The Whiteboard

Robert Harvey

00:07

@whatsisname Embedded systems like this (and their associated software) are often written by the lowest Korean bidder. That's why most people use the "quick 30 second" button on their microwave; the rest of the interface is impossible to figure out.

whatsisname

oh these guys are not the lowest korean bidders

if that was the case it would at least be understandable

on that unit test question, I thought about answering something to the lines of "perhaps he means don't use concrete classes of other stuff that you are testing" but didn't because of the high degree of speculation factor

not using concrete classes in tests would quickly lead to a bunch of nonsensical garbage that would be more trouble than it's worth

imo

Robert Harvey

I'd rather not speculate. I have a copy of TAOUT at home; I'll look through it when I get home.

user55340

02:14

@iCanLearn The larger the company, the more the enterprise frameworks, the more the configuration that you'll do. The key is to use the right IDEs to do much of the configuration for you. (I owe Ampt another $0.05) IntelliJ (for example) recognizes you're trying to write something with Hibernate, and does all the configs for you. You tell it you're using maven and it makes much of the downloading seamless.

Robert Harvey

04:35

The two most difficult problems in computing: invalidating caches, naming things, and off-by-one errors. — Robert Harvey 28 mins ago

eXtremiity

11:01

@MichaelT. Hey Michael, I have a question. Under the <stdio.h> library, I wish to find a "function" (not sure if that's what you call it) that will read input and designate each character of the input into arrays.

For example. Say the input was HELLO.
H would go to array[0]
.
.
O would go to array[4]

Oh, I think the fgets function will do this.

eXtremiity

12:02

How can I determine whether the contents of 2 arrays are equal.

That is, how can I check that array[0] == array[1].

I know that I can't do it normally.

user41796

13:57

@amon Whoops.

user41796

user41796

@MichaelT - so now we have a hint at the upper bounds for the serial up voting algorithm. But we don't know how quickly those votes were given.

amon

drats. I took so much care of voting for other stuff in between – no more than three in a row

user41796

The threshold appears to be > 6 and < 17.

user41796

@amon - timing matters too. Large amount in a short timespan will trigger the reversal

amon

13:59

interesting. The next time I'll be more careful.

Jimmy Hoffa

14:18

@RobertHarvey You're supposed to use this enum with this method

@RobertHarvey You mean the single most difficult problem

@amon pretty sure 3 in a row will trigger reversal

@amon @gnat would know best, he's picked that algorithm apart by experience already from all of his cleanup-down-voting that had been frequently reversed in the past

@whatsisname yeah, that C: stuff + what you say there reminds me terribly of EE's coding... saw that same type of thing from EE's working on medical device software m'self

user41796

@JimmyHoffa nope. That's for down votes.

amon

@JimmyHoffa it may have only been 3 in a row, but we are talking about >20 upvotes in a span of ~2h, of which ~75% went to one person

Jimmy Hoffa

@amon heh yeah, that's probably violating multiple thresholds

the serial-voting thresholds are surprisingly low

user41796

@JimmyHoffa To my knowledge, there have been many requests to raise the serial down vote threshold from 3 but the reception has always been pretty lukewarm

user41796

For a while (and maybe still on-going) both gnat and RobertHarvey had stalkers that would down vote them on an infrequent enough basis to avoid getting picked up by the down voting algorithm

Jimmy Hoffa

14:27

:O

user41796

Would've starred that one...

user41796

@RobertHarvey - is your down voting stalker still stalking you? Or did they get bored?

Robert Harvey

15:57

@GlenH7 I haven't had a downvote on Programmers in awhile. But I've got a new groupie on Stack Overflow. He doesn't like the way I moderate.

