The Whiteboard

MetaFight

1:58 AM

lol wig ad

user55340

3:24 AM

For any still looking - free spam flags programmers.stackexchange.com/a/230066

user55340

3:46 AM

@amon for some reason, I've got an urge to write a fractran program that sorts a, b, c, and d in the number 2^a * 3^b * 5 ^ c * 7 ^ d

Jimmy Hoffa

6:01 AM

2 xkcds from xkcd1337 surely that will be a good xkcd.

2

gnat

7:35 AM

@MichaelT trying hard to abstain of editing title to My question was closed or down voted, What The FAQ?

gnat

9:15 AM

programmers.stackexchange.com/users/55400/… - wonder if there's any "Looks Good" review (in LQ queue) for a post that isn't deleted, or closed, or has negative score (save for "known good" audits)

Thomas Owens

1:47 PM

It's time to refresh some books in my library. There are new editions of Software Architecture in Practice and Software Requirements.

Thomas Owens

2:46 PM

If anyone wants to comment on my software development wishlist, including giving me ideas for must read things: amzn.com/w/201I5LH4DUNU5

user55340

3:03 PM

@gnat I seem to recall them, though LQ audits aren't that common.

user55340

And I've already seen comment links to the close reasons post. Thank you for the additional links @gnat.

user55340

@ThomasOwens @WorldEngineer random thought had... would it be possible to CW and collaborative lock the "why downvote / closed" meta question and include links to the specific answers from our custom reasons?

user41796

3:21 PM

@MetaFight Enjoy the bump.

user41796

@ThomasOwens If you get the Ambler book, I'm curious to know what you think of it. I have enjoyed his writing and philosophy, so I'm interested in his thoughts.

MetaFight

@GlenH7 cheers.

user41796

I'd drop the LEAN book off of your wishlist. My experience with LEAN is that the implementation is an adulteration of the principles. The concepts are great ideals, but no one actually fulfills them. The "recent" fiasco with the Toyota ECUs is evidence that not even Toyota does LEAN correctly. And at that point .... meh.

user41796

@MetaFight YW. They were minor edits but should be sufficient to bump you to the front page for a bit.

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 I don't understand why the Toyota ECU issue and lean are connected...Defects can happen anywhere. I would be looking more at the quality practices (from design through system testing).

user41796

3:29 PM

@ThomasOwens What I saw was severely lacking test coverage

user55340

There are lots of 'tricks' to re-getting attention to a particular question. Minor edits. I waited until now to correct the format of an answer that had forgotten to hold a section that I happened to have an answer in.

user41796

Trying to think of how to politely phrase the feedback I have heard on LEAN projects

user41796

The impression I got was that LEAN is used as an excuse to cut every single possible thing up to the point of the process falling apart in front of your eyes. It's another way to sweep as much as possible under the rug and pray that nothing breaks later on.

user41796

So what I saw with the ECU issue was that QA had been cut & cut & cut to the point where it wasn't actually being tested for the range of conditions that it should have been tested. And that cutting (presumably in the guise of LEAN) led to the malfunctioning(s)

user41796

But I'll add that I don't know all of the facts in that particular case, and I'm not an expert on LEAN. So all of the above is conjecture / hearsay upon my part.

Thomas Owens

3:35 PM

That's not a fault of lean. That's being stupid with lean. Quality, especially in automotive and other life-critical fields, should be considered value-adding processes.

Lean focuses on reducing non-value adding. I'm pretty sure protecting your customer's investments (and life) in your products should be value add.

user41796

My understanding is that Toyota is a champion of LEAN. So, to see such an egregious abuse of LEAN by one of the champions of the methodology was off-putting.

Thomas Owens

Lean in the context of software isn't well-understood. The context of lean in Toyota is focused on manufacturing, as far as I know. Hell, most of the literature on Lean focuses on manufacturing.

So just because they champion lean doesn't mean they are using it in their software development processes or that lean in the context of software engineering is understood by the program managers.

user41796

I agree on both points there

Thomas Owens

Plus, lean doesn't address best practices for coding. There was a link here about all the MISRA violations in Toyota code.

Jimmy Hoffa

This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.

