The Whiteboard

9:00 PM

@MichaelT I like that music ! thanks for sharing haha

user55340

@JeremyDicaire I worked tech support for a number of years. A key trait when you do that is learning how to quickly and efficiently search knowledge bases for the appropriate information.

user55340

@JeremyDicaire ... Oh @gnat ...

user41796

@WorldEngineer - thanks for clearing that one out.

user20683

@GlenH7 It is my job

user41796

@MichaelT You're right and it's gone

user20683

9:03 PM

someday I shall have a real job that I love as much as this one

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer What is your job?

user41796

I was getting tired of rolling back his attack

user55340

@JeremyDicaire he's a mod for P.SE

user20683

@JeremyDicaire Site Moderator

user20683

Blue Names in Chat are Mods or Stack Exchange employees with moderator+ access. Some employees don't have access like that if they don't need it.

user55340

9:04 PM

If you see someone with an italics name in chat.. they're room owners. Just means we've got minor janitor abilities for the room (very, very minor). Blue names mean mods on some site.

Jeremy Dicaire

Oops sorry I didn't know

user20683

@JeremyDicaire No reason to apologize. You've done nothing wrong...yet.

user41796

@JeremyDicaire neither did we until we got stuck with room ownership... :-)

user20683

:P

user55340

There is lots of little things to chat that people learn. Its not something that anyone expects you to know communing in.

user20683

9:05 PM

for instance: italics

user20683

bold

Jeremy Dicaire

I prefer IRC channels, at least I know where I'm going

too bad it's less popular now

user55340

And by "owner" that means we get the special ability to pin messages, or clear stars... or some other boring things that we shouldn't play with.

user20683

links

Jeremy Dicaire

Why google? You want to make me sick?

I know IRC channels, it's just not what it used to by in 1995...

user55340

9:06 PM

@JeremyDicaire Actually... today google is rather interesting. I saw two T-rexes playing ball!

Jeremy Dicaire

The only running program on my computer was mirc

@MichaelT :O I am going on google right now

user55340

Jeremy Dicaire

YEah I saw it hahah

What a wierd thing to make people share a google page haha

user55340

There are a bunch of other "real" images in there too.

Jeremy Dicaire

yeah buterfly :D

@WorldEngineer You're not getting paid by SO? That's kind of sad

user55340

9:09 PM

Yannis got a hat one time...

user41796

None of the mods get paid. Nor do any of the high-rep reviewers that help keep the sites clean. It's all about the community governance.

user55340

Aug 21 at 13:07, by Yannis Rizos

user20683

@JeremyDicaire I volunteered for this. Given what the CMs have to put up with...I'd not want to be paid for that.

user41796

@WorldEngineer one site is more than enough for attracting vitriole for just doing what you're supposed to do

user20683

@GlenH7 Depends on the site

user20683

9:11 PM

some sites are more volatile than others.

user55340

I've seen some of the things they have to put up with from time to time...

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 I love this philosophy I'm in fact creating a little website and my friends looked at me with a huge "?!" in their faces when I told then the site was free to use and no ads haha

user55340

or rather, the things that "oh, glance at this" and then see "wow, thats a mess"

Jeremy Dicaire

I want a php hat!

user55340

@JeremyDicaire If you go to Greece and find the right car...

Jeremy Dicaire

9:13 PM

Haha

user20683

@GlenH7 I made him with my mind.

Jeremy Dicaire

Why ppl remove their posts

user55340

@JeremyDicaire Keeps the room clean and the drama down.

Jimmy Hoffa

@JeremyDicaire Why, brains aren't falling out of your head all on their own?

Jeremy Dicaire

Huh... still dont understand where is the drama haha

@JimmyHoffa I'm not sure I understand (I'm not native english)

user41796

9:14 PM

@JeremyDicaire I was making a snarky reference to something that occurred on main. But I didn't want to have it live in the full public record. Mods & room owners can see the history on deleted posts. So I "cheated" by throwing the comment out there and then removed it.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 Ahhhhh!!! Cheater! :P

user55340

Drawing unnecessary attention to a deleted post by a user who has some, lets say issues that aren't the type you log in a bug tracker... we don't need to have that be too public unless it does become an issue with the site itself.

