The Whiteboard

gnat

04:08

Brian Goetz joined SO: stackoverflow.com/users/3553087/brian-goetz

and he seems to returned back to Sun (Oracle) "Java Language Architect at Oracle."

Madara Uchiha

07:29

Morning everybody

Oded

08:45

@MadaraUchiha boker tov

Madara Uchiha

@Oded boker tov umevurach.

Oded

How you doing this fine day? Don't usually see you in The Whiteboard

Madara Uchiha

@Oded Yeah, read the discussion at TL, I think I'm going to tone down Stack Overflow for a bit, in favor of Programmers for a while.

The questions here seem a bit more.... intellectual (as in, I don't want to delete every 2 out of 3 new questions I see on my front page)

Oded

Yeah, certainly higher quality and different audience, in general. That it isn't a fire hose like SO helps.

Madara Uchiha

Yeah, so I'm going to try it, and see how that goes.

user55340

12:17

Hm... Close vote please (its gotten booted from the review queue): programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/89433/…

ratchet freak

closed

user55340

@ratchetfreak Thank you.

enderland

@MichaelT drove through your approximate area this past weekend, some beautiful scenery

user55340

@enderland I'm quite fond of the rolling hills... scattered small towns...

enderland

Yeah me too. That's what I loved much about my time in Germany - tons of that if you travel via train

Driving along the river(s) is also a pretty scenic drive

user55340

12:27

Have you gone down the great river road?

user55340

wigrr.com

ratchet freak

why drive when you can use a barrel

user55340

And then there's also... greatriverroadwinetrail.org

Ampt

14:33

@MadaraUchiha It's because we're (Raises pinky) Sophisticated

user41796

@MadaraUchiha Welcome to Programmers! Glad to have you participating. As an aside, when you do see something cringe-worthy hit Programmers' front page, feel free to drop a link in here and let the regulars know. We're fairly vigilant at maintaining the signal:noise ratio.

user41796

And yes, one big difference between Progs style answers and SO answers is that there is an expectation to explain the why behind the answer on Progs.

Ampt

oh, and we have rules.
Rule 1 - Don't talk about programmers

user41796

@gnat Now we just need to get him to contribute to Programmers as well!

user41796

@Ampt <snicker>

user41796

14:42

Rule 3 - Talk about booze, preferably good-booze

Ampt

@GlenH7 I thought rule 2 was Don't talk about ~~programmers~~ monads

user41796

FTFY, how's that?

Ampt

@GlenH7 glad we're all on the same page

user41796

But shouldn't "Don't talk about monads" be Rule 0?

Ampt

@GlenH7 I want jimmy to make it at least part of the way through the list before he starts ignoring it

user41796

14:46

He'll just fold all of them over themselves; run them through some unpronounceable FP thingy-majiggy; and then ignore them.

Ampt

@GlenH7 Trying to remember the different types of monads is like keeping snow white's dwarves straight. I know there's a lazy one in there somewhere....

user41796

And you need Doc to figure the rest of them out....

Ampt

@GlenH7 Isn't there a minimum speed before you start seeing stuff?

user41796

Amount of speed? I dunno as I've never touched the stuff....

Ampt

You know that scene all of a sudden makes a lot more sense. Back to the Future: A tragic tale of how speed makes people think they're in the future.

I bet his self tying laces were just velcro

user41796

14:53

Velcro is way easier from that point of view

user41796

@Ampt - so are you just killing time until your job starts up?

Ampt

@GlenH7 actually finishing stuff up at the current gig before I head out, and my mother and gf have plenty for me to do between now and then...

user41796

"Others" in your life can be great for consuming what little free time you thought you had...

Ampt

@GlenH7 right? Paint this, move that, clean here, etc. etc. etc.

its almost as bad as jimmy trying to convert people to haskellism

enderland

@MichaelT we went down part of it, from about Nelson to just outside of Winona

user41796

14:59

At least with Jimmy we can always mute him for a bit.

enderland

though we were on the MN side

user41796

Today's user from hell story. The internal users I'm working with have requested a number of tooltips to be added to the application. Naturally, they have a word doc they have been passing around as they bikeshed about the exact phrasing.

ratchet freak

ouch

user41796

The version of the document they have checked into the feature / bug tracking software is at least 3 versions old. And I explicitly told them I'll implement only what's been checked into the feature request.

ratchet freak

so you can't just do startbutton->"starts computation"

user41796

15:03

@ratchetfreak Some of the buttons are a smidge cryptic - like a plus sign to add a Foo. But that button doesn't have a label.