I've been living with my conservationist wife too long, it really bothers me that "A fishing boat catches a shark" blinks distinctly more rapidly than most everything else I see on there aside from death/birth. Though I'm quite pleased with Denver's pizza ordering rate...

user41796

3:45 PM

@ThomasOwens So it's quite possible that I'm being unfair in assuming they use LEAN within their SW development

Jimmy Hoffa

Anytime you hear someone speaking of wild-caught <fish> as if it's better because it's wild caught, punch them in the face {/rant}

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 I wonder if I can swing a benchmarking trip to a Toyota SW facility and get answers.

user41796

@ThomasOwens AFAIK, their organization is quite open to look & see type tours.

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 Do you know where there SW development happens?

user41796

@JimmyHoffa There's a snopes piece about Tilapia farm breeding in China / SE Asia. The farmers are resorting to less than hygenic practices because of cost pressures.

user41796

3:47 PM

@ThomasOwens I don't, no.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Fine by me, they better get that shit worked out now because soon enough farm fish will be the only fish.

user41796

I don't know if ECU and other device development can be done independently of the manufacturing or not

user41796

@JimmyHoffa well, their practices are leading to less biodiversity. In my book, that's generally a bad thing.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Ah; well yeah that's kind of the wrong way about it. Guessing they're filling local spaces with tilapia that are edging out the native species?

All I'm saying is; that's still not a compelling argument to me that we should be wild-catching our fish.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa It's not so much that we are wild catching is that we are effectively stripping mining fish stocks to do it.

user41796

3:51 PM

@JimmyHoffa bigger concern is that they are using fecal matter from nearby pig & chicken farms to feed the fish instead of using commercial feed. Not that the commercial feed doesn't have some amount of fecal matter (or so I'd bet), but the concentration is different

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Yes; and anytime you hear "wild-caught" that's precisely what it means. That won't change, the best we can do is support farmed fish. @GlenH7 to be sure, I gaurantee you there's 3rd world countries the planet over doing just as bad if not worse hygenic practices in the creation of numerous exported food products that you consume.

user55340

At the Monteray Aquarium (or was it the Chicago?) they had this wallet sized card about the eco-friendlyness of certain fish types for human consumption. From catching wild to farm raised damage issues.

Jimmy Hoffa

Not saying it's right, just that doesn't ring alarm bells. If you're concerned about the quality of the hygenic practices where your food is sources, buy the not-cheapest stuff at the counter. I bet current american food buying practices could be seen under the same lens as gas buying; people roughly recognize a low, mid, and high grade of products when at the grocer and choose with not dissimilar approach to gas

Quonux

hello

with which algorithm can i segmentate/partionate/lcuster a black write (boolean) 2 dimension image?

*whie

*white

user55340

@Quonux (you can use the up arrow to modify a recently said chat message)

Quonux

4:00 PM

yes i know :) im not used to it :/

user55340

Just making sure. I remember back when I discovered that was a possibility - much after I was in chat.

user41796

irony: flagging as obsolete a comment to the tune of "why hasn't this been closed" after I cast the 5th VTC.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I think you had a chat conversation about this awhile back - programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/230150/…

user55340

(might be another bit of an answer you can give)

user55340

@Quonux (not ignoring you for that question, just don't know an answer - or what you're trying to do)

Quonux

4:06 PM

i want to use a edge detection algorithm

then i want to group the pixels from the edge detetion for further processing

no idea :(

then ill take a hammer and solve the same problem the 10'000th time :)

user55340

@Quonux Sorry... not much of a graphics image guy here. You might check back later in the day when it gets a bit more active in the room.

user20683

user55340

Or that too...

Quonux

oh another beta

amon

@Quonux Is the input greyscale or black/white?

Quonux

4:19 PM

b/w

user55340

user55340

(from chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/the-whiteboard ) we're just now picking up on the daily activity graph.

amon

@Quonux and what exactly is the output you're trying to get? Another image, or other kinds of data?