Jeremy Dicaire

I understand :)

I still don't know the meaning of "Why, brains aren't falling out of your head all on their own?" and it's bugging me

user41796

@JeremyDicaire Don't sweat it. Sometimes even @JimmyHoffa doesn't know what he just said. Learn to roll with it. Until he starts blathering about endofunctors. Then hit mute.

user55340

@JeremyDicaire I'd suggest not watching silence of the lambs. (even searching for that makes me shudder)

Jeremy Dicaire

9:17 PM

@GlenH7 Okay thanks for the tip :)

user20683

@JeremyDicaire It might also be beer day at his work...

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT You know I'm now DuckDucking that, right?

user55340

I warned you...

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer I want his job then! :D

user55340

toss 'brain' into that search.

user55340

9:19 PM

We had beer tastings here at work for awhile... its been a bit though. And when I was at SGI (decade and a half ago), we had friday beer bashes as standard operating procedure.

Jimmy Hoffa

@JeremyDicaire I'm just saying, if any hat were to be able to lower a person's IQ, well I wouldn't risk wearing a PHP hat is all.

user55340

(as a note, we tease @YannisRizos about php on a fairly regular basis when he shows up too...)

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT LOL I like that video! Shaed on FB (yeah I need to get rid of that too)

user55340

Jan 27 at 7:25, by Yannis Rizos

Well, I've build quite a few financial apps in PHP. Then Greece's economy collapsed. Probably not my fault, but you never know ;P

Jeremy Dicaire

@JimmyHoffa :( You are making me sad, why don't you like PHP?

LMAO**

user20683

9:21 PM

@JeremyDicaire Because he likes very Strongly typed languages.

user20683

like Haskell for instance

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer Ohhhh that's the guy that's true

user41796

@JeremyDicaire Note that you can edit your entries for a period of time (5 mins?) after you post them.

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 Haha ok thanks. As i said I'm more like an IRC guy, I just discovered the delete function, I'll need more time for the edit haha

Does /NickServ works here? haha

user55340

Either hit up arrow, or click on the little triangle that shows up to the left of the message when you mouse over it and select 'edit'

Jimmy Hoffa

9:22 PM

Excuse me.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT Shhh!

I know I'm kidding I'm a little bit smarter than I look ;)

user20683

@JeremyDicaire to reply either click the arrow on the left end of the message or get the reply addon

user55340

And then there is the joys of one boxing... if in doubt, paste a link on a line by itself (or as a reply to a message)

Jeremy Dicaire

So your telling me I manually type @Yourname for nothing all that time?

user55340

user20683

9:25 PM

@JeremyDicaire no but replies create easy to follow chains.

Jeremy Dicaire

Thumb up for the funny post

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Virtual boy was awesome.

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer test

user20683

@JeremyDicaire received

Jeremy Dicaire

That is anice feature, screw IRC haha

user55340

9:25 PM

Note that when you mouse over it, you see the specific message it was a reply too. You can even reply to ancient messages if need be.

user55340

The chat system on SE is one of the things that is a killer feature over SE clones.

Jeremy Dicaire

yeah i noticed that when hovering my name in your messages

gnak!

user41796

@JeremyDicaire The chaining is nice when you have a long running conversation, or when multiple conversations are going on. Like Jimmy blathering on about Haskell. The @Yourname by itself is useful to ping someone like both MichaelT and I did to ping World.

Jeremy Dicaire

(sorry gnak! is an old habit and doesnt mean anything)

And the annoying spring noise in my speaker when ppl ping me haha

user41796

pings in chat will show up in your main site inbox(es)

Jeremy Dicaire

9:27 PM

Ohhh good to know!