Not quite sure what you're bellyaching about. You've asked six other questions here, all of which appear to have been well-received. — Robert Harvey 9 mins ago

(unrelated to the SO groupie)

user41796

16:29

@RobertHarvey I'd shout mod abuse or something similar, but my hearing is kind of sensitive what with this sinus infection and all. And for that matter, we ought to have an automatic block on questions that have "for serious programming" in them. The presumptuousness behind that phrase...

user41796

16:58

Thoughts on my salvage edit? Did I make the question constructive enough to re-open (and undelete....)? programmers.stackexchange.com/q/237640/53019 (10k+ link)

user41796

Wee! one more undelete and my salvage will come back to life!

psr

@GlenH7 Where is the necroeditor badge when you need it?

user41796

Badges? I can haz another badges?!

user41796

@psr props on clearing 10k!

psr

@GlenH7 I don't think SE awards it, but I can award it in chat.

@GlenH7 Take that serial upvoting reversal script! I got to 10k on a question later put on hold instead!

user41796

17:08

Ironically, you're still down 50 for today...

user41796

@amon - props on clearing 10k!

amon

@GlenH7 thanks! Now, where did I hide that stash of 10k links? (wanders off to search through his bookmarks)

user41796

@amon They were good answers, worth a few up votes. And here's a link for you to try out: programmers.stackexchange.com/q/237640/53019

user41796

@amon You could even try out your new vote-to-undelete privileges.

amon

@GlenH7 not on that question!

user41796

17:13

@amon even after my edit?

amon

Hmm. I wouldn't have deleted it in this state, but I'm not sure I want to reopen it either, considering the maturity of OP and that all an answer could do would be to yell “abstraction!” repeatedly. Still, a phenomenal edit.

user41796

Thanks! For some reason, I decided to take sympathy. I'm willing to bet maple_shaft had to clear out quite a few comments which didn't help matters. But it looked like there was a chance of a reasonable question in there once you moved past all the blather.

user41796

And I have flagged the comments for cleanup if it does get reopened. Every now and then, I like taking a poorly written question and salvaging it. Part of it is to show the OP what they should have written to begin with. The other part is to add a meaningful question to the site.

user41796

18:07

"That" question has been undeleted. If you downvoted, please consider removing the down vote in light of the edit I made. And also please consider voting to re-open. I agree that the OP's comments got out of hand, but I think there is a decent question in there.

Jimmy Hoffa

@amon congrats, enjoy a 10k link: programmers.stackexchange.com/a/237263/35276

psr

18:30

@JimmyHoffa All that time gathering rep - so worth it now.

amon

oh, I have one: “these Haskell guys are so lazy, they let their types be inferred by the compiler” or: “Haskell's language designers were so lazy, they didn't even bother with a for-loop”. It's like Yo Mama jokes, except that the topic is more sophisticated.

2

Thomas Owens

I'm 99% sure that I'm abusing Java's timer task.

Jimmy Hoffa

18:48

@ThomasOwens That's ok, Java's timer task has abused developers for many years, so it's got it coming.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Really? Fantastic.

I'm glad that I can do a service.

psr

@amon Your Haskell implementation is so lazy it makes a hylomorphism look like a lolomorphism.

amon

@psr That makes no sense. Just like Haskell code.

psr

19:08

@amon I was too lazy to look up anything better

amon

apparently hylomorphism is an actual word. Some philosophy thing.

user41796

@amon You don't want to know all of the crazy words the Haskell crowd has come up with

tylerl

19:24

@amon from aristotle's theory of forms. A good bit of modern religion is based on Aristotle's ideas.

And Haskell is, after all, a religious experience.

4

It's only fitting that the nomenclature reflect that.

Zeroth

19:40

Hmm, well, there is a point - sometimes programming can be just such a joke its the antithesis of "serious"

like Brainf*&^

Jimmy Hoffa

19:50

@amon I believe in category theory a hylomorphism is a refold, catamorphism is fold, and zygomorphism is unfold; though I get hylo and zygo mixed up sometimes

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Not trolling, but why not just call them a refold, fold, and unfold then?

user41796

honestly, one of the reasons why I put off understanding Haskell more is because I'm afraid of the vocabulary I'll have to learn along with it.