Ampt

@GlenH7 have they heard of google docs?\

ratchet freak

@Ampt please don't let them discover google spreadsheet

user41796

@Ampt Can't / Shouldn't. Corporate IDs aren't tied to the google infrastructure and some of the stuff they discuss is sensitive.

Ampt

whenever I see people passing around word docs for collaboration I think "WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY... WE CAN BUILD IT BETTER, FASTER, COLLABORATIVE. IT WILL BE THE ~~10 MILLION DOLLAR~~ FREE DOCUMENT EDITOR!"

If they don't want to use the air filled wheel, they're going to feel all the bumps of the ride on their rear. Implement what they gave you!

enderland

@GlenH7 tell them it takes you 2 hours to change wording

user41796

15:06

@Ampt Honestly, I'm half tempted to.

user41796

@enderland This round probably will take longer than that. They have a lot of tooltips they want to see. And formatting some of them so they don't require a 30" monitor to see will require some effort.

ratchet freak

tell them that tooltips of over 200 chars aren't supported

Ampt

@GlenH7 Email sent out later this afternoon from Glen: "30" monitors are now mandatory for all workstations. Users wishing to utilize the program must update"

enderland

@GlenH7 lol most of my users have 1900x1080 ish monitors, but one guy zooms his way the heck in, it's annoying trying to make thigns work for him when everyone else uses a normal monitor

ratchet freak

give him a magnifying glass

user41796

15:08

@ratchetfreak How about a 41 word tooltip?

Ampt

@enderland hey man.. it's tough looking at small type all day.

@GlenH7 If twitter can make it work, so can they

enderland

I have 2x 1920x1200 monitors

still feel like I could use more :P[

user41796

@enderland I'd like 3 24" widescreens

Ampt

Tooltip - prs btn 4 3sec til lite enabld. rls til lite off. fnctn in menu

I'm looking at those offbrand 27" 1440p monitors you can get for ~300 each

theyre the same displays that go into the iCinema monitors...

user41796

@Ampt I wish I could drop that 41 word "tip" in here....

enderland

15:11

@GlenH7 yeah they are 24" too

ratchet freak

work fills the space provided

move back to the 11" 800x600 screen and you will get much more work done

user41796

@ratchetfreak That's a brilliant idea! Let me put that on my TO-DO list....

Ampt

@GlenH7 I smell a mutiny brewing...

enderland

@GlenH7 if you resize your monitors you can get the feel for it

user41796

I didn't say where it was going to end up on the to-do list....

Ampt

15:17

@enderland Sorry, can you say that again? The last 5 words got cut off at 800x600

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I've 2, I think 3 would be too much...

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa thats what they said about 1->2

3 is fantastic

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I have had 3x24" and 2x30". The 30's got to be a bit much. But the 24's were perfect IMO

Jimmy Hoffa

and I use mine both vertically, I would fit a 3rd better than most people who use their monitors horizontally, but even still... I think I'd crane my neck with that much surface space

user41796

Especially if you can rotate the one in the middle into a portrait mode

Jimmy Hoffa

15:21

@GlenH7 that's how I use all of mine. But then I don't understand how people use them horizonitally, that's too much left-right on my neck, never been able to use 2 widescreens like that

ratchet freak

yeah I have 2 screens at work

enderland

hmmm. I like horizontal monitors

ratchet freak

and I only really use one of them

enderland

never thought to make them veritcal, thouigh

user41796

@JimmyHoffa When I had the h-V-h configuration, I put the editor on the left hand side and whatever target app I was working against either in the middle or the right.

enderland

15:22

it'd drive me NUTS if they are both not the same orientation though

ratchet freak

I keep task manager open on the other one as a quick check to see what the bottleneck in my program is

user41796

or sometimes it would be IDE | spec doc I'm coding from | app itself.