I need to come back here often

user20683

@JeremyDicaire You can also click on yourself and go look at replies and conversations and such

Jeremy Dicaire

Great thanks (And there's a little funny arrow that highlights the original message in an annoying yeloow-flashy color

user20683

@JeremyDicaire some of the SE UI stuff could use work

user20683

but it's low priority

Jeremy Dicaire

Yeah at least it's working

user20683

9:30 PM

@GlenH7 why?

Jeremy Dicaire

thats my problem when I work on a project, I spent too much time on details

user20683

@GlenH7 I like the TW mods...so no.

Jeremy Dicaire

haha

enderland

?

user41796

And I just realized it's totally not funny without the context of the question. <shame face>

enderland

9:31 PM

I should be scared I think

Jeremy Dicaire

Ok now I see why you elete posts haha

enderland

anytime you get a highlight which is immediately deleted.....

Jeremy Dicaire

@enderland yes you should

enderland

Jeremy Dicaire

hahaha

user41796

9:32 PM

@enderland we had a garbage question roll through that has been closed & deleted already. A (very weak) argument is that it was a workplace type issue instead. But really it was just garbage.

Jeremy Dicaire

@enderland I saved that image for future usage

user55340

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT I like that one!

user55340

@GlenH7 Oh, that would have been 'fun'... to migrate it to TW...

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 So, every time I was asking a Question on the main site, you were talking in my back about it? :P

user41796

9:34 PM

@MichaelT I know! totally missed that opportunity despite what World says.

enderland

also I wonder if you happened to notice I literally just got here after not being here all day

user55340

@JeremyDicaire Only the really interesting questions, or the o_O questions tend to show up in chat.

user41796

@JeremyDicaire Nah, we almost always leave constructive comments on questions that need it.

enderland

or if that was a complete coincidence?

user41796

@enderland the room had been significantly less bright without your shining smile, yes.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:36 PM

4

Q: What if I'm wrong?

I've never blogged before, but now that I have a few years of real world, professional experience as a programmer, I think I'm reaching a point where I actually have something useful to say. However, one thing is still stopping me: what if I'm wrong? Should I ask friends and colleagues to proofr...

blogs

Jeremy Dicaire

Oufff, I got scared for a minute, but I am still quite sure SO ppl used to laught at my questions in my back :P

user55340

Sometimes its "Hey @JimmyHoffa there's a haskell question that could get answered on your quest for 10k rep"... or some such. Other times its playing with the collider to see about getting some 'easy' rep.

Jeremy Dicaire

@JimmyHoffa lmao ok that is funny

user41796

Speaking of missing regulars, where has @Sparticus been lately?

enderland

... what if he's right? would that be even more weird?

Jeremy Dicaire

9:38 PM

HAha

user55340

Its about 1/2 the way through the semester... so exams and projects get due?

Jeremy Dicaire

Dunno

user41796

@MichaelT good point. He's probably got a boatload of stuff backing up from school along with his work.

user55340

Depending on work cycles, november / december is also a major get stuff done.

enderland

hmm. someone got shot/killed on my central campus earlier this week.... hopefully that wasn't him (though it was someone insane enough to drive a heavy truck and ram cop cars)

Jimmy Hoffa

9:40 PM

That's a piece of paper, with slight folds to create the image

user55340

At my former employer they had projects set to calendar deadlines, and with the year starting Jan 1, many things had to be done by Dec 31... but you mix in the "retail lock down of environment" so you don't change too much on the registers and such prior to Black Friday... yea, lots to do right now.

Jimmy Hoffa

I will never understand how artists understand visual composition so damn well as to be able to know how to put together an image such as that

user55340

Given that @Sparticus is at a place that does things with snow plows... and we're expecting to start getting some accumulation... they might be doing sales or something "new feature needed to be in yesterday"

user55340

@JimmyHoffa graficaobscura.com/fold/page001.html and graficaobscura.com/huffman/index.html

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Not even remotely the same

user55340

9:42 PM

Try that second one - I linked the wrong one at first.

user55340

It is very impressive though. My links are more the math of some types of folding.

user41796

@MichaelT Or easy access to equipment to go on a rampage. He did have a teammate puking out bad code that he was complaining about.

