The Whiteboard

3:43 AM

Couple design options I'm wrestling at and trying to come up with a third because both of these feel a little off

Putting together a hierarchical domain model of dumb objects to exist as an in-memory information store. Easy POCOs to put together and such, but because of it's purpose, constant updates will be coming in as well as constant reads from it etc.

The classical approach would be just implement a repo over top of it, single class that has gets/updates for all the different types of entities throughout the model

I'm going back and forth with that though, because a repo is a fair bit of maintenance as a single piece over time, though it gives a nice loose coupling through the system in a single place

user15026

@MichaelT So many circles.

user55340

@AshleyNunn Yep. Was challenging. I was like "another circle?!"

Jimmy Hoffa

Alternatively I'm thinking about making the update messages coming in have a function that knows how to apply it's particular update with protection via internals so other classes couldn't write to the model; then expose the model as a live readonly graph. This makes writing reads against the model a breeze, as well as diminishing maintenance and getting clean segregation of read vs update which is always good to have go through different channels

user15026

@MichaelT That's just rude

Jimmy Hoffa

this way the only repo-maintenance could be the update methods on the update messages

but it tightly couples the reading code to the particular domain model implementation, short of putting interfaces over each entity which is somewhat silly, the underlying implementation won't be replaceable without changing everywhere that reads from it

I'm leaning towards option number two because it seems like less maintenance over time with those update methods singly boxed up, and not having to write repo methods for every read, and largely because given the purpose of this model - the idea that the underlying implementation will ever need to be changed is pretty far fetched

@MichaelT thoughts?

or anyone else?

user55340

3:52 AM

@JimmyHoffa some 'useful' haskell: gitit.net ( github.com/jgm/gitit )

user55340

And a bit too late for thoughts. Just wanted to see if these old headphones properly paired to my laptop or if their battery was dead.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT ah aye. Take it easy.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:41 AM

@gnat primarily opinion based? C'mon, that question screams off topic

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about ethics, and has nothing to do with programming. — Jimmy Hoffa 59 secs ago

MSO Feature Request: CV with req to Migrate to Yahoo Answers. SE can just repost the persons question to Yahoo Answers and make the question redirect just like it does now (until it get's hoovered up).

gnat

6:57 AM

@JimmyHoffa "nothing to do with programming" is a good catch, agree that makes it OT. I was hesitant to VtC for "ethics" part, it's sorta slippery:

9

Q: Flags and close votes based on ethical or moral issues

I believe that we should not use flags or close votes to enforce content that is legitimately on topic, yet has potential ethical or moral issues involved. Create a unterminable process in Windows I am going to be perfectly honest here, I don't believe him that he is not trying to create a piec...

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Ah, yeah I don't see this fitting in what maple's talking about there. Maple's referring to programming questions that answered may aid someone to commit unethical acts, I didn't see that question as about any given programming problem at all so answering the person would have no ethical impact one way or another. It's just plainly got nothing to do with programming though.

they should take the question to philos.SE or something

isn't SE supposed to have a law site coming up soon?

or just have it migrated to Yahoo answers..

gnat

@JimmyHoffa well, anyway, less than 1/4 of ethics questions are closed, to me it's a sign to proceed with caution and avoid blindly sticking OT. And... maybe overthinking the ethics stuff in there may be the reason why I missed the part you pointed to - "nothing to do with programming"

hey, you're less than 100 points off the 10K, good to see that

gnat

11:02 AM

what is the point to keep this homework dump visible? (I just had a flag requesting its removal declined). Is it to demonstrate that one can vomit their assignment here and obtain help in answers / comments, to invite more askers like this?

-3

Q: Big O of this approach?

Replace Zeros public void replace0s(int[] data){ int max = Math.max(0, data[data.length – 1]); int start = data.length – 2; for(int i = start; i >= 0; i--){ if(data[i] == 0) data[i] = max; else max = Math.max(max, data[i]); } }

big-o

10

A: Programmers.SE and the Summer of Love

Responding negatively to those folks who copy paste their homework assignments is just a waste of time. These people don't care how you react; they're looking for the one guy that will actually do their homework for them (some people will). Consequently, your negative comment will have no eff...