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland UI devs very often work like that - partially so they can test their UI perspective from both rotations

user41796

When you fold in the outer two monitors the overall span from left to right isn't as bad.

enderland

@GlenH7 that's how i've got mine setup

they angle inwards

@JimmyHoffa it'd still drive me nuts though

Jimmy Hoffa

15:23

@GlenH7 yeah but then you're staring at the bezel in the middle, the way I do it I have my code monitor more centered

user41796

@JimmyHoffa The bezels always blur into the background for me. Never been an issue

user55340

Welcome @AustinMoore

user55340

Well, you were here for a bit...

user41796

Even now with my 24 next to my laptop monitor, I don't notice the bezels

user55340

1

Q: Designs for outputting to a spreadsheet

I'm working on a project where we are tasked to gather and output various data to a spreadsheet. We are having tons of problems with the file that holds the code to write the spreadsheet. The cell that the data belongs to is hardcoded, so anytime you need to add anything to the middle of the spr...

Jimmy Hoffa

15:25

@GlenH7 lucky

Austin Moore

I'm back

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Other things distract the heck out of me, just not that

user55340

Quick first question, what module are you using? (just so that I can look at its api)... Excel::Writer::XLSX ?

Jimmy Hoffa

that's how I normally have my screen laid out at work - full code monitor on one side, the other monitor has solution explorer and browser

enderland

@JimmyHoffa what chrome extensions are those?

user41796

15:28

ProTip: you can place a tooltip on a stackpanel and it will cascade to all of the elements within the stackpanel.

user41796

Assuming you're stuck dealing with Silverlight...

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland oh geez iduno, bunch of them, security stuff all of it - I got my initial list of apps from fixtracking.com

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa is that windows 95?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt I will always use windows classic appearance

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa What was that about your lawn?

Jimmy Hoffa

15:30

I have never used otherwise

Austin Moore

We're using Spreadsheet:WriteExcel

search.cpan.org/~jmcnamara/Spreadsheet-WriteExcel-2.40/lib/…

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt it's fucking overgrown, want to mow it?

you've got some free time

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa Oh I thought you meant for me to get off of it

33 mins ago, by Ampt

@GlenH7 actually finishing stuff up at the current gig before I head out, and my mother and gf have plenty for me to do between now and then...

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt seriously though - the picturey bubble-cartoony looking theme crap is just so space wasteful, I've never been able to tolerate it because it makes my windows feel smaller with the huge border on the top etc

ratchet freak

when I need to output to a spreadsheet I tend to write a CSV and let the spreadsheet import

Ampt

15:31

@JimmyHoffa windows 8 is pretty minimalist

I really dislike that 8.1 put a start button back there that does absolutely nothing..

user55340

@ratchetfreak Sometimes, you're writing something that is to be formatted. The options are 'write a spreadsheet with formatting' vs 'write a csv file and excel macro' - the later gets rather messy.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt I don't recall, through every version since the picture-themes came out, turning to windows classic appearance has been the first thing I do when I install a machine

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Don't "upgrade" to 8 for a while then

user55340

@AustinMoore I'd suggest looking into migrating, but thats another issue: blogs.perl.org/users/john_mcnamara/2011/10/…

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt yeah, I do quite like the new windows 8 start menu stuff that everyone's bitching about. at first a bit annoying, but now I find it so nice as it's so snappy

enderland

15:32

@Ampt I don't even bother using my start menu

Ampt

@enderland me either. the search functionality is simply powerful

I very, very, VERY rarely actually have to look through the menu

Jimmy Hoffa

I just hit windows key and start typing for anything I want, but i already had that habit before windows 8, works the same as it used to except instead of searching my start bar down in the corner now it fills the screen while it's searching. Same exact functionality though.