Quonux

4:35 PM

i want to get a graph

(currently i try to construct from the black white image lines, then i connect them, and so on)

amon

@Quonux A graph as in graph theory? What would be the nodes? Or a graph as in data plot? What data would you be trying to visualize? Or are you trying to find the contour lines?

user20683

Pixel connectivity

In image processing and image recognition, pixel connectivity is the way in which pixels in 2- or 3-dimensional images relate to their neighbors. Types of connectivity 2-dimensional 4-connected 4-Connected pixels are neighbors to every pixel that touches one of their edges. These pixels are connected horizontally and vertically, or diagonally. In terms of pixel coordinates, every pixel that has the coordinates : \textstyle(x\pm1, y) or \textstyle(x, y\pm1) is connected to the pixel at \textstyle(x, y). See also: Von Neumann neighborhood 6-connected 6-connected pixels are neighbors to...

user20683

Connected-component labeling

Connected-component labeling (alternatively connected-component analysis, blob extraction, region labeling, blob discovery, or region extraction) is an algorithmic application of graph theory, where subsets of connected components are uniquely labeled based on a given heuristic. Connected-component labeling is not to be confused with segmentation. Connected-component labeling is used in computer vision to detect connected regions in binary digital images, although color images and data with higher dimensionality can also be processed. When integrated into an image recognition system or hum...

Quonux

right, i try to find the contour lines

thx so far

user55340

Btw, the software rec guide for libraries...

user55340

4:50 PM

17

Q: Is it alright to ask for programming tools?

I am asking if it will be alright on this site to ask questions, such as "what is the best library for image rendering in C#?", or similar questions. I understand that this website is for software that is "completed" and serves a purpose for an end-user, so those questions should be moved to st...

discussion

user55340

Though I'd content it needs more guideance.

Robert Harvey

5:29 PM

Some people, when they need to compile a list of things, think: "I know; I'll ask on Stack Exchange." Now they have two problems.

user41796

@RobertHarvey And then I'll insult the community that I'm trying to get help from.

user55340

@undo @Braiam I've added a section about Software Rec to this meta answer - would you care to proof it to make sure I didn't say things I should (or if you have better links to provide)?

MetaFight

I'll go check out those suggestions. I'll even give you an up vote to show that I'm not a complete douche, thanks! :) — DeanGrobler 11 mins ago

how generous.

user55340

@RobertHarvey I know you guys are having fun at SO with your own Big List controversies.

user55340

(apparently the hidden delphi features is once again hidden - the thing that got me when I looked at it was how many times the alt+team was mentioned)

Braiam

5:44 PM

@MichaelT I would change all references to software recommendations for this link instead meta.softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/336/… as some sort of click through

2

user41796

C'mon collider!

user41796

1

A: How to write camel case for words like "phonenumber", "motorcycle", "wavelength", etc

Part 1 I think what's tripping you up is that some of your examples are compound words, whereas others are not. phone number // not a compound word motorcycle // compound word wavelength //compound word sunblock // compound word Sunday // compound word* motorcycle color // compound word used wi...

Braiam

at least we can hope their read the quality guidelines instead of just drop their crap

user55340

@Braiam Edited - looks better?

Braiam

I can't wait for the day that I only need to support modern browsers! I would be thrilled if that was the case! — scunliffe Feb 14 '12 at 12:05

@MichaelT yeah

Jimmy Hoffa

5:57 PM

I want a Polyglotix - a linux distro that comes with every different programming environment setup on it that has any modern interest; immediately after install you have whatever free Java IDE with the full java development stuff setup, Clojure setup, ocaml environment fully setup, emacs with every language extension (ok default emacs mostly comes pre-set for all languages), Haskell, Ruby, SML, Oz, Node.JS, Mono, Racket, CLISP, et al et al

Braiam

6:15 PM

@JimmyHoffa you can't have everything...

user55340

@Braiam He can't even get a sandwich...

user55340

-13

Q: Meaningless points? I've an idea: Meaningful points!

I've written a lot of good (and bad) content for you guys, because of an addiction. You did this to me. The least you could do is say, buy me a lunch? Eh? Is that too much to ask? Feature request: Every 5000 points you get on any one SE site, or maybe just for the first one, SE should send you a...

feature-request

psr

@GlenH7 There are some interesting insights from manufacturing that do apply to software though. For example, if everyone is 100% busy then unless every task is perfectly predictable and your pipeline is perfectly set up, work must of necessity pile up waiting for someone to complete other tasks. They have some formulas and everything. It's not specific to LEAN but the software people who look at manufacturing stuff seem to usually look at LEAN.