> Request for speedy deletion: this question is a copy-paste of something like homework assignment or interview questions, with no effort on the part of the OP to do the assignment himself. (flagging as per advice at meta discussion meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/a/3837/31260) => declined - a moderator reviewed your flag, but found no evidence to support it

no evidence, gimme a break

user41796

12:54 PM

@gnat I looked at that one and considered tossing a VTD on there but decided not to. The Roomba will clear it out in a week or so, and it's not particularly offensive. It's worthless, don't get me wrong, but it's not gouge your eyes out let's get rid of it bad. Leaving crap, closed, down voted, unoffensive questions in place can serve as an example to show "don't ask questions like this." We have to balance between leaving "good" examples of bad questions lingering around so people ...

user41796

... know what not to ask. But we also have to weigh that against those who get upset at seeing all of the closed & down voted questions. Active community moderation is always a difficult line to walk.

gnat

1:22 PM

@GlenH7 well if I was a homework cheater, I think I'd read it opposite: worth trying to ask here. "For the price of creating an account and loosing 3 imaginary internet points, I get my assignment spoon fed right into my mouth, ain't it great"

as Robert put it in the answer above, "These people don't care how you react; they're looking for the one guy that will actually do their homework for them (some people will)"

user41796

True, but I generally don't worry much about them. The help vampires will always exist regardless of how quickly we delete off their questions. I try to focus on the broader community and how we grow that.

user41796

For the people looking to have their homework done for them - well, time will eventually catch up to them and they'll pay the price. Of course, then they'll open a question on TW that says "I cheated through college and can't keep up with my peers at work. What should I do?"

ratchet freak

or they get question banned first

user41796

@ratchetfreak - so we hope. :-)

gnat

sure they will always be there, the only question is do we make site more attractive to them or less. I think by keeping questions like that, we do site more attractive for them. "These people don't care how you react; they're looking for the one guy that will actually do their homework for them (some people will)"

@ratchetfreak price of question ban is just a creation of new account, if I was homework cheater I would consider it negligible

user41796

1:26 PM

@gnat That's a valid counterargument. Potentially worth putting on meta to see how community reacts. Just because one mod chose to decline the delete doesn't mean that others disagree.

gnat

10

A: Programmers.SE and the Summer of Love

Responding negatively to those folks who copy paste their homework assignments is just a waste of time. These people don't care how you react; they're looking for the one guy that will actually do their homework for them (some people will). Consequently, your negative comment will have no eff...

it's already there, for more than a year :)

ratchet freak

now to get all the mods onboard

enderland

@GlenH7 quit your job

gnat

@enderland no, flush the toilet!

user55340

1:56 PM

Shh... its @YannisRizos

Yannis Rizos

feature-request Rename "Hot Network Questions" to "gnat's picks"

5

user55340

Though the speedy VTD on homework? Yep. I do it.

Thomas Owens

@gnat I declined it. I've yet to be convinced that speedy delete is good. Leave a comment, give the user a chance to edit and learn the system. Deletion is harsh and can turn off otherwise good contributors.

user55340

Note that 3x vtd can be edited without an undelete while a mod (or community) delete requires an undelete to fix first.

user55340

And if Community deleted it, then you get into an undelete war with the script that only mods can partake in while the question gets worked on so it can get reopen votes.

gnat

2:00 PM

what is the point to keep this homework dump visible?

3 hours ago, 2 hours 24 minutes total – 18 messages, 3 users, 1 star

Bookmarked 16 mins ago by gnat

user has a chance to edit and learn the system when post is deleted

without attracting more help vampires to ask stuff like that

Yannis Rizos

@ThomasOwens On the flipside, mod comments will reach the OP even if the post is deleted. The OP can fix the deleted post without fearing further downvotes, and flag it for undeletion when ready.

Thomas Owens

I'm for deletion if not improved in a reasonable timeframe.