Ampt

I just hit the windows key and start typign the program I want to runj

enderland

I use an app called launchy, kinda like quicksilver for Mac

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa and it searches everything

Jimmy Hoffa

15:34

people who bitch about their start bar going away need to learn to operate their keyboard

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa it has come full circle

GUIs are too slow

BACK TO KEYBOARD ONLY OPERATION

ratchet freak

people bitching about hidden functionality never found that hidden functionality

enderland

@JimmyHoffa most people can't type fast though, probably faster for them to use the start menu

Austin Moore

@ratchetfreak I am with you on that. The project is for this guy who likes to send out a monthly report on our assets. He wants everything to be formatted and pretty much done for him. Problem is, he ends up changing everything before he sends it out, so writing as a CSV wouldn't be much different than what we're sending this guy, but he wont have it... Aw well.

user55340

@AustinMoore when dealing with just data, there is really no difference between writing an excel file and a web page... just a different set of commands to write to something.

Jimmy Hoffa

15:35

@ratchetfreak fair point. I had to tell my boss just the other day windows + r brings up run because he didn't know how to get to it anymore without his start menu option

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa OTH I always hear about people using ctrl + shift + esc to get to the task manager, which is just wrong

user55340

(at Employer^, I did quite a bit of work writing excel files... a fair bit of it, converting data only to 'just the necessary data and formulas')

Ampt

it does what it says, but it's not a kernel level interrupt like ctrl + alt + del is

ratchet freak

@Ampt I rght click the task bar

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore so give him a CSV and admission to an excel class - he can take the data from a CSV in excel and do all the twiddling he wants to give different aggregates or formatting to the data if he knows how to use it

Austin Moore

15:36

@MichaelT Yeah I remember switching over to Writer::XLSX but when I double checked, it was WriteExcel. I'll have to check why we went back to WriteExcel later

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt wtf? never heard this

Ampt

@ratchetfreak mine is pinned to the task bar haha

user55340

> Note: This module is in maintenance only mode and in future will only be updated with bug fixes. The newer, more feature rich and API compatible Excel::Writer::XLSX module is recommended instead. See, "Migrating to Excel::Writer::XLSX".

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt ...right click the task bar and it's a choice to start task manager. You don't need it pinned there.

enderland

... you guys use your mouse too much

Ampt

15:37

@JimmyHoffa I'm saving up all my extra clicks for a vacation

enderland

here I was all hopeful there was a faster way than control+shift+escape but using the mouse? wtf guys. :'(

Ampt

that also requires me to have empty space on the taskbar to click

not always a given...

ratchet freak

ctrl+alt+delete->alt+T

2

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt either way, ctrl+alt+del to get your task manager is still how you're supposed to get it if you need it. ctrl+shift+esc? wtf?

Ampt

ctrl + shift + esc is WRONG @enderland

ratchet freak

15:38

at least on win7

Ampt

@ratchetfreak works on my XP machine at work.

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland alternatively I'll windows+r->taskmgr->enter

user55340

Consider, how is writing to a table in an html page any different than $ws->write(1,1,$data); ?

enderland

@JimmyHoffa that's a bit more awesome, I guess

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa good luck starting the run prompt when you're frozen

Jimmy Hoffa

15:39

@Ampt that's what C+A+D is for, always has been. Machine misbehavin? 3 finger salute. The fact that it's the same procedure for that state as it was 10, 20 years ago just makes me happy.

ratchet freak

and mash that salute a few time if it is really stuck

Ampt

You know, I just realized that the numpad delete works in the CAD, even when numlock is on

Speaking of task manager, my favorite feature of windows 8 may be the new task manager

much needed facelift

ratchet freak

I discovered that with shift I can use the home and end keys of the numpad

very handy when on a laptop without them i a convenient place

Austin Moore

@MichaelT I had thought just that. All the data is stored in text files (another problem, but by far not the biggest one) with the name of the file describing the data inside. Every few days, the data in these files are updated. We could definitely just grab the data and plug it into a website. I think that would be better too, because instead of this guy having to send out emails every month, people who are interested, could just go to the website

ratchet freak

go behind his back?

user55340

15:43

@AustinMoore web pages are nice for some things, but poor for others. Archiving for example becomes a pull vs push operation... and you'd have to scrape it to get the data into a spreadsheet to be able to do things like sum a column.

ratchet freak

unless you add soem js magic to do it for you

Ampt

@AustinMoore Why are you moving away from text files? They're pretty much the best way to store all your most sensitive data

user55340

The thing is, you have a data model and a view (be the view a pdf generator, excel file, web page, or csv file)...

