name.

Then it would be a thing and maybe the universe ends?

Jeremy Dicaire

lol

thorsten müller

Hmmm, if it would be able to solve Hofstadters mu system, it would invoke AGI singularity

user41796

@thorstenmüller and you've got @JimmyHoffa to help solve it with FP using Haskell.

user41796

and we all know that FP will lead us into the singularity.

thorsten müller

Well, to use Haskell would be mandatory of course.

Just because it's the language to annoy the largest possible amount of people.

user41796

19:26

any system named "mu" must start as stateless

thorsten müller

No question about that.

Jeremy Dicaire

Sorry to interrupt... I found this (old) tutorial about kde/python/qt akademy2007.kde.org/conference/slides/KDE_Python.pdf

Do you think I can use that to learn? :D

thorsten müller

That's at most an overview not a tutorial.

user41796

@JeremyDicaire How many revisions back of KDE is that? Gotta be at least 3 or 4 major versions old. I'm surprised they still have it out there.

Jeremy Dicaire

Well, it's a start...

yeah its quite old :S

but i need to start somewhere... if not i wont be able to get far

I don't even know where to start after downloading the qt package on the website lol

thorsten müller

19:29

There are better out there I'm quite sure. For the language itself abyway

Go slow on Qt. First get comfortable with Python.

Do some stuff on the command line maybe.

They have great documentation on the Python site.

Jeremy Dicaire

Yeah I already started :) I created a calculator hahaha too easy

user41796

@JeremyDicaire Have a look at codecademy.com/tracks/python

thorsten müller

Just google "Python Qt tutorial"

Jeremy Dicaire

thats better than my french website called OpenClassrooms

Thanks @thorsten

thorsten müller

12

Q: Good PyQt tutorial needed

I'm starting getting into PyQt. Therefore I would need some good tutorials. I searched a bit but didn't find any good. Most tutorials only post "full" applications but don't go into detail. Can you advise me some? Currently im programming in Notepad++. Are there better lightweight editors or si...

python gui pyqt

Jeremy Dicaire

19:32

Sorry GlenH7 :)

thorsten müller

wiki.python.org/moin/PyQt

zetcode.com/gui/pyqt4

and so on

Jeremy Dicaire

hahaha Im going to be a pro at the end of the day with all those links!

thorsten müller

And there are all those communities. You will get any help you need on StackOverflow (we do actually not close all questions, some we answer :))

Jeremy Dicaire

Hahaha! Yeah I know I got great help from SO

Thank you very much both of you for your help... got a lot of reading ;) I'll bookmark this chatroom for further usage

(by the way I'm sorry I normally speak french)

thorsten müller

You are welcome.

user55340

19:37

@JeremyDicaire Java runtime is a bit memory heavy for the vm, but the language itself isn't bad for memory. Many server side programs are going to be running in a container of some sort so you won't see much of a disadvantage there.

user41796

@JeremyDicaire You are most welcome, thank you for checking your question in chat before asking in main. As an aside, MainMa is one of our higher rep users and her native tongue is French as well.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT I'm thinking about the average user that have a cheap computer, I like things when they are accessible :)

Thank you very much @GlenH7 (Native tongue, thats the term I was looking for hehe)

user55340

So you are thinking of something like a stand alone application that runs on the computer rather than a server side program hit with a web browser?

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT exactly

user55340

19:58

@JeremyDicaire Stand alone, when it gets into graphical apps, you're going to find yourself looking strongly at C++ and qt or Java and its various windowing frameworks.

user55340

You may also find that core app + python or lua for scripting / modification to be something that is not uncommon.

Jeremy Dicaire

Thanks for the hint. I give Python + Qt a try with KDE

(I dont even know what I mean when I say "With KDE" I need to learn that part :) )

user55340

12

Q: Good PyQt tutorial needed

I'm starting getting into PyQt. Therefore I would need some good tutorials. I searched a bit but didn't find any good. Most tutorials only post "full" applications but don't go into detail. Can you advise me some? Currently im programming in Notepad++. Are there better lightweight editors or si...

python gui pyqt

Jeremy Dicaire

20:16

Thanks @MichaelT, I'll put it in my "need to read" pile :)

user55340

Personally I'd say Java + Swing... but then that's (partly) because of my language preferences.

user55340

What we really need is Haskell + qt - then you could poke @JimmyHoffa and @jozefg about it. ;-)

Jeremy Dicaire

I don't know Haskell

user55340

Don't worry... I just enjoy teasing them about it.

Jeremy Dicaire

(BTW very friendly people around here, I like this community so much!)

user55340

20:19

(and yes, there are the appropriate bindings for qt on haskell)

Jeremy Dicaire

Hahahaha It's alright

Haskell is a.. wierd programming language (I just read the Wikipedia article about it)

user55340

We're a fairly good natured group here. Not too active - so if you head out for an hour and get back, you can still catch up on everything. But not dead silent either. The room is most active from 9am - 5pm M-F with US timezones.

user41796

@JeremyDicaire The bit about Haskell is a running gag in our chat room. @JimmyHoffa is a fervent evangelizer mumbling about monads and other goobledygook. So we tease him whenever we can. Of course, he's slowly converting us all to FP anyway, so we're doomed.

user55340

I'll poke at the jvm functional languages. I've dabbled in Clojure and Scala looks interesting. Haven't taken the dive all the way into Haskell though. I think of myself as a bit too... pragmatic for such. Perl is my go-to language when I need to do something quick (and dirty).