Jimmy Hoffa

I am just amazed by visual artists sometimes... there is seriously something in their brains I have never had the slightest touch of

user55340

> Reconstructed mod- els exhibit curved and straight folds and can be isometrically unfolded into the plane. Several special cases like cone singular- ities (top row – middle) and con- verging curved folds (top row – right) are shown.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT that is impressing!

user55340

9:44 PM

user55340

@JeremyDicaire From a website that was around back in the day when SGI was a place for R&D of all sorts of neat graphics things. graficaobscura.com/index.html#fold

enderland

am i doing it wrong if i just edit my registry to get around stupid group policy?

Jeremy Dicaire

is this hand-made?

@enderland not at all, i used to do this whe i was under windows

user55340

user41796

@enderland gpedit.msc, I believe, is the easier route. But I routinely hack the registry to re-enable things that have been disabled via GPO.

user55340

9:46 PM

(from graficaobscura.com/ccode/index.html )

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT That's not dc!

enderland

@JeremyDicaire it just drives me nuts. CRAZY I tell ya

user20683

@MichaelT SGI that brings back memories...

Jeremy Dicaire

@GlenH7 linux is so less complicated for group policies

user55340

@JeremyDicaire (I've got some rather interesting languages under my belt... one of them is dc which is... well... a very terse stack based language)

Jeremy Dicaire

9:48 PM

@enderland I know, I had so much trouble accessing files from my external HDD after I formatted my computer

enderland

I can't even write to external harddrives

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT huh, interesting, what else do you got? :P

@enderland That is ridiculous, I hope microsoft burn in hell

@enderland got a solution for you..... LINUX!

user55340

@JeremyDicaire Dunno. Some of the things are just "ho hum" until someone needs them.

enderland

nah that's teh fault of my IT department. though I'm not much higher thinking of htem :)

Jeremy Dicaire

Sorry I converted myself this week to FOSS so I'm trying to attract people into it haha

user41796

9:49 PM

@enderland some domains really do require that, but generally your security training would have explained that. And no training would imply not being in one of those domains.

Jimmy Hoffa

@JeremyDicaire whoa whoa now, don't go putting me outta work

user55340

Hmm... here's a fun one to read - Manifesto of futurist programmers (c 1991) graficaobscura.com/future/futman.html

enderland

@GlenH7 it's a policy they implemented shortly after a senior VP went between companies and apparenty dumped a bunch of data onto harddrives/etc before leaving

Jimmy Hoffa

the death of .NET will be a scary day for me if I haven't convinced someone to move me off it yet

enderland

talk about axing EVERYONE for the sake of one person

Jeremy Dicaire

9:50 PM

@JimmyHoffa Oops I'm so sorry, didn't mean for you to lose your work :S...

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Mono

user41796

@enderland That's best handled by attorneys, not GPO

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Nobody cares about mono

user20683

@JimmyHoffa fair enough

enderland

@GlenH7 no joke. Our IT is a lot more "meh it's too hard to make things convienent for users, let's just nuke stuff"

hard to believe I have any admin rights at all

Jeremy Dicaire

9:51 PM

@enderland Hahaha that's a good idea, isn't it?

user55340

sigh I saw perl in the new questions titles... but its just a migration of a poorly framed question.

user41796

@enderland metasploit is a good knowledge base to find escalation routes. Just saying.

Jimmy Hoffa

I'd be happy to use it, but every company that thinks about writing something in mono decides "O, if we're not going to do windows only let's just do Java/Python/Ruby/__, it's the same thing"

user55340

(outbound migration)

Jeremy Dicaire

@JimmyHoffa ""It's the same thing"" ????

user41796

9:52 PM

@JimmyHoffa Have they bumped up to the equivalent of .NET 4.0 yet? That's a major drag as well.