I like to look at the manufacturing stuff but with some skepticism.

user55340

@psr On that subject, 'slack' is a good book.

user55340

amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-Efficiency/dp/…

psr

6:20 PM

@MichaelT On my list

user55340

One of the odd points in there is that Microsoft Office is a productivity destroying piece of software.

user55340

It used to be managers had secretaries to do all the 'busy' work of typing up things and sending out reports and such. They don't anymore. Because word is simple enough for them to use.

user55340

So no more secretaries and the managers that went from being busy 70% of the time are now busy 100% (or 110%) of the time... and no one is getting paid for 'slacking off'.

psr

@MichaelT Speaking of which, the Working Effectively with Legacy Code book has continued to be good. Almost the only book I've read that even contemplates the existence of much of the software I've seen in the real world. Such as, single methods with thousands of lines of code.

user55340

However, in doing that, managers are no longer able to think or deal with the "on no, something broke" 3 hours with devs and fire fighting.

Braiam

6:23 PM

meh, apparently this guy was right... even 4 years later:

@Jeff You realize, this site runs on programmers that aren't getting enough work to do... — Chacha102 Jan 26 '10 at 21:49

psr

(My personal experience caps out at a 20,000 line method. Actually a SQL server SPROC of all things.)

@Braiam Hard to have a site built on programmers to busy to look at it.

user55340

So now... when something happens, no one has the extra time to deal with it, everything breaks, work gets piled up and bad things happen.

psr

@MichaelT Yes, but no slack. Slack is stealing salary from the company. Bad slack.

user55340

Its a good book to read. I strongly recommend it.

user55340

Searching for it brings up this summary pdf - which has a number of good points from the book - mux2000.mutronics.biz/03847212/KBase/…

user55340

6:34 PM

(its that time again... when the DAG network on github looks neat)

user55340

Jimmy Hoffa

user55340

Yep.

user55340

I personally like the brown branch on this one for a bit.

user55340

@MetaFight often, symbol tables back in the language (especially interpreted ones) are key value pairs... though, thats glossing over lots.

amon

7:19 PM

@MichaelT I feel a disturbance in the force, as if someone was considering to post a certain video about first-class environments in Ruby.

user55340

Nah... its more memories back to my dragon book class and implementing a hash table in C++ for storing the symbol information prior to compilation... and various ventures into packages and typedefs in perl.

user55340

It isn't wrong to think of each scope as a hashtable and when using a variable looking it up in the nested scopes until you find it. Its probably what was done somewhere in the past.

Undo

7:52 PM

@MichaelT Yeah, just a minute

user55340

@Undo I've done some edits to it suggested by @Braiam though would certainly welcome other edits / corrections / explanations in there too.

Undo

@MichaelT You might change the ground rules link to this one, it's a little newer.

> SoftwareRec.SE is not a site for generating big lists of tools

Amen!

user55340

@Undo Its one of the things that shows up on P.SE and I don't want people going there trying to make big list questions when they get closed here because they misread the post

MetaFight

@MichaelT yeah, that's why I answered as a comment (and a vague one at that). Writing up a technically-correct (the best kind of correct) answer would require a lot of time.

Undo

@MichaelT Yup, looks good to me ;)

user55340

7:57 PM

The guidance from SoftwareRec on libraries so far seems a bit vague.

Undo

Short answer: we accept them.

After all, libraries are software too

Don't quote me on that, though. There's something on meta about library rec questions

user55340

Might want to write up some guidance on that now, before you have an onslaught of those questions from SO.

Undo

yeah, probably

shudders

Braiam

looks around... nothing to see here, going on

user55340

Its easier to write the guidance and modify it as the concept matures than closing everything and then writing the guidance.

user55340

8:01 PM

(the later being the P.SE NPR days)

Undo

yup

user55340

When you do have the guidance, please feel free to edit it into the answer there...

user55340

(that answer itself was an attempt at writing a Big List on M.P.SE to try to condense all the "you should read this" links from various sites and blog postings to hope that if someone reads it (and maybe follows the links) they won't fall into the common P.SE pitfalls)

user55340

this is how you confuse new members... Good subjective, bad subjective, half opinion based, full opinion based, semi opinion based, good fit, semi good fit, bla bla.. So, you mean people should take one week off and read all the posts, blogs, faqs, articles before asking their question? every person doesn't come here with a motto to be moderator and learn all the rules, a simple guideline should be enough to get started and let them ask their question. — Jhilke Dai yesterday

Stack Exchange

Blog - Stack Exchange: Podcast #55 – Don’t Call It A Comeback

Abby T. Miller on February 24, 2014

Welcome to Stack Exchange Podcast #55, recorded on Friday Thursday the 13th with your hosts Joel Spolsky, David Fullerton, and Jay Hanlon! Today’s episode is brought to you by the city of Sochi, Russia.