But minutes after closure is, I think, too speedy.

I tend to give a few hours, a day tops, or recent activity on the site with no edits made. I think everyone can see last activity time on a profile, yes?

Yannis Rizos

Yes

Thomas Owens

Typically, for low quality posts, what I do is I look at the comments and flag time. If there's no comment, I'd leave one. Otherwise, about 24 hours or some activity after the comment without improving means they have no desire to improve it, so I nuke it from orbit.

gnat

8

A: Couple of issues with Roomba Turbocharging

The issue with retag being different from edit is moot, as retag is gone. With edit, it is now enabled on deleted questions, unless they are self deletes, as this can open a window to abuse (self delete, edit and later undelete immediately). You can now also see revisions on your own deleted qu...

Yannis Rizos

2:09 PM

@ThomasOwens Hm... If the question is unsalvageable, then I might delete it on sight. A recent example programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/232266/… - 3rd implementation question in a row, and there were comments in his older questions explaining he should ask on SO. He chose to ignore those comments (or is q-banned on SO), so... I chose to not waste too much time on his questions from now on.

Thomas Owens

@YannisRizos Unsalvageable is different. This one was salvagable, though, with an explanation of work. Even though the poster can see their own deleted questions, it still seems harsh and off-putting to new users. Fast down votes and closure is can be hard enough to deal with when learning something new.

Yannis Rizos

@ThomasOwens Could be salvageable, but he already ignored the feedback he got on his previous couple of questions. And I highly suspect he's q-banned on SO, so even if he fixed the question, we couldn't migrate it. Lost cause this one, but in general I try to avoid deleting posts that are younger than a couple of days.

user55340

Sometimes the additional delete to say this isn't acceptable. That just closing isn't enough to say that this doesn't belong here. Raw homework dumps are especially frustrating for me... or one line interview puzzles/questions.

user55340

There is the intermittent "you guys are mean, everything is closed and downvoted on your front page" that shows up on our meta. One solution to this is "if it isn't something that can be reworked without heroism by another person - start the deletion process before waiting for the roomba".

user55340

2:25 PM

Thats like waiting until garbage day to throw out the piles of weeds that you've got sitting in the garden that you've already uprooted.

user55340

For example programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/232248/… - not salvageable. ChrisF already told him where to go with the question too. Asked 2 hours ago, last on site 20 min ago - so he saw the message (I hope). There's not too much reason to keep that sitting in the 'newest questions' list.

gnat

2:40 PM

0

Q: If I was a homework cheater

...if I was a homework cheater, I would applaud an approach like that: I'm for deletion if not improved in a reasonable timeframe. But minutes after closure is, I think, too speedy. I tend to give a few hours, a day tops, or recent activity on the site with no edits made... I would appl...

discussion questions moderation deleted-questions

gnat

2:53 PM

@GlenH7 ^^^ "putting on meta", as you mentioned

user55340

Another consideration, and I'll acknowledge that this is probably a controversial one. I don't want to "reward" people for answering (and getting upvotes or accepts) people giving help to homework dumps. If somehow they got an answer before it was closed it is moderately important to give feedback to the person answering it that answering these questions won't give you long term reputation boosts.

2

user55340

Part of the help vampire problem is people answer it. FGITW on SO is a nigtmare for this - all the crap answers to crap questions there preventing the roomba from acting on them.

ratchet freak

aka starve the vampires

user55340

A quick delete gives prompt feedback to the person answering the question too. If you wait a week or two for the roomba to act the potency of this feedback is lost.

ratchet freak

sometimes I answer an off topic question when I know it will get migrated to SO, but I guess I should wait until the actual migration...

user55340

3:01 PM

@ratchetfreak In all honesty, sometimes people answer those on the original site so they get double the rep at the migration target (the who voted isn't transfered as part of the migration so they can vote again on it)

user55340

The danger though is again that a good answer here and a rejected migration will make it harder to delete here later.

ratchet freak

true

user55340

I personally don't see too much value in keeping rejected migrations here around for too long if it is blatantly off topic here.

