The Whiteboard

user15026

00:01

@MichaelT Okay that was pretty fun

user55340

00:14

@AshleyNunn 611

user15026

@MichaelT After about 400 mine break down

user55340

user55340

Tip - try to avoid having two of the same shape in the same sequence in the line.

user55340

That dark blue circle circle was a killer.

user55340

Notice how the dark blue on the left did a triangle circle triangle just to keep different ones.

user15026

00:21

@MichaelT Thhats a good tip :)

user55340

Ideally, there's loops too. Otherwise you starve the ends of service while the inside gets 2x service.

user55340

02:00

I want to smack someone for writing a getter with logic in it that won't let me get at the actual value behind the getter.

user55340

Reflection to the rescue for a short bit, but I really want to smack someone.

user55340

02:22

(whee! Making // XXX this is the wrong way to do this be bold, italic red)

user55340

02:53

@AshleyNunn blog.amtrak.com/amtrakresidency Ack, sorry... Legal residents of the 48 contiguous United States

user15026

@MichaelT nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

user15026

saddest

user55340

But such a neat idea!

user55340

Write to Canadian Railroad and ask them to do it too... you even know a good writer to apply.

user15026

It is an amazing idea!

user55340

02:56

How about... For UK in Canada (a few years ago) wanderlust.co.uk/misc/via-rail

user55340

Hmm... apparently there's a similar programish in Canada canadakeepexploring.tumblr.com/journey-to-tbex

user55340

One of those, if I ever have the time... Amtrak Railpass.

user15026

I have a love of trains

user15026

I want to ride them like everyplace

user55340

Time to put on some Gordon Lightfoot and sit back?

user55340

03:08

►

user55340

And then some City of New Orleans...

user55340

►

user55340

(took a bit to find the one I liked the best of the selection I had)

user55340

And then here's one from down under...

user55340

►

user15026

03:13

This is excellent :D

user55340

And then back to American folk / bluegrass

user55340

►

user13107

Hello I am currently reasing 'Clean Code' formatting guidelines

I am confused about how to cformat programmers.stackexchange.com

sry

a = (float)sqrt(x / (float)y - b*z)

can someone tell me what is the proper spacing for above statement

user55340

Code style is a thing that you need to think about, and work with your team on - there is no One True Spacing.

user55340

Its a consensus. (where I work we had a quick debate about foo(){ vs foo() { (the later won quickly and the guy who was the no space said "ok" and changed his format style)

user55340

03:20

On your example, I'd go a = (float)sqrt((x/(float)y) - b*z);, but thats me.

user55340

x/y vs x / y is where I'd differ from it because of how I read it and how I want the grouping. Back in math class, I didn't put a space around the fraction, and I'd write it stacked if I could... but I can't... so thus, no space.

user55340

One more train video before I head out...

user55340

►

user13107

thanks for input. accordign to that book, space is to be given to accentuate the precedence of operators.

user55340

Ok... but the thing is to think about why you are formatting something some way. Does the extra space add clarity or not? Don't follow any dogma on how to write code. But do follow the conventions of the other people writing the code.

user55340

03:25

thecodelesscode.com/case/123

user13107

thanks, i ll thuink about that. i m writing code for personal use, so no other people. i ll read that essay that u linked to

*think

user55340

Read all of the site... there is great wisdom in each post. thecodelesscode.com/contents

user15026

@MichaelT That stuff hurts my brain

user55340

@AshleyNunn You could read the ones without any filled in dots.

Matt D

hehe

:)

ok back to work, ping me if you need me

user55340

03:37

@AshleyNunn The computer programmer geek rating is the dots next to each topic. 0 = "not geeky"

user55340

> If you know what a computer is, then you can probably understand this. I'm not saying you'll enjoy it, but you'll probably understand it.

user55340

Then one dot is "slightly geeky"

user55340

> Involves some basic software development concepts. Testing. Software reuse. Infinite loops. Caffeine.

gnat

07:39

10

Q: Improving the System to Deal with Bad Answers

When someone asks a bad question, the closed question system is designed to have three goals: Prevent bad questions from causing harm as-is Allow time for editing/improvement of the question Auto-cleanup if the question is closed and not edited/improved With answers, we don't have that same l...