It’s been a long time since we last recorded, so we have a lot to talk about, and we’re going to skip most of it. First we’re going to talk about all our brand new sites, so Joel learn about them for the first time. Pets is a site for (you guessed it) pet owners to wonder why their cats like to watch them making the bed. Also, we already talked about this site. Moving on …

user55340

8:08 PM

That gives a 5 minute summary of everything, and a < 1h if you chase links.

user55340

@AshleyNunn Yea Pets.SE in the pdocast! (and I have wondered about my cat with making the bed... he gets very excited when I do it. Fortunately, I'm a single male and don't do it too often.).

user41796

@MichaelT For your cat's sake, you ought to make your bed at least daily then.

user55340

@GlenH7 I'd need new sheets weekly then because he attacks it.

user55340

13

Q: Why is my cat so interested in me making the bed?

I've noticed over many years of cat ownership, a lot of my cats have a very excited interest in bedmaking. My current cat will come from any corner of the apartment when he hears me start to shake out the sheets and blankets, and scrambles under each blanket as I put them on my bed. This happens ...

cats behavior

user41796

And that's why I'm a dog person...

user55340

8:14 PM

One of the things I've noticed about cats who were hunters is they keep their claws very sharp (compared to cats that were house cats for all their life) - because that's how you catch your food.

user41796

<--- Not such a big fan of kitties with really sharp claws.

user55340

He's very very good about not clawing me... though I've got a set of 3x towels that he likes to sleep on that I play 'thing under the sheets' with him. The 3x is to give sufficient padding to not get scratched.

user55340

@GlenH7 softpaws.com

user41796

@MichaelT And the cat doesn't try to take them off?

user55340

(one of the humane society groups around here puts those on the cats they send to the pet store - the workers really appreciate it (avoid accidental scratches))

user55340

8:17 PM

They're super-guled on. The cat naturally sheds the claw after a bit.

user41796

It's a really smart idea

user41796

and the superglue bit makes sense

user55340

When I take my cat to visit my parents I put those on to reduce issues with their cats (he wins the fights)

user55340

Fun watching my cat and their male cat - their cat sitting in the window, tail twitching. My cat watching the tail and just reaching out and tapping it. And again. And again. And again... and their cat turns to slap at him and he's all "Game on!"... and then wins the fight.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Have you seen yourself making the bed? It's plausibly the most ridiculous thing you do. Next time just lay on it and throw blankets varyingly until you're warm then fall asleep.

Alternatively it could be simply that it's trying to learn your bed-making ritual because it finds the walk-in-a-circle-3-times-then-lay-down approach lacking

user55340

8:26 PM

@JimmyHoffa That's actually my process... though I have to make sure the top one is the one the cat likes to sleep on (he does the 'kneading and purring' thing only on certain blankets)

Robert Harvey

8:55 PM

cuttingedge.it/blogs/steven/pivot/entry.php?id=92

cuttingedge.it/blogs/steven/pivot/entry.php?id=91

public class ListPostsQuery
{
    private readonly IDocumentSession session;

    public ListPostsQuery(IDocumentSession session)
    {
        this.session = session;
    }

    public List<Post> Execute(int currentPage, int defaultPage, int pageSize, out RavenQueryStatistics stats)
    {
        return session.Query<Post>()
            .Include(x => x.AuthorId)
            .Statistics(out stats)
            .WhereIsPublicPost()
            .OrderByDescending(post => post.PublishAt)
            .Paging(currentPage, defaultPage, pageSize)

A query object.

Eventually implements an IQuery interface, which you can call an Execute method on. Was about to say that it just pushes the complexity into some buried switch statement somewhere else, then I found this gem:

sealed class QueryProcessor : IQueryProcessor
{
    private readonly Container container;

    public QueryProcessor(Container container)
    {
        this.container = container;
    }

    [DebuggerStepThrough]
    public TResult Process<TResult>(IQuery<TResult> query)
    {
        var handlerType = typeof(IQueryHandler<,>)
            .MakeGenericType(query.GetType(), typeof(TResult));

        dynamic handler = container.GetInstance(handlerType);

        return handler.Handle((dynamic)query);

Of course, you still have to write each of the query handlers.

user41796

Those two articles went on to my reading list. Hopefully I'll get to them today.