ratchet freak

rejected migrations should be quickly deleted

well rejections caused by question ban at least

as that is clearly someone trying to circumvent a ban

user55340

Those are failed to migrate... could think of them as rejected. But rejected migrations otherwise too - someone asks a SO question on P.SE, we migrate, they close as some SO specific off topic reason (lacks enough information to answer) and bounces back here...

user55340

3:05 PM

those should be deleted too.

user55340

And even if they were salvageable for migration it takes a significant amount of work and communication to try to bounce them back onto SO again

user41796

3:19 PM

I'm a bit confused. Users can now see their deleted questions from their questions page (or wherever)?

ratchet freak

click on the link called "deleted recent questions" at the bottom

of your question page

user41796

@ratchetfreak thanks! I hadn't noticed that before. Also saw it exists with Answers too

user41796

One thing I have been checking on before VTD'ing is if the user has returned to see their question closed. I was trying to avoid the inevitable chorus of "where did my crap question go?" questions.

user41796

But if that's not an issue now... :-)

ratchet freak

I think they also get a notification in the top bar on deletion

user41796

3:24 PM

I guess it would help if I asked more crap questions so I could see what actually happens... :-)

ratchet freak

lol

or answer more crap answers

user41796

I have thrown some snark answers on questions I knew were going to be deleted. I see them in my recently deleted answers page, but I don't believe I was ever notified. They hadn't been up voted, so no rep to lose & notice.

ratchet freak

migrations notify you

but indeed answers to deleted questions don't notify you besides the rep change

no idea how moderation action does it though

user41796

I take that back - it was a bad example. I self-deleted because it wasn't snarky enough.

ratchet freak

hehe

this one was deleted and I didn't get a notification programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/230924/…

user55340

3:33 PM

@ratchetfreak Ahh... Andy.

user41796

@MichaelT I was thinking that was him, yes

user41796

I don't remember being involved in nuking that one.

user55340

Community got that one. Might have been part of the user nuke.

user55340

It was one of his less trollish questions.

ratchet freak

I got another example: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/228705/…

that one you did nuke

user55340

3:38 PM

Yep. While you did have a good answer to it, the question was almost a rant and didn't really have a clear point to it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak so I assume your Haskell training is well along by now?

I've got some more URLs for you!

ratchet freak

I'm pretty busy trying to keep my java out of my C++

user41796

@MichaelT That's almost exactly the same logic I followed as well.

user55340

Its an awkward situation - the question shouldn't have been asked that way in the first place. If it was a better question that wasn't a near rant that got heavily downvoted it might have just sat at closed.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak Oh you don't have to worry about that, you can write your Java and your C++ in Haskell!

user55340

3:40 PM

All too often we get people finding one closed rant and not seeing that as enough of a "don't ask these questions" warning flag they ask another... and then we've got two questions to clean up later.

ratchet freak

and I lost 85 rep by those 2 deletions :(

user41796

@ratchetfreak I x2 checked to make sure you were well over 10k at that point IIRC

user41796

No, it shouldn't matter. But I still check to see who would be losing (or gaining) rep off of the delete

user41796

sometimes I feel bad about giving rep back to users who asked horrific questions.

user55340

@ratchetfreak I know... it sucks when that happens.

user41796

3:42 PM

Just wait until we get another tequila fueled Yannis purge the next time he tries to learn Haskell.

user55340

I think that if the question survives 3 months, then things at +3 or more don't get the rep taken away when it is deleted.

ratchet freak

heavy emphasis on think

user41796

@MichaelT I didn't know vote level influenced it. I thought it was just age of post.

Jimmy Hoffa

Design options

12 hours ago, 8 minutes total – 11 messages, 3 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked 8 secs ago by Jimmy Hoffa

Anybody got any ideas? --^

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I have been meaning to re-read and ponder that one

Jimmy Hoffa

3:45 PM

Thoughts? I don't see a fitting site question there, otherwise I'd ask on the site.