Zeroth

latinate prefixes scare you?

user41796

@Zeroth I've got only so much time spare in a day. If I have to learn a completely new (and apparently unnecessary) vocabulary in order to learn something, then it gets pushed lower on the priority list.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 They are called that in Haskell. Those funny terms are the category theorists terms for structural math forms that are analogous to the Haskell fold/unfold/refold

Zeroth

19:57

There's an argument about cognitive overload there. To be fair, just learning the vocabulary of programming in general induces significant cognitive load.

Jimmy Hoffa

also there is a slight difference wherein people actually implement the category theoretic versions because they encode the algorithm in the type system instead of through algorithm design

and so the different name identifies that distinction

(people rarely use them over the normal folds though unless they're just playing with theory stuff for fun)

user41796

@JimmyHoffa So they are trying to scare people away.... :-)

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Category theorists? They don't have to try, they're just crazy math people - not much to do with Haskell other than they use Haskell as a tool to type check their category theory concepts

Normal Haskellers just use fold/unfold/refold isntead of the crazy category theorist stuff

@Zeroth The vin diagram of programmers lexicon and haskellers lexicon has very little intersection which is indeed one of the huge humps; learning Haskell is like learning program for the first time all over again because the number of concepts you're introduced to that you've never seen before as well as a complete lack of the concepts you are familiar with

Zeroth

I should learn Haskell one week when I am not needed to do any other thinking.

Learning different paradigms is useful, particularly when you start to identifying what solutions are best in each paradigm

Identifying leaky abstraction points is particularly useful I find.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I'm trying to make a plants vs. zombies analogy here.... Struggling to come up with a funny one.

tylerl

20:14

@Zeroth You know that brainf**k is actually just a Turing machine, right? Not "Turing complete", but rather an actual Turing machine emulator. The only reason it's not used in CS 201 classes everywhere is because of the name.

Zeroth

So if it was rebranded...?

Jimmy Hoffa

@tylerl and because there's plenty of others out there

Zeroth

Scheme and Prolog were hard enough

adding in brainf&^&

Jimmy Hoffa

Best brain!@#$ implementation out there:

Zeroth

would have scared most of us off

Jimmy Hoffa

20:15

12

Q: Thoughts on my brain fart interpreter?

Had some free time this weekend and I hacked together a small Brainfuck interpreter, with the sole intention of explaining PHP's flavour of OO to a friend. This is a bit over-engineered on purpose, and performance wasn't really considered (or I wouldn't have written this in PHP in the first place...

tylerl

@JimmyHoffa Some with sweet graphics. I remember working on one that actually showed the tape shuttling back and forth. Wish I could remember the name.

Zeroth

I remember google's doodle that did that

tylerl

@Zeroth Saw a video where someone implemented one in minecraft using pistons and blocks. That's a good as any, I suppose.

Jimmy Hoffa

20:58

Haskellers so lazy they didn't add objects to their language

I'd say hooray for Friday, but I'll be in the office bright and early at 8 tomorrow... hooray for Suck It Saturday !

psr

Haskellers r so lazy they whatever

whatsisname

so

I just encountered a class

called "Page22Delta"

as bad as that might sound, I actually knew exactly what it was

whatsisname

21:51

I have this little board I sent out to batch pcb

err whoops wrong chat

gnat

22:03

3

Q: Where to ask programming related workplace question

My question is about a) an interview which I would place on "Workplace" and b) also uses many programming related terms, which would best suit "Stackoverflow". The question background is like this (I did not find a suitable title yet): One of my employees is working on source code of a useful ...

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Robert Harvey

Yeah, saw that. Some people still think of Programmers as the Recycle Bin of SE.

@JimmyHoffa: So would you say the cleanest path for an OO programmer learning FP is Scheme and SICP, or Haskell and LYAH?

Jimmy Hoffa

22:31

@RobertHarvey dunno. I always think Haskell/LYAH because it's a superset of LISP (other than the macros). Haskell first LISP second - LISP will be easier, LISP first Haskell second, Haskell will still make your ears pop.

Robert Harvey

23:17

wimp.com/flattenhamster

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