Robert Harvey

My first thought is "whatever happened to encapsulation?"

My second thought is "I bet this would be trivial in Scheme."

user55340

The ruby vs node question self deleted...

user55340

9:10 PM

> @cubsink You've never encountered issues with webrick vs passenger vs unicorn for ruby? Its those that determine the performance. It absolutely matters which one you chose - at the moment you're comparing apples to orange marmalade. At least compare apple jam to orange marmalade.

user41796

Mmmmm orange marmalade

user55340

Though looking back at it, I think its actually apple butter.

user55340

Apple butter

Apple butter is a highly concentrated form of apple sauce produced by long, slow cooking of apples with cider or water to a point where the sugar in the apples caramelizes, turning the apple butter a deep brown. The concentration of sugar gives apple butter a much longer shelf life as a preserve than apple sauce. Background The roots of apple butter lie in Limburg (Belgium and the Netherlands) and Rhineland (Germany), conceived during the Middle Ages, when the first monasteries (with large fruit yards) appeared. The production of the butter was a perfect way to conserve part of the fru...

Robert Harvey

Even bacteria thinks some things are too sweet.

user20683

@RobertHarvey also trivial in the MLs

user20683

9:12 PM

the more I learn about Haskell, the less and less appealing Java looks

user55340

@WorldEngineer Appealing or not, its the bread and butter of the non-microsoft shops.

Robert Harvey

Yeah, there's so much ceremony in Java to do these kind of things. That's very Java-like C#, by the way.

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Welcome to my world... Look away now before Haskell forever blinds you and your equilibrium is tormented by recognition of an abstraction layer the industry hasn't dreamed about yet.

user55340

The other thing (that Jimmy hints at) is that for 99% of what the industry does, its not the place to be fancy, or creative, or clever - those are bad things when working with large groups of people.

user55340

When you start programing at a level that no one else can think of, much less maintain you've written 'bad' code - it doesn't matter how much beauty and abstractions you put in there, its not maintainable and thats a problem.

user55340

9:19 PM

With my latest annotation & reflection class I made sure that every java developer who would touch it can look at it, see whats going on and understand it. Fortunately, the ones I'm working with are top notch and don't start with a fear of annotations or reflection.

user55340

(previous employer, we tried to avoid reflections because the rest of the team wouldn't be able to maintain it if we started getting clever and go beyond basic java)

Robert Harvey

Wouldn't most of the blubs never see teh reflexions?

user55340

@RobertHarvey Nope... though sometimes they'll stumble across some code that does it.

Robert Harvey

Just step away... Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

user55340

One guy I worked with (left a week before I did) wrote some annotation / reflection code that did some rather neat things and was very clean. The guy maintaining it ripped it all out because he couldn't figure out how to modify it.

user58869

9:30 PM

@RobertHarvey checks behind curtain hey there's no one there!

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT See and stuff like this bugs me because I recognize if someone can't maintain it, it's a problem, but I disagree with your statement above that it's "bad" code, because I've worked enough places that foreach was literally too much for the developers, one shouldn't measure bad code with bad programmers.

What that fellow wrote that you describe sounds like great code, it sounds like the person who ripped it out was a bad programmer for being incapable of understanding any level of abstraction at all

There is a "too far above most devs heads" and then there's a "too far above bad devs heads", one of these bars is relevant, one is not, recognizing the difference should not be left up to the bad dev though.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa 'bad' may be the incorrect word choice, but unmaintinable code is unmaintianable. And thats problematic. There are two options - raise the skill level of the co-workers or lower the level of your code.

Robert Harvey

All you need to know to write the code in those articles above is to inherit from the IQuery interface, and include the necessary boilerplate.

user55340

If the skill level you're writing at is several steps above the industry programmer average (and even above many of the seniors without study and realization of the concepts), then thats an issue somewhere.