Ampt

every text editor supports them, usually their human readable, and also small in size!

every modern OS supports them out of the box too

ratchet freak

cat file.txt

type file.txt

for the windows people

Ampt

15:45

see, look at that. If thats not a letter of recommendation, I don't know what is.

I find that credit card numbers and SSNs fit perfectly

ratchet freak

excel is too overeager with transforming numbers into text either way

AShelly

Is this the place to go to rant about how P.se isn't what it used to be and all the interesting questions are getting closed?

ratchet freak

sometimes a string of numbers is just that: a string of numbers

Austin Moore

@Ampt yeah apparently we're pci complaint. From what I can see though, nothing too sensitive is in them

@MichaelT I'm still wondering how I should get around the hardcoding issue though

ratchet freak

@AShelly rant away just don't expect people to listen

user55340

15:47

@AustinMoore How would you get around it on a web page?

Ampt

@AShelly Yes but remember that these are the people who man the new P.SE, not the old one

AShelly

Consider yourselves ranted at.

Austin Moore

I don't have to worry about cells on a webpage

user55340

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>Some data</td> <!-- this is a cell -->
  </tr>
</table>

user55340

You do, but you worry about them differently.

ratchet freak

15:49

tables are deprecated

user55340

@ratchetfreak Tables are deprecated for formatting, but for tabular data?

ratchet freak

hey some people see a red flag at each table

Jimmy Hoffa

@AShelly interesting is a relative metric. I don't know of any questions about monads that have been closed. So I think we're doing pretty great! Though you're right, all those highly interesting questions about farting at your desk seem to be gone :( what's wrong with people being so mean to such innocuous content?

user55340

I could do the same with div blocks... but the cells are still there when presenting the data.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa They stink.

ratchet freak

15:51

@JimmyHoffa yeah it stinks

Jimmy Hoffa

rimshot

ratchet freak

there's a NSFW joke I can make here but I won't

user41796

@ratchetfreak Just gotta be quick on the delete

ratchet freak

but then no-one will see it

Austin Moore

This guy also ends up adding in graphs and other excel goodies to help with data digestion. On a website, we could handle that for him. Each new worksheet could be a new page and on each page, I could just throw the data in a table at the bottom of the page. I don't have to worry about whitespace between each subsection, because each subsection is on a page. Styling would be handled via CSS, not these awful excel formats that you have to apply to each cell

user55340

15:53

@ratchetfreak Those silly people with italics names can...

user41796

@ratchetfreak room owners and mods can look at deleted messages

ratchet freak

I don't have an italic name :(

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore is there a reason you don't want this guy spending time in excel creating graphs and presentation from the data you guys give him?

Austin Moore

I guess where the data is placed on the website is 'hardcoded' but at least I don't have to worry about borders, shifting cells down when I need to add a new field, borders

user55340

The thing I'm trying to point out is that there is no real difference between creating output for a web page and a xls file if the data model exists.

Jimmy Hoffa

15:54

Has he been complaining about how much time it takes him?

AShelly

I don't know nuttin bout fart questions. I just hate when decent 4 year old questions about best practices get closed all of a sudden.

user41796

@AShelly Specific example? We'd be happy to explain why or vote to reopen.

Austin Moore

@MichaelT ah I see the point you were making now

Jimmy Hoffa

@AShelly best practices... go read the wikipedia page on that if you want to see how non-objective anything on that topic can be. Even wikipedia has a bunch of subjective garbage in it as "best practices"

AShelly

Especially when I had been harvesting a small stream of internet pointz from them. :)

Austin Moore

15:55

The purpose of this project is to save him time by automating the work he does

Problem is that he still does tons of work

And we do tons of work as well

enderland

@JimmyHoffa Whats the best practice to opening the task manager? that should be easy enough to find a best practice for

user41796

@AustinMoore But he shouldn't get to dictate how the automation is performed

Austin Moore

It's a stupid project. Luckily, its just a side one

user55340

You might want to look at doing formulas and conditional formatting for him too then.

user41796

He's hamstringing your ability to make his life easier by saying everything has to be done in a particular fashion.