I keep going back and forth in my head, both approaches seem good, both approaches seem flawed, and I can't come up with an approach that avoids the flaws of both

user55340

I'd lean to the second option. I'd also ask a question. Would take a bit to craft it right, but there's a main site question in there too.

user41796

I'm going with option 2 as well.

user41796

The coupling is tighter, but with the benefit of less maintenance.

user41796

You may be able to phrase the question as "how to trade-off between maintenance and low-coupling?"

user41796

The fact that you're very unlikely to change the underlying representation without a lot of work anyway is what pushed me towards option 2.

Jimmy Hoffa

3:54 PM

Iduno, I have a hard time finding a non-opinion question in there... that may be partially because in my head I can see both options as equally viable

user41796

@gnat - I put a question in your rant. Forgive me. :-D

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Both options are valid, which is what makes it difficult.

user41796

So the question is what do you need to consider in order to make the decision

Jimmy Hoffa

...fuck it all, I'll just put it in a monad. That'll make everything better. I have faith! Don't fail me now, o silver bullet o mine!

I had also been entertaining the idea that the entities would know how to process their update messages themselves, but that became clearly non-viable because each entity would have to know about to many different messages that could alter it's state

I think I'll just move forward with approach #2, it feels clean and simple and right, I'm just thinking it'll suck when one entity get's moved around in the hierarchy and every reference to it will have to have it's travel-path down the hierarchy to that entity changed...

user55340

One of the great frustrations / failings of OOP is that we've got all of this dumb data. The ideals of "smart data objects" that OOP has just don't jive with the realities of how most enterprise systems are built and maintained. We've got data that gets serialized and passed between systems and layers... and trying to keep all the intelligence on that becomes unmaintainable.

Jimmy Hoffa

4:01 PM

@MichaelT even ignoring the integration points, the smart objects approach just fails the sniff test of coupling, you end up with objects all knowing about eachother in terribly complete graphs

user55340

OOP is "great" for buttons that know what they do when you click them, or form fields that do their own validations. But for data manipulation... it kind of sucks unless you really work to put the business logic into the data too... but that rapidly becomes an unmaintinable stinking heap.

user41796

edit review thoughts? programmers.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/56345

user41796

I'm inclined to reject as the first replacement doesn't directly point back to the OP

user41796

And then drop a comment on the post so George can update it

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT which is why - unfortunately - the N tier is still the de facto reach for most experienced OO devs; it's the least unmaintainable in the long run of the options in OO

user55340

4:03 PM

@GlenH7 try chasing the original links?

user41796

404's

ratchet freak

or remove the plugs entirely

user55340

Yep. Any improvement is an improvement.

ratchet freak

the entire blog those links pointed to is gone

user41796

@ratchetfreak ding!

user41796

4:04 PM

That allowed me to reward the editor but also not put potentially bad links in place.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak now that you're my knew Haskell friend, you should make sure and get up to speed on the MonadPlus reform proposal; left catch is a really important distinguisher that should be broken off as it's a side effect of monoid more than monadplus, right? I know. haskell.org/haskellwiki/MonadPlus_reform_proposal

user55340

@ratchetfreak our condolences.

ratchet freak

@JimmyHoffa sorry but I don't have the time or dedication to learn haskell at this point

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak that's ok, you only need the time to be occasionally trolled by a Haskeller.

user41796

@ratchetfreak probably just as well so we don't have to apologize about periodically muting you in chat. :-)

user41796

4:06 PM

And is Jimmy saying something? Not haskell related...

user55340

gitit.net

user55340

> Pandoc is used for markup processing, so pages may be written in (extended) markdown, reStructuredText, LaTeX, HTML, or literate Haskell, and exported in ten different formats, including LaTeX, ConTeXt, DocBook, RTF, OpenOffice ODT, and MediaWiki markup.

user55340

Literate Haskell?!

user55340

(the codes written in haskell too: github.com/jgm/gitit )

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT thanks for the link; that is neat.

user55340

4:10 PM

@JimmyHoffa As much as I make fun of haskell, it is a useful language.