Robert Harvey

Maybe not even the boilerplace, if you also inherit from an abstract class.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:38 PM

@MichaelT s/bad/unmaintainable in what I'm saying, that's fine, I still say there's an amount of abstraction that your average decent dev can maintain easily, and an amount of recognition this industry needs in that bad devs can't handle any level of abstraction, they rewrite other peoples code because they don't understand it, not because it's not maintainable, then they rewrite their own code shortly afterwards when a change request comes because they can't even understand it

I agree with you @MichaelT that there is a bar wherein coding above it will cause problems and shouldn't be done. I just think the industry let's the wrong people set that bar - I don't think it's usually set at "average" I think average devs set it below themselves, and the 1 in 5 level of bad developer pushes his team to set it even lower, when it should be set at the average devs level.

user55340

Its a question of where the bar is for the team and where you're writing code for.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT yes and no, 5 years on you don't know who will be maintaining it, could be superstars, could be dumbasses, but you can't code for either without certainty or else you'll upset the other.

user55340

Part of the reason I left my former employer was with each departure, the average level of the coder was falling - and falling fast.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I agree with your second note here - I have always actively tried to raise the skill of my coworkers for explicitly this reason. I don't know how many times I sat down with devs for half an hour walking them through how to use LINQ to solve some particular problem they ran into.

user55340

Raising the level is ultimately the right thing to do... career enrichment for everyone so that they can work with it in the future (and you can write better code).

user55340

9:44 PM

However, if you're some senior dev out there somewhere who is spitting out libraries and classes that the rest of the team has no hope of ever understanding is bad. When that senior dev leaves the entire team will be at a loss for trying to make changes for any of the code that was written then.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Pretty warm out today...

user55340

Either the sr. should have either being working at trying to get the other coders to level up (persuade management to send them to conferences, bownbags on how to use some feature, etc...) or acknowledge that the sr. needs to write simpler code so the bus factor isn't 1.

user55340

Temp this morning was 2F. Glare ice everywhere.

user55340

We had that nasty weather on Friday, which then hit a warm day on Saturday and part of Sunday... but then sunday night and today everything refroze.

Jimmy Hoffa

Aye, this is honestly where I value code reviews a lot. Anytime I have any question about this stuff I just pull the team for a code review of what I did. There is only one scenario where I will actively disavow myself of the requirement to make code reasonable to others: Performance CRITICAL - then it doesn't even have to be reasonable to me...

user55340

9:48 PM

I saw two cars perpendicular in left turn lanes. Don't know how they did that.

Jimmy Hoffa

If team has some trouble I'll expand the abstractions I use, if they like and agree/appreciate the level of abstraction and the API I've designed then no problem.

@MichaelT They parked, duh.

user55340

As I said, fortunately here I'm working with a few other Java programmers and I know I will learn things. Thats good.

Jimmy Hoffa

Aye

Robert Harvey

Presumably you could have the cool code and the blub code in two separate libraries. Kinda like the Officer's Club and the Enlisted Club.

By blub, of course, I'm referring to the Officer's Club.

Anyway, the blubs wouldn't be allowed into the cool code, unless they could demonstrate that they could see it without vomiting.

psr

One could argue that the dumbasses are going to screw up the project regardless, so assume some level of competence. If you're wrong it won't matter - they will remove random sections of it in any case.

user55340

9:57 PM

@RobertHarvey The problem, once all of the ones who can handle the cool code leave...

user55340

There are three types of companies - those that are hiring people, those who are maintaining the ones they have, and those who are losing them. The first two can maintain such a structure... the last, not so much.

Robert Harvey

What innovations could a blub company possibly bring to the marketplace?

user55340

Unlikely they'll do any. Recall though that most programmers aren't marketplace facing - they're deep within the bowels of IT writing internal things. That internal website, or tweaks to the point of sales system, or on call tracking...

user55340

The way to solve the british vs american spelling for 'gray' and 'grey' -- just go with #A0A0A0.

psr

10:13 PM

@MichaelT Simplifying code might buy those guys a little more time before they break it, but this is one of those cases where failing fast might end up being a virtue. Hard to say.

user55340

@psr Depends if one wants the biggest company (employer) in the area to have its register fail fast or not.

user55340

Its not so much "yea, they need to learn this" but also "if a stores can't take money and the company belly flops because they close the doors for a week while they sort out how to sell things" this kind of impacts a larger economic interest.

psr

@MichaelT Yeah, if that's how it would play out, not so good.

user55340

(and that is a real concern for us as we were leaving... since then one of the test stores had its credit card swipe system not work for a day because of a bad install (they needed to have someone go out and manually reset all of them)... yea, that caused some problems)

user55340

(by test store I mean 'actual production store that gets the first deployment of software' - I hope they're going back to the 'low volume test stores' are the test stores first rather than the big one)

psr

10:20 PM

real Klingons do chain-wide Black Friday alpha testing.

user55340

'ello @YannisRizos !

user55340

@psr that was a year ago... we had to have all systems with the new registers before the freeze for Day After Thanksgiving.