Stack Exchange

20:22

Blog - Stack Exchange: Raised on The ‘Net: please welcome Ana Hevesi, Community Manager

Shog9 on November 08, 2013

We’ve spent a good portion of the year trying to build out our teams to handle the increasing load of work here at Stack Exchange. A big part of this has involved bringing on new community managers: with both a larger number of sites *and* greater numbers of users on those sites, we hadn’t exactly been keeping up with the demand for help and guidance across the network. Tim Post signed on in the spring, followed by Jon Ericson, Gabe Koscky and Pops “Kevin” Chang.

Community Management at Stack Exchange is primarily a support role: assist folks in learning how to use the s …

user55340

Professionally, I'm a Java programmer though.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 hahaha! That's funny! :P (I laught more here than everywhere else)

@MichaelT So I guess you love this language more than any other available? :)

user55340

(btw, you can see the room activity - where I grabbed that screen shot from at chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/the-whiteboard )

user55340

@JeremyDicaire Its what pays the bills. My theoretical ideal job would be a biotech perl programmer... but I'm quite happy where I am now.

user41796

@MichaelT That's going to be a hard combination to source

Jeremy Dicaire

20:26

Haha

user55340

@GlenH7 Ever heard of the "silicon prairie"? Its a path of biotech companies along I-94 from Minneapolis to Milwaukee.

Jeremy Dicaire

Well, that pays the bills but you need to be happy too, bills are not everything in life (well in 2013 yes and that is sad)

user55340

Though its also been attributed to other areas in the midwest too.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT Yeeah a lot of activity in this chatroom

user55340

@JeremyDicaire We're nothing compared to some of the SO rooms or the Bridge.

Jeremy Dicaire

20:28

I like it that way (kind of quite but with a little action)

user41796

@MichaelT No, hadn't heard of that. There's a cluster of biotech firms in my neck of the woods as well. Stretches from Manhattan, KS over to Colombia, MO.

Jeremy Dicaire

when too many people talks, we are flooded with a lot of different conversations

Well you guys know a lot about that

user55340

Glance at chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/35/the-bridge and see how many mods are there now (likely because of some trouble)

user55340

We had ~300 chat messages today, and an average of 143/day. The bridge is closer to 2k/day.

Jeremy Dicaire

Holy gosh

trouble?

user41796

20:31

@JeremyDicaire SE is a big site. It attracts a fair amount of spammers and trolls.

user55340

Likely - most of the flags I get are either for the Bridge or DMZ. People getting in arguments and posting... inappropriate things.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 Bridge ahead, pay troll.

Hahaha trolls like posting inappropriate things

user55340

I think the biggest arguments we have in here are about duplicate question philosophy.

Jeremy Dicaire

Haha big fight

user41796

@MichaelT and when Haskell will cause the singularity

Jeremy Dicaire

20:33

Well, sometimes it's hard to find the question so you ask it, then someone else sais its a duplicate... you look at the question, and it's impossible to tell it was the same thing

user55340

That about sums up the arguments that happen. We're really a fairly tame and professional room.

Jeremy Dicaire

Hmmm, an I stay even if I'm not a pro?

:D

Just kidding, I'm staying anyway

user41796

@JeremyDicaire please do. We actually have a couple of teens and a few more college students who frequent the room. And there's a degree of dissent as to what "professional" should mean in the context of the site

Jeremy Dicaire

Hahah I agree, but I'm not a teen

user41796

Short answer is to just ignore that particular modifier.

user55340

20:39

We had a bit about a teenager looking for the right tools to teach programming to younger children.

user55340

The professional is about how we conduct ourselves, not if we get paid for something or otherwise.

Jeremy Dicaire

oh in that way... :) Like trolls and impolite people

jozefg

@JimmyHoffa I always prefer more restrictive but safer APIs

user55340

(shh... its a teenager who likes haskell...)

user55340

;-)

Jeremy Dicaire

20:44

How can you possibly like that language (I don't judge)

jozefg

(cracks knuckles) @JeremyDicaire It has nicer abstractions and is great for reasoning about code

user55340

@JeremyDicaire the things that you can do with it are rather amazing when you get into (and comprehend) the type system.

user41796

@JeremyDicaire It's a strong FP language with a lot of backing. FP is kind of like beer, wine, or scotch, you have to acquire a taste for it.

user41796

And what's funny is that two non-FP folk stuck up for the language...

Jeremy Dicaire

I like your comparision @GlenH7 :)

user55340

20:46

Things like making a divide by zero impossible because of compile time type systems... though as I understand it, thats a rather trivial example.

jozefg

@GlenH7 By your comparison I'd be an alcoholic haha

Jeremy Dicaire

I like the idea

user41796

If Haskell were like scotch, I envision it's like 21 year old Glenfiddich. Takes quite a while to develop an appreciation, but once you do it's amazing.