Wronski

hi gnat

user41796

11:34

@MetaFight Check out Charles Petzold's MSDN articles from Aug, Sept, and Oct of 2012. All three are related to your stars in the sky project.

user41796

@gnat Please consider removing (or at least changing) the terminology you used in the comment on the answer. That's too strong of a term for the subject and you'll alienate people from the cause.

gnat

13:59

@GlenH7 dropped, so that only diamonds can see it now. Posted it being under impression on how toilet management attacked TWP from the hot list today...

0

Q: Copying a question that had a misfortune of being widely exposed in the hot list

This question had a misfortune to be widely exposed in the hot list: Some of the employees don't check if everything has been flushed properly and that the bowl is clean Newer question is a slight variation of above, and is in the hot list too (why wouldn't it, having magic combination of wor...

discussion questions quality hot-questions

gnat

14:22

@MichaelT I can't star a deleted message, what a pity!!!

user20683

No, Workplace is a cow gut. Plenty of prize winning beef, fueled by the regurgitated cud of ten thousand screaming blades of grass insisting that their Bos not eat them, and wishing they could seed to that other field where things are greener.

2

user55340

15:08

Gah. Expired close votes preventing revoting.

Thomas Owens

Can someone explain the close votes on this question?

1

Q: How to Approach/incorporate Large Code merge that has not been merge for 3 years in AGILE way

our team has recently adopted the AGILE practice. 90% of tem members are new to AGILE. In our Product we use some Code developed by the other team/product and they only maintain that code. when before 4-5 years when the previous dev has picked the code they picked only intended files and not all ...

agile code

Oded

I think the dissonance caused from "has not been merged for 3 years" and "AGILE" in the title might be at fault.

Thomas Owens

They also say they newly adopted Agile practices.

ratchet freak

you can SAY a lot of things, either way the agile buzzword is meaningless there

Thomas Owens

Two edits have been made. I just don't see why this is a bad question.

@ratchetfreak How so?

If you're using agile, you have a particularly challenging task that you need to fit into the iteration planning. How do you do it? I don't think that the fact that it's merging two code bases is particularly relevant, though.

gnat

15:19

@ThomasOwens as far as I can tell, edits improved it. But... even improved, it looks merely a dupe of programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/155488/…

Thomas Owens

@gnat This question is about sprint planning, complex tasks/stories, and configuration management, not about actually dealing with the code.

ratchet freak

you can strip out the AGILE reference and just keep it about merging all local repos

Thomas Owens

@ratchetfreak I don't think so. Agile describes how they plan tasks and work.

gnat

@ThomasOwens all right, retracted my CV

Sandeep Datta

15:41

Hey guys I am having a hard timer recalling the name of a book. This book is good for intermediate programmers. It describes the process of going from gates to instruction sets and compilers. All using emulation. Can someone help me out here?

*timer = time

Dave Johnson

I made some edits to my question (programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/231804/…). Does that make it answerable?

user55340

No clue off hand here on that @SandeepDatta Sorry. There are so many technical books out there that anything part from the classic 'canonical' ones can be difficult to pin down.

Sandeep Datta

ok @MichaelT thanks anyway

user55340

@DaveJohnson It does indeed look better. You've got two reopen votes on it so far.

user55340

Well, four now - you can see the review at programmers.stackexchange.com/review/reopen/55988

user55340

15:50

So it looks like it has a very good chance of getting reopened.

Dave Johnson

@MichaelT thanks... didn't know I could see that stuff

user55340

Reviews are public information - just a matter of finding the review (something 10ks can do more easily).

user55340

16:16

@DaveJohnson if you go to a profile, click on 'activity' tab, and then 'reviews' sub-tab, you can see all the reviews that person has done. For example, mine: programmers.stackexchange.com/users/40980/…

Robert Harvey

ericlippert.com/2014/03/05/how-to-debug-small-programs

2

MetaFight

yay lippert!

user55340

@RobertHarvey [Eric Lippert on "How to debug small programs"](http://ericlippert.com/2014/03/05/how-to-debug-small-programs/) --- I like not raw links.

enderland

Eric Lippert on "How to debug small programs"

Ampt

16:31

@enderland ericlippert.com/2014/03/05/how-to-debug-small-programs --- I like raw links.

AndyBursh

I like getting formatted links from anonymous people on the internet. I like the sense of danger and adventure in clicking it without looking where it's going.

user55340

@AndyBursh A quick mouseover and look at the destination - and a raw link may be formatted http://www.google.com/

enderland

@MichaelT why would you do such a thing

user55340

@enderland Hey - be glad its not bing.

enderland

probably blocked as a link on SE. ha

user55340

16:43

You never know... I hear that that Joel guy is a Microsoft lover...