Yannis Rizos

@MichaelT Hello. I think I owe you a question merge, do you have a handy link? (transcript search isn't behaving today)

user55340

We were still doing fixes a week before DAT (it was more a code slushie than a freeze)

user55340

@YannisRizos Ahh - you have two problems then.

user55340

10:23 PM

93

Q: What is meant by "Now you have two problems"?

There is a popular quote by Jamie Zawinski: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. How is this quote supposed to be understood?

regular-expressions language-discussion

user55340

36

Q: What does the Jamie Zawinski's quotation about regular expressions mean?

In a message to comp.emacs.xemacs, Jamie Zawinski once said: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. I've always had trouble understanding what he was getting at. What does he mean by this? Update The answer th...

quotations regular-expressions

Yannis Rizos

Thanks. Merge. Let's clean up the comments now...

user55340

@psr We originally did a few months of deployment to the surplus store (~10 customers/day) and then added the internal cafe (LOTS per day, but less than a real store). After we were running on those for a few months we started doing deployments to select real stores.

user55340

@YannisRizos Looking for flags on the comments? or you doing it?

psr

@MichaelT In your part of the country I would think one thing you could really manage is a freeze.

Yannis Rizos

10:29 PM

@MichaelT Spotted a couple of +1 comments, gone now. I don't see anything else that needs flagging there. Some discussions under answers are long, but generally stay on topic. maple_shaft's comment under the question could use a few more upvotes though.

Please avoid extended discussions in the comments sections. If you would like to have an extended conversation then visit the Chat Room — maple_shaft Jan 10 at 12:13

Lots of upvoted comments there, so it's not visible by default.

user55340

@YannisRizos It will need LOTS to get above that +19

user55340

(deleted one of my own that was > 19, now it only needs to get above +11)

Jimmy Hoffa

The key to something being recognized as actually an AI isn't it's ability to think, but it's ability to interact as though it has a personality. What a let down it'll be when someone finally invents AI as we cann recognize by it's distinctive personality and wit, and we all get to learn that computers are assholes.

Yannis Rizos

sealed class QueryProcessor : IQueryProcessor
{
    private readonly Container container;

    public QueryProcessor(Container container)
    {
        this.container = container;
    }

    [DebuggerStepThrough]
    public TResult Process<TResult>(IQuery<TResult> query)
    {
        var handlerType = typeof(IQueryHandler<,>)
            .MakeGenericType(query.GetType(), typeof(TResult));

        dynamic handler = container.GetInstance(handlerType);

        return handler.Handle((dynamic)query);
    }
}

— Robert Harvey 1 hour ago

user55340

@JimmyHoffa AI has many flavors. There's the "interaction" but thats only one of the AI tests.

Yannis Rizos

10:31 PM

Robert having fun with multi-line comments.

user55340

> The Turing test inspired the Ebert test proposed in 2011 by film critic Roger Ebert which is a test whether a computer-based synthesized voice has sufficient skill in terms of intonations, inflections, timing and so forth, to make people laugh.

user55340

Though I'd contend that thats already passed because of the dead pan.

user55340

clinton4.nara.gov/Initiatives/Millennium/shawking.html

user55340

> Because of the red alert I never collected my winnings. I approached Paramount studios but they didn't know the exchange rate.

user55340

>
DNA is the basis for all life on Earth. It has a double helix structure, like a spiral staircase, which was discovered by Francis Crick and James Watson in the Cavendish lab at Cambridge in 1953. The two strands of the double helix are linked by pairs of nucleic acids like the treads in a spiral staircase. There are four kinds of nucleic acids. I won't try to pronounce their names because my speech synthesizer makes a mess of them. Obviously it was not designed for molecular biologists. But I can refer to them by their initials, C, G, A, and T.

Jimmy Hoffa

10:36 PM

@MichaelT I'm just saying, society at large will refuse to call something AI until it makes makes fun of people without sounding scripted.

user55340

11:40 PM

Meta.P.SE questions get tweeted? meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/6483/revisions

user55340

Why was my question closed or down voted? http://meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/q/6483?atw=1

Tweeted by StackProgrammer on February 24, 2014 at 1:40 PM

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