Jimmy Hoffa

15:56

@AShelly get internet pointz from questions you know won't ever be removed ->

1

Q: alternate approach of binary serialization/de-serialization

Is it possible to convert a list of object directly to byte[] (and vice versa) to gain performance (by avoiding serialization/de-serialization)? What I have in mind is that a list is somewhere in memory(heap). If I could read the bytes in heap for my list I could just assign it a variable (of b...

c# .net performance serialization

answer questions that are on topic and you won't worry about your internet pointz disappearing because the Q was closed

user55340

(Employer^, those excel reports... I was converting the pre-calculated sums to actual =SUM(F6-F23) formulas so that if something was changed in the data ('oops, that person was logged in for only 6 hours, not 24 (forgot to log out)') the data around it would update too.

ratchet freak

besides internet points are overrated

Austin Moore

@GlenH7 Yup thats what all the devs are frustrated at. He can't program, but he wants it in perl because he's says he wants to be able to maintain it. I've heard him say before though that he needs to learn perl because he has no idea what is going on

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore but why ? Is he complaining it takes him too much time the way he does it now? Is management complaining about how he spends the time?

user55340

Looking at the module, the perl one isn't bad at all. I was using Apache POI... similar functionality.

user41796

15:58

@AustinMoore I'm fortunate enough to be at a point in my career where I can have a clear and honest conversation with stakeholders about things like that. I lay it out very clearly just how much it's costing them to try and over-specify the project.

ratchet freak

always be wary when a boss says "I want to be able to maintain this myself"

Austin Moore

He's not my boss, just a pest that my boss had me and a few others 'help'

user41796

"not your job anymore, boss"

AShelly

I'm just an old fart from the days of good subjective (oops I said fart.) I know best practices are subjective. I also liked discussing them here

Austin Moore

For reference, I'm on my last year of a CS degree, working at this company to make money. So I'm not exactly an important person

user41796

15:59

"We have moved you up the food chain and your time is more valuable than that now."

Austin Moore

I'm 21

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak always be wary when a boss says "[.*]"

user41796

@AustinMoore Then have another look at your paycheck, realize you won't have to maintain that lump of .... whatever for a long period of time and then let it go.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa Ha

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore yeah, relax. This is just your first time with an NCube, and you're not even on the hook for it's quality and functionality. Stress out when you get out of college, have a real job, and you are held to the fire for the quality of an NCube

user55340

16:02

( hmm... careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/55456/… )

user41796

@MichaelT Could be worse

user55340

@GlenH7 Did you notice the location?

Austin Moore

NCube?

enderland

@MichaelT doooo it

Jimmy Hoffa

N^3 parsing

Jan 2 at 20:03, 3 minutes total – 15 messages, 3 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Apr 24 at 16:08 by Jimmy Hoffa

user41796

16:02

@MichaelT yep

Austin Moore

ah

enderland

though you look over qualified?

user55340

@AustinMoore just don't ask him about monads or the Y-Combinator.

user55340

Y-Combinator

Apr 16 '13 at 16:42, 28 seconds total – 2 messages, 1 user, 0 stars

Bookmarked Apr 16 '13 at 16:42 by Jimmy Hoffa

user41796

@AShelly - yeah, that one is too heavy on the opinion / polling side of things.

user41796

16:03

It's a fine enough question for chat, but it doesn't impart any meaningful knowledge to future visitors.

user55340

@GlenH7 The language set is interesting for it... time to tweak my resume again for a PCI/POS focus.

user41796

Granted, I'm an anti-Hungarian-notation person so I'm not going to see much value in general with that question. But that said, it seemed very heavy on opinion and not so much on expertise. Maybe if it was focused on if it makes wrong code look more wrong I could buy into it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore c2.com/cgi/wiki?BigBallOfMud

user41796

@MichaelT I generally tweak my resume for each req that I'm applying to

user55340

@GlenH7 I do too... its just a different direction than I've tweaked previously.

Austin Moore

16:06

"Only those who are unconcerned about architecture, and, perhaps, are comfortable with the inertia of the day-to-day chore of patching the holes in these failing dikes, are content to work on such systems." I don't want this

But I'm doing that...

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore like I said, your first NCube

enderland