Jimmy Hoffa

@JeremyDicaire According to many industry people

enderland

lol @GlenH7 that would be legit. "hi IT this is a problem, I found this since I was trying to get work done please fix these problems"

Jeremy Dicaire

@JimmyHoffa Wow, people have a bad conception of programming languages

enderland

this is just not what I want to deal with friday afternoon LOL

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Dunno, I don't pay mono any mind. More people get paid to write perl than mono

Jeremy Dicaire

9:55 PM

Do you have an advatage using perl instead of python?

user55340

The bits I've seen mono are for games where they start out in C# and want to go cross platform.

user55340

@JeremyDicaire religious battles there...

user20683

and then there's me, who likes almost everything to one degree or another.

user55340

If you're at a perl shop, you'll find perl. If you're at a python shop, you'll find python. As they sit in roughly the same space, you generally won't find perl and python (or ruby) at the same time.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Mono's good for stuff where you have something in .NET and want to try and port it without re-writing it, but you know how much industry software get's ported across platforms, stuff is written for one and that's where it tends to stay

@MichaelT Unless it's done by a rubyist, then as a part of their humane interface they'll make sure their objects have perl and python interpreters built in

Jeremy Dicaire

9:59 PM

Oh okay I see, thank you :)

user20683

Tumblr uses Ruby, PHP, and Scala for instance

user55340

At the core of the python / perl battle is the python "pythonic - one obvious way to do it" and the perl "timtowtdi - There is more than one way to do it"

user20683

Ruby is Perl doused in Smalltalk.

user55340

There's more than one way to do it

There's more than one way to do it (TMTOWTDI or TIMTOWTDI, pronounced “Tim Toady”) is a Perl programming motto. The language was designed with this idea in mind, in that it “doesn't try to tell the programmer how to program.” This makes it easy to write extremely messy programs, but, as proponents of this motto argue, it also makes it easy to write concise statements like print if 1..3 or /match/ or the more traditional if(1..3 || /match/) {print} or even the more verbose: use English; if( $INPUT_LINE_NUMBER >= 1 and $INPUT_LINE_NUMBER This motto has been very much discussed in the...

Jeremy Dicaire

I prefer perl then

"Tim Toady Bicarbonate" I like that

@WorldEngineer Ohhhh!! And the winner is... lol

user55340

10:02 PM

Every language has their niches. Sometimes you're forced into using one or the other because of the niche. I'll freely admit that Perl lost some momentum in the "when is perl 6 coming out days (ongoing)" when application servers grew to prominence.

user20683

Major Scripting Languages: Javascript, Lua, Perl, Python, Ruby

user55340

It would be interesting to get a parallel universe where someone came out with a viable application server for Perl when BEA Weblogic, JBoss and Tomcat where on the up and up.

user20683

each one tends to have a particular domain

Jeremy Dicaire

Honestly, I heard many ppl talking about python on the web more than perl.. for exemple on SO or forums, maybe just a coincidence

@WorldEngineer And what are they?

user20683

@JeremyDicaire Not at all, Python has a couple of major web frameworks

user20683

10:04 PM

Web Pages, Gaming, Text Processing, SciComp, Web Apps

user55340

Javascript has browser and nodejs thats made it quite popular. Lua is often seen embedded in games and such for scripting.

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer Sorry my bad, I think I didnt express myself well.. That's kind of what I was saying :)

user20683

Lua also shows up in Embedded Systems because it's tiny, fast, and can interface directly to C.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT That's funy I was reading an article yesterday about Lua in game dev

@WorldEngineer That is a major point for Lua I think

user55340

Its the easily emendable nature of lua that makes it fit there...

user20683

10:06 PM

and the fact that you can strip it down to fit in 32k of RAM

user55340

Trying to pull in all of Perl (or Python, or Ruby) for most games would be cumbersome.