Jeremy Dicaire

Just by curiosity, @MichaelT, how long you've been working professionally with Java (getting paid) ? :)

jozefg

Haskell's type system isn't as powerful as some but it strikes a pleasant balance between being safe and not being overly restrictive

user41796

20:47

@jozefg You'll be at Uni soon enough and can investigate that analogy more freely

user55340

A programming language that doesn't change the way you think isn't worth knowing... haskell will really make you think about things differently and is quite worthwhile - even if you never use it.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 Where can I learn that one? ;-)

@MichaelT Thanks a beautiful way of saying things ;)

user41796

@JeremyDicaire You're at the right age to be at Uni as well. And you live in a country with far more progressive alcohol laws despite the ridiculous taxes they throw on there.

user55340

Having a basic understanding of FP (or other models of programming) will lead you to realizing elegant solutions. The classic example is that map-reduce is from FP concepts.

user55340

Or the perl schwartzian transformation:

user55340

20:49

@sorted = map { $_->[0] }
    sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] }
    map { [$_, expensive($_)] } @unsorted;

user55340

While that's from a very non-fp language, the concept that is there is straight out of a Lisp text book.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 Yeah taxes on alcohol and tobaco products are ridiculously high. but what is the meaning of "Uni" (sorry)

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg I hear ya, I'm generally less concerned with safety in my APIs as I am with ease-of-use, if the consumers can do their tasks with my API easily then I won't be causing their code to be complex and buggy, but an API that it's hard to do the wrong thing in (safer as you prefer) often goes hand in hand with an API that it's easy to do the right thing in (easy to consume as I like)

user41796

Uni === University

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT Not quite sureif I uderstand the code, or if my imagination just think it understands it

user55340

20:51

@JeremyDicaire Take an unsorted list. And map it to a list of lists (2 elements) where the second element is some expensive function... like the size of a file on disk or the hash of a string.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 Dah! haha I looove learning and sharing.. but I think school is a factory to mind-wash people and make them fit in the system

user55340

Then sort on that second element, and then map the list of lists back to the 0th element - which is the original thing being examined.

jozefg

@JimmyHoffa Makes sense. I have two guiding principles with APIs,
1. It does 1 thing, well.
2. It provides building blocks rather than providing every possible convenience function

Jimmy Hoffa

@JeremyDicaire Because it makes it simple to do very hard things with little code while still being safe (rather than just shortcutting straight through the chaff with the danger of dynamicism), along with allowing you to create APIs that are unbelievably natural and easy to use

jozefg

I'm unixy

Jeremy Dicaire

20:52

@MichaelT Whooo.. :) Thanks, I'm smarter now

user55340

@WorldEngineer he's looking for a rant... no amount of text will cool him off.

user55340

Schwartzian transform

In computer science, the Schwartzian transform is a Perl programming idiom used to improve the efficiency of sorting a list of items. This idiom is appropriate for comparison-based sorting when the ordering is actually based on the ordering of a certain property (the key) of the elements, where computing that property is an intensive operation that should be performed a minimal number of times. The Schwartzian Transform is notable in that it does not use named temporary arrays. The idiom is named after Randal L. Schwartz, who first demonstrated it in Perl shortly after the release of Perl ...

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg Aye, I always think back to "The right thing" when thinking about APIs from dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html

> Simplicity -- the design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the interface to be simple than the implementation.
> Correctness -- the design must be correct in all observable aspects. Incorrectness is simply not allowed.
> Consistency -- the design must not be inconsistent. A design is allowed to be slightly less simple and less complete to avoid inconsistency. Consistency is as important as correctness.
> Completeness -- the design must cover as many important situations as is practical. All reasonably expected cases must be covered. Simplicity …

Jeremy Dicaire

@JimmyHoffa I love this idea. I listen to a documentary about linux/gnu and its based ona concept: create a piece of code that only do 1 thing, but it need to do it right

user55340

The fun part with that (as the story goes) is that another perl programmer was criticizing the code (without profiling) about the expense of making the maps and then discarding them... and then said "you use this schwartzian transformation" in a disparaging way...

Jeremy Dicaire

20:54

@JimmyHoffa Thumbs up for the rules

Jimmy Hoffa

Designing APIs is about tradeoffs, I trade things off according to priorities roughly aligned with that prioritization there

user55340

people then profiled it and found that the transform was much faster than the other way proposed, and the name stuck.

Jeremy Dicaire

Wow, you guys know so much about that (history)

user41796

@JeremyDicaire gray hairs abound in this group

user55340

@JeremyDicaire My google-fu is a bit on the strong side, and I've got a fair bit of trivia stuck in my head.

Jeremy Dicaire

20:58

@GlenH7 My ddad always said gray hair is the result of wisdom

user55340

@GlenH7 The worst part about grey and white hairs in the beard... they grow faster than the rest of the beard. Very annoying. Have to trim just to cut back the grey hair.

Jeremy Dicaire

lmao

@MichaelT I use startpage.com and Duckduckgo :) I don't know any google (:O)

user55340

►

user55340

The song's name is "Silver in the Stubble"

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