Ampt

ericlippert.com/2014/03/06/…

another good one

this guy is full of gold

enderland

@Ampt you just can't give him up can you?

Ampt

@enderland well he's never gonna let me down

Thomas Owens

@Ampt And more importantly, he's never going to run around and desert you.

Ampt

@ThomasOwens What more could you ask for in a software guru?

Thomas Owens

16:55

@Ampt The only other thing that I can think of is someone who'd never say goodbye. And I think that's covered, too.

user55340

(trying to filk this to Hello Goodbye by the Beatles... though it hurts too much with all the possible puns)

Ampt

17:15

@ThomasOwens Confirmed.

user55340

17:28

Btw, Gaming.SE has the best hot questions.

user55340

32

Q: How can I kill puppies without consequences?

The starting pets can sometimes get quite annoying, since they keep getting in your way. Those little dogs keep blocking my path! Therefore, I quite reasonably want to slaughter them brutally. But of course I want to do this safely. I've noticed that whenever I kill my pet, I "hear the rumble of...

nethack

user55340

And basically anything from gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/the-stick-of-truth

user55340

@AshleyNunn think you could migrate that one to Pets.SE and see how fast it gets rejected? ;-)

Ampt

> bool IsMiswired() const {return false;}

flawless

user55340

I've never actually seen this happen. Such an activity would be indicative of a ragequit, and we can recover the votes by destroying the account. — Robert Harvey 7 mins ago

user55340

17:34

@RobertHarvey What if someone... say... looks for questions that are downvoted, that have extremly short answers that are at +1 rep and downvotes those poor answers... en-mass. Or downvotes very large poorly asked/answered questions that have dozens of answers that really needs to get cleaned up to help knock the vote to delete count down to something more manageable?

Ampt

@MichaelT who would do such a thing?

user55340

@Ampt Dunno... people trying to help with the janitorial work on SO in whatever way they can.

Ampt

@MichaelT psh, people taking care of SO? Ridiculous.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 +1 for that async/await answer; too commonly people just want to get the benefits of some thing while just barely touching it, and in many scenarios like asynchrony, you can't just do it part-way. Well said.

user55340

@Ampt Yea... I know... its easy to spot the if you look at the reputation. Swings of red and green that match up.

user55340

17:37

user55340

Something like that, were one day 30 answers are downvoted, and then the roomba comes by and deletes them and you get back the 30 rep on those downvotes.

Ampt

Nicely formatted link taking you to TheDailyWTF (promise)

user55340

@Ampt I've got Ultimate Status Bar on my mac - ultimatestatusbar.com - it chases redirects and such... you can't fool me as to the site.

Ampt

@MichaelT It really is TheDailyWTF though!

I thought the boy who cried wolf got 3 chances

Jimmy Hoffa

[this link is so NSFW](www.google.com)

user55340

17:45

Need 'http://' to start that out.

user55340

18:15

user55340

Yep. Go Gaming Hot Questions!

Ampt

10

Q: What happens if I fart on someone's balls?

Do you ever get the chance to fart on someone's balls? So far Cartman and Randy have told me "never fart on anyone's balls" but I have yet to find someone I can do this to. Ultimately, what happens if you do fart on someone's balls?

the-stick-of-truth

currently in the hot list as well

user55340

That does it... Hot Questions Stick!

user55340

And today's science paper for people to read - cdn.dejanseo.com.au/research/The_role_of_facial_hair.pdf

Ampt

18:32

@MichaelT not sure if thats a type or not... the n and c keys have a few letters between them

user55340

Well, its the stickiness of the stinky questions about the stick of truth. But that was a typo.

user55340

I need to do more testing, but it appears that flags in the form of a limerick will be handled faster than haikus.

user55340

18:48

@Ampt The real trick would be to morph that into a workplace question, somehow.

enderland

19:16

@MichaelT I think I'm going to sometime make a similar list of "close reasons" as you have here, for workplace

user55340

@enderland for workplace mod!

enderland

then I can unilaterally close things and point people to disagree with a meta post rather than the ideas. nom nom nom

user55340

(and feel free to copy any text you want from it... and if you think you have better text, please edit it into mine too)

enderland

@MichaelT a lot of our reasons will be similar

oh lame I can't "edit" on meta.programmers to steal the formatting and everything

I should go answer some questions sometime so I can get 2k rep here

user55340

@enderland Are you sure? I can 'edit' workplace...

enderland

19:27

@MichaelT on meta?