Jeremy Dicaire

I never used it, but for sure the name give it some punch

user20683

@JeremyDicaire it's a tiny language, stupidly easy to learn

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT python is not suited for gaming?

user55340

That isn't to say they don't show up. Python lurks in Civ V and Ruby in some games (Dredmor for example)

user20683

10:07 PM

@JeremyDicaire it's just fine, just less quick

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer then maybe after learning python I'll give it a try :)

@WorldEngineer it's relative

user20683

Perl is "There is more than one way to do it". Lua is "Do whatever the hell you want"

Jeremy Dicaire

LOL

user55340

Angband (video game)

Angband is a dungeon-crawling roguelike computer game derived from Umoria. It is based on the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, in which Angband is the fortress of Morgoth. The current version of Angband is available for all major operating systems, including Unix, Windows, Mac OS X, and Android. Gameplay The game revolves around exploring a 100-level dungeon, in which the player seeks to amass enough power and equipment to ultimately defeat Morgoth. A new dungeon level is randomly generated each time the player enters a new level for the first time; so no two games are the same. It has bee...

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer I thought Lua is "I'm C! I'm C! Wait, what's memory?"

user55340

10:08 PM

> Rühlmann's contributions included releasing version 3.0, which included many monster and object changes contributed by Jonathan Ellis. He also introduced Lua, a lightweight scripting language, with the intention of simplifying development of both the main game and its variants. The Angband community, however, did not generally embrace the addition of scripting, with many expressing confusion over its usage, and it was therefore later removed.

user55340

But that's where it was born.

user20683

Civ V and WoW use Lua

Jeremy Dicaire

@JimmyHoffa lmao Ill save that one in notepad

user55340

Or popularized.

Jimmy Hoffa

@JeremyDicaire Careful, I don't even know Lua, I can be safely ignored (as a general over-arching rule)

I'm like perl in that way

user55340

10:10 PM

(even if it wasn't used - it was that "oh, thats a possibility")

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT that game looks... not interesting.. should i download it?

user55340

Angband is from a LONG family tree of gaming - Diablo is based on this tree.

user55340

I'd suggest netback though... different style.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT then i NEED to download it

thanks

@JimmyHoffa but i dont want to ignore you!

(English syntax question: Is it a huge deal typing "i" instead of "I" in a sentence?)

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/216938/… "Use smoke signal"

user55340

10:13 PM

@JeremyDicaire Not too bit of a deal, though it can irk some.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT Saved, thank you... I'm thinking about trying all of them now lol

user20683

@JeremyDicaire It generally makes you look uneducated or teenage.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT Haha ok then, I'll try to think about pressing shift ;)

@WorldEngineer Ouch, that's so negative!

user55340

>
Roguelike games tend to be obscure. However, more recently, other genres have adapted concepts found in the Berlin Interpretation of roguelike games, drawing new attention to the roguelike approach. Action role-playing games such as Blizzard's hugely-successful Diablo can be considered types of rogue likes, due to their similar premise: players slash their way (in real time) through increasingly difficult monsters and obtain treasure while traversing deeper into randomly-generated dungeons to complete quests. Salon.com's Wagner James Au attested that, when he visited their offices, "Blizz…

Jeremy Dicaire

Thank you

user20683

10:14 PM

@JeremyDicaire It's like "le" vs "la".

Jeremy Dicaire

@WorldEngineer Oh okay. You speak french?!

user20683

you don't want to use the wrong one even though the point is clear.

Jeremy Dicaire

Like "le table" make me .. irk

user55340

Je etudie la lang dans ecolle secondaire... mais je oublie beaucoup... et mai spelling checker does not like french.

user20683

@WorldEngineer not enough to make a difference. Se habla Español mas o menos.

user55340

10:16 PM

I'm sure my spelling is awful in that.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT Wow you're great! Honestly, as a french person, I don't care when people speak "not right" at least, they are trying that that's what matter

@MichaelT J'ai étudié (past tense I've studied) la langue à l'école secondaire (this language back at high school)... mais j'en ai oublié beaucoup (but I forgot a lot)

But since I'm in Quebec and not in France, a french person from France would put this sentence in a different way

user55340

I'm quite glad my typing and familiarity with it was enough to make it readable... remember, I've got grey hairs in my beard now and that was more than a few years ago since I've had to use it practically.