ratchet freak

depends on the usecase though, but so does everything else

user55340

There are reasons that I was forced to learn ML back in college for language theory class... I thought it was lisp with semi-colons and fewer parens. But the concepts there were useful in the long run about another way of thinking about code.

user41796

@ratchetfreak No, I'm pretty sure J# is useless.

user55340

Any language that changes how you think about code is worth learning. The challenge is there are too many languages that are worth learning... and I still want to get my video game time in too.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak that's an unfortunate misnomer; it's really a general use language like Java or C#, you just don't often run into enough people who actually know it to hear that little truth.

ratchet freak

4:11 PM

@GlenH7 no it means noone has found a use-case for it yet

user41796

@ratchetfreak to-may-to or ta-mah-to; doesn't matter. It's useless. :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Yeah; my Haskelling came from having a job for a bit of a while that was so technically debilitating I had to code at home just to keep my sanity. Nowadays it's netflix and video games in my off time

ratchet freak

and no I'm not going to try and find one

user55340

4:35 PM

@enderland you need more 20ks.

user55340

-2

A: How can I get my colleagues to speak a language I understand?

Are you the hysterical French colleague of my Norwegian acquaintance?

enderland

no kidding

ratchet freak

you only have 4

user55340

See, when you become a mod on TW, you can give all your rep to @JimmyHoffa with bounties on his favorite answer so he can then help out... but for that matter, you'd be able to delete them yourself too.

ratchet freak

or you need to go back to beta where the rep requirements aren't so steep

user55340

4:41 PM

Part of the trick is to engage the 20ks. Flags where they can delete the question is one way.

gnat

@MichaelT great answer by the way: it gave Chad the justification to protect the question from lemmings, slightly dragged its hotness score down with answer downvotes (17/5 -5=-1,6) and gave me a chance to have yet another helpful flag

user55340

I've noticed quite a few "flag not an answer" or "flag low quality" do get more prompt attention (despite the bar for low quality not being low quality - but they do get deleted / closed faster than a regular close flag)

user55340

Ohh! Chad is newly 15k on TW. Another 5k to 20k.

gnat

7

A: When are Elections?

We usually start looking into running elections about 30 days after a site graduates. Y'know, give it some nice foot room when they stew with their new design and privileges first, let people get comfortable and adjusted to the new reign. Exact dates may vary as we always start elections on Monda...

March 24, in beginning of April TWP will likely get better protection

user55340

@JimmyHoffa your design question, I'd still be tempted to ask it on the main site just to see how it gets answered... and upvoted. 9919 rep at the moment. Its not a bad question.

gnat

4:44 PM

"We want you (to flush)!" — gnat Mar 7 at 6:17

ratchet freak

> Time to bring in the cleaning ladies!

psr

@GlenH7 "You should cheat your way into management ASAP. You are already skilled at taking credit for the work of others, so that should be a good foundation."

gnat

5:00 PM

9

A: What exactly is the Garbage Collector in Java?

For the visually minded, here's a parable by Kieron Briggs: Picture a big empty room with a big furnace/incinerator type thing at one end. Hanging form the roof are a number of ropes, called Threads. Attached to the various threads are little sparkly Objects, and those Objects can have other ...

more like guys to pick up crap from the floor

psr

5:12 PM

@MichaelT I'm mildly shocked that all the answers were in English.

user55340

@psr So posting toDSaH in that wouldn't be a good idea?

user55340

>
(epithet) ["This is something one Klingon would call another if they weren't on the best of terms." (CK) "wimp, nerd, geek, suck-up" (Mark Shoulson). "... has the elements of rescue and concerned. Calling someone this would imply that they are concerned about having someone come to their rescue rather than facing the business at hand. Always asking, `When is my shift over?' `When will we get reinforcements?' `Why don't they send help?' A coward." (Kevin A. Geiselman) The unofficial definition: It implies foppishness, and softness and weakness.

user55340

@psr The other appropriate answer would have been "just quit"

what is the point to keep this homework dump visible?

Design options

Transcript for