2

Q: no 'edit' option for Q&A at Programmers meta

I noticed there's no 'edit' option for questions and answers posted at Programmers meta - as opposed to eg Programmers, SO and So meta. Is that intentional? a missing feature? something else? example of 'edit' option as it looks at SO meta: update SO meta turns out to be a special case, as ex...

bug status-bydesign

user55340

Hhmm.. nope. Apparently not. Thats annoying.

user55340

You might be able to grab it from Data.SE instead.

user55340

You should migrate some programmer questions from workplace that you have answers in so you can get that ~~unicorn poo~~ rep.

enderland

I wish I had spent the time when first starting my project to make a more TDD setup

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Thanks! I happened to remember Robert bringing it back in August, and I then read the full article again later at a developers conference. Thought it was a good reference to use and basically say "jump in!"

Ampt

19:46

@enderland you and everyone else, ever

of course when you start its always "Nah, this is way too small to be worth that extra time" hahaha

user55340

@Ampt until you realize that every project starts out that way... and if its worth doing, its worth doing right from the start.

Ampt

@MichaelT surely you jest. Large projects have existed since the start of programming and will continue to exist forever into the future. They had no initial codebase, but instead sprung straight from the minds of the early computer scientists.

Duh.

user55340

Btw, sent an email to Qi of the codeless code last night... got back a prompt response too. Was kind of fun writing it.

Ampt

Qi?

user55340

> I beg your pardons for disturbing the scribe Qi, for he certainly has more important tasks to accomplish than that of this humble monk.

While browsing from the contents page, the Applicant pages are improperly linked: http://thecodelesscode.com/contents

1.1 The Applicant: The Hermit links to /case/1-1, and this leads to the missing page. However, it is most fortunate for those who persist, for they shall find that the ‘EN’ link properly links to /applicant/1, from which they can read and be enlightened.

jozefg

19:59

Hi all

user55340

@Ampt thecodelesscode.com/names/Qi

user55340

(the person who writes the codeless code goes by the name 'Qi' and is sometimes a character in the stories too)

user55340

And the response I got back:

user55340

> Ah, yes... I've been gradually rewriting the PHP of the site to deal with the new internal naming conventions for pages (in support of the Git repository for translations, among other things). It appears I still have some of the older code in use. A thousand pardons... I will fix that tonight. Thanks for pointing it out!

I will also add back the descriptions for the various names, which is now first-class content that I hope to get translated as well. To answer your question, the One Shoe Clan was so named because they are the ones who deal with urgent fixes where speed -- rather tha…

Ampt

I like that explanation of the one shoe clan haha

user55340

20:03

There's great wisdom stored even in the names of the clan.

user55340

iron bones clan is the infrastructure (the great workings that hold up everything), laughing monkey is business logic, elephant's footprint is DBAs...

enderland

@Ampt yeah. well you live and learn I guess, a lot of the hard part in my project is stuff which would be a lot harder to do TDD with (UI functionality)

user55340

oops, not DBA but rather persistance tier:

user55340

> Specialists in the persistence tier. They all know a dirty secret: elephants do sometimes forget, which is why it's important to set up hot replication to an Emergency Backup Elephant.

psr

20:42

@MichaelT I've been assuming iron bones clan is IBM, and was trying to decide if laughing monkey was Microsoft. Yours makes more sense.

user55340

> Iron bones: Operations: the backbone of the enterprise. Because without hardware, software would just be a lot of strange words on paper with way too many semicolons.

psr

The good reasons for having an Emergency Backup Elephant are too numerous for any clan to remember them all. Not of all them involve data.

user55340

> Laughing Monkey: Specialists in business logic. A [practically] infinite number of monks at an infinite number of keyboards, gleefully pounding out nonsense and sometimes getting a clean compile.

user55340

(if you go to the old names page, you can read the text: web.archive.org/web/20130311165015/http://thecodelesscode.com/… )

user55340

> Seven Clawed Blind Eagle Clan: Management: they may be crippled and short-sighted, yet they still rule the roost.

user55340

20:46

> Spider Clan: Web user interface developers. Yes, everybody laughs when you say that you "program" in HTML, JSTL, CSS, or Javascript—until the customer decides that the application's home page absolutely must have dancing translucent pigs follow the mouse cursor.

psr

Consultants should be the Laughing Vulture Clan

user55340

I think those are more of the "other temples" than "other clans"

psr

And of course we know what the Desert Monad clan does.

enderland

21:01

0

Q: How to keep track of links pointing to existing web applications in an Intranet?