Jeremy Dicaire

There's more than one way to say it

@MichaelT You never ever speak/type in french?

user55340

Classroom... and typing, well... the computers we had back then were Apple ][+ and the like. The keyboard wasn't exactly friendly with accents.

Jeremy Dicaire

hahaha i guess

Do you read news from canada or quebec? like I love to read news from other countries like USA, Germany, France, etc and I'm wondering if ppl in other countries do the same thing

user55340

10:21 PM

I listen to As It Happens on NPR (its on at 8pm)... and sometimes Q.

Jeremy Dicaire

I have no idea of what you're talking about xD

user55340

So, not completely unfamiliar with it. I also traveled through Canada on my great unemployed road trip so I've got some context of where things are (entered just north of Seattle, went through Kamloops to Bamf and Jasper, then out at Waterton).

user55340

cbc.ca/asithappens and cbc.ca/q

Jeremy Dicaire

oh okay

did you follow the 201 demonstration?

2012*

with the students and everything?

user55340

Not much... (reading about it now to get context)

Jeremy Dicaire

10:25 PM

2012 Quebec student protests

The 2012 Quebec student protests were a series of student demonstrations led by student unions like the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, and their supporters against a proposal by the Quebec Cabinet, headed by Liberal Premier Jean Charest, to raise university tuition from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2018. Only an estimated one-third of students agreed with the boycott, while the majority of students completed their courses. Left-wing groups endorsed the student protests which evolved into generalized demonstrations against the provincial government. Opposition partie...

user55340

Yep... btw, that one boxing thing... try editing your comment to remove the ':)'

Jeremy Dicaire

Oh okay thank you

One of my favorite video about it (no speaking)

►

user55340

I think I heard a few bits about on as it happens... I don't listen to it too often, but enjoy it when I do (its a matter of if I'm traveling somewhere at 8pm).

Jeremy Dicaire

ok

but thats good,getting informed about whats happening in the world

What I found so amazng is ppl in New York and France and everywhere supporting us, It was amazing and give me hope in humanity

user55340

I try to stay ware of the world as a whole... I listen to the news on my commutes to various places.

user55340

10:30 PM

So games - yea, poke at netback. There are a few who play it here. Also... Dungeons of Dredmor. (heh) - you might like it.

Jeremy Dicaire

Yeah I am still trying to find a copy of netback

user55340

Don't need to install it - can play it online. alt.org/nethack

user55340

Otherwise, binary installs and source at nethack.org/common/index.html

gnat

Sep 10 at 16:49, by MichaelT

Come on! SO shouldn't be using workplace as their toilet bowl... thats our dumping ground. (HHOS)

user55340

And its expected that you'll die early and often in this game.

Jeremy Dicaire

10:34 PM

Haha ok good, thanks... (I just noticed I taped netback instead of nethack -.-)

Dungeons of Dredmor. looks ridiculously funny to play

user55340

It doesn't take itself too serisouly.

user55340

@gnat It was... a bad question. They would not have been happy with us if we did that at all.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT HHOS is like.. sarcasm ?

user55340

Its a mix of sarcasm, truth, and a real joke.

Jeremy Dicaire

wow that is complicated - thanks

user55340

10:39 PM

There is a history of Stack Overflow using P.SE as its "toilet bowl", and we were quite sensitive about it. There were great confusions over it. When the workplace (TW) came about, some of our "we don't want to deal with this" was migrated there... I don't think we do that anymore.

user55340

So, when saying that, its in part because we did do it, and we shouldn't be doing it, and it was done to us...

Jeremy Dicaire

Awww I see, that is kind of sad

but to be honnest, I never understand the purpose of the P.SO

user20683

we tend to get a great many stragglers from SO who either A. Want an answer to their question right NOW and feel like crossposting will get it faster despite us having a fraction of SO's userbase. B. They have been automatically question banned because they have no ability to do research or read the posting rules. C. We told to post here by SO people who've no idea what we are about.

Jeremy Dicaire

no offense

user20683

@JeremyDicaire It's a long and complex story

user20683

10:42 PM

we originally started as a "programming lifestyle" site

user20683

for questions that didn't fit SO

user55340

So in part, its a reminder to us not to do that again.

user20683

that was quickly abandoned

user55340

You'll see it named "NPR" - Not Programming Related.

user20683

we are now the conceptual and architectural sibling to SO

Jeremy Dicaire

10:43 PM

wow

user55340

35

A: why are the best questions the ones which have been closed?

tl;dr We already tried supporting those questions, we even gave them their own site. Sadly, it didn't work out. C'est la vie. 3 years ago, a Stack Exchange site called Not Programming Related came out of Area51, the Stack Exchange staging zone. NPR was supposed to be a site where questions t...

Jeremy Dicaire

(reading it...)

user55340

And the one where the 'toilet bowl' meme came from...

user55340

72

Q: Please stop using Programmers.SE as your toilet bowl

Stack Overflow users have been using the "off topic - belongs on Programmers.SE" close reason as an alternative to all the other close reasons. It'd be helpful if people actually read the FAQ and the guidelines for six subjective questions before voting to migrate questions like: What's your fa...

discussion off-topic programmers-se

Jeremy Dicaire

(Sorry its taking time one of my cats just decided to jump on me for affection)

@MichaelT that explain a lot

user55340

10:51 PM

Its a good bit of history and it helps to understand where we've been to understand where we are going (and not repeat the same mistakes).

user20683

@JeremyDicaire The two things people tend to get the most confused with in terms of "seems like it should be on-topic but isn't" are questions about IDE usage and version control use.

user55340

VCS is especially awkward because some of the questions are quite appropriate here.

user55340

The "I have this problem with builds when doing branching some way" is a P.SE problem.

Jeremy Dicaire

"How to write cod that doesnt suck" what the..

user55340

The "How do I do this with some VCS tool" is SO.

user55340

10:53 PM

5

Q: How to deal with undesired commits that break long-running release builds?

We ran into an unfortunate situation at work recently and I've been wondering what we can do to avoid similar problems in the future. We make embedded systems. The FPGA code is in one SVN repository while the firmware & software code is in a different repository. Building the firmware requires t...

version-control builds branching

user55340

That's a reasonable P.SE VCS question

Jeremy Dicaire

but in the first link you sent, they said PSO can be used for subjective questions, no

6?

user20683

Programming History questions are technically on-topic but they can be hard to ask well

user55340

Because at the heart of it is the question of the architecture of VCS.

user20683

@JeremyDicaire at one point yes, years ago

Jeremy Dicaire

10:54 PM

oh okay

user55340

@WorldEngineer I keep getting random up votes on that '{}' answer.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT send the link

Ill upvote it too :P

user55340

72

A: Why do programming languages, especially C, use curly braces and not square ones?

Two of the major influences to C were the Algol family of languages (Algol 60 and Algol 68) and BCPL (from which C takes its name). BCPL was the first curly bracket programming language, and the curly brackets survived the syntactical changes and have become a common means of denoting pro...

Jeremy Dicaire

okay that is sooooo subjective

user55340

Well, when you dig into the history of the answer, it isn't.

Jeremy Dicaire

10:56 PM

+1 for use of actual data, rather than mere speculation – Michael Shaw Feb 26 at 15:34

user55340

It involves digging into Algol68, B, and BCPL... all predecessors of C which influenced its syntax.

Jeremy Dicaire

upvoted

wow you know a lot

user55340

Its not that I know a lot... I mentioned I worked in tech support... I know how to find a lot of information.

Jeremy Dicaire

@MichaelT you are right

yeah but you need to want to do it

user55340

I also spent some time on a writing website which honed my skills for writing random things about things I may not know a lot about initially and make it into a good article.

Jeremy Dicaire

10:58 PM

I would never do that, even for me

gnat

@MichaelT agree. I saw it in 10K tools / recently deleted. Would be interesting to see Chad and enderland going nuts if we migrated it. :) "Don't torment me with your usual moderation stuffs" yeah sure

Jeremy Dicaire

haha

lhaha why not

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