At my new place of employment we have a Intranet solution containing multiple web applications hosted in IIS. Outside of the development department other departments either source or create other applications / reports that deep link into these web applications. Unfortunately, I have no direct c...

web-development web-applications refactoring iis

I don't envy this person at all..

Robert Harvey

21:59

I can't get my people to take responsibility for their dead links, so can you write some software that does it for them? Oh, and you don't get to control the systems that make the links dead.

user55340

The key is to move it / have it in a CMS system. Everything else is politics.

psr

22:09

The famous Desert Monad oCaml rider masters are said to be able to fly, shoot lasers from their eyes, and hot-modify strands of live DNA. However, enlightened as they are, they lose their powers forever if they affect the world in any way.

jozefg

22:21

I heard monad and OCaml

user55340

23:20

user55340

The last moments of my micro transit system.

user15026

@MichaelT How many?

user55340

@AshleyNunn 563

user15026

Daaaamn.

user15026

I am still stuck in the 300's

user55340

23:21

The west most spot on the red route was what did me in.

user15026

The two circles?

user55340

Red's reconfigurations made it pool up.

user55340

You can see the timer counting down on it (the outer grey circle)

user55340

The other thing you can see there is the multiple loops with a "transfer line". Yellow loop, red loop, blue loop - those were first.

user55340

As yellow grew, it expanded. It also got the extra upgrade.

user55340

23:25

I should have given that to red as it was on the 'wrong' side of the river and more likely to need the additional capacity - the others i can expand without tunnels.

user15026

You really could have benefitted from another track on the red side of the pond

user55340

Then light blue for its end.

user55340

Green touched red, yellow, blue and light blue.

user55340

So that I could pull from each of those busy hubs.

user15026

@MichaelT Considering how people reacted to a certain question about eating pet rabbits.... :P

user55340

23:27

@AshleyNunn At least they weren't farting on the rabbit... or something.

user15026

@MichaelT Indeed :P

user55340

23:38

Still doing ok at the moment.. but WTF with that south east station?!

user55340

user15026

@MichaelT I am the most terrible at this

user15026

I was mostly getting stuck with not enough tunnels

user55340

Click on the clock to pause.

user55340

23:40

Another one?! Ug.

enderland

@MichaelT wtf is this madness

user55340

@enderland dinopoloclub.com/minimetro

user55340

(its after 5pm, the whiteboard turns into games?)

user55340

sigh and the red line got overwhelmed.

user55340

471.

user55340

23:44

I had four full stations on the southern bit of red.

user15026

I have no idea how I did so well last night

user15026

all my tracks today are bad

enderland

I don't get it

I ran out of lines at 4

"no more lines are available"

user55340

You need to earn those upgrades.

user15026

@enderland You eventually can unlock more if you survive

enderland

23:47

oooh. I'm awful I guess :D

user55340

@AshleyNunn you're better than someone!

enderland

oh you can delete lines

BAWHAHAHA

user15026

@MichaelT So comforting :P

user55340

enderland

oh and add multiple stations per line. wow I feel like a moron

user55340

23:48

So, you're trying to deliver the circles to circle stations, squares to square stations, and triangles to triangle stations.

enderland

oh taht's helpful too

user55340

At the start you have 3 lines and two tunnels (I've used both of mine already for the loop)

user55340

Every sunday you get an upgrade choice: pick one from two of: +line, +train upgrade, +tunnel, +station upgrade

user55340

Tip: try to avoid having two of the same type in a row because you won't be able to unload at the second one.

user55340

23:51

For example, red here is a straight line (as opposed to loop) where there are two triangles in a row.

user55340

not ideal.

enderland

this is neat

I'm getting the hang of it but am about to lose

yeah only 160. ok, I get this now. there's strategy in what order the stations are in...

this is absurdly fun for seemingly no reason

user55340

(btw, you can pause by clicking on the clock)

enderland

is it generally bad to çreate a loop?

that seems advantageous

user55340

Good to create loops. Less end station starvation.

enderland

23:57

right

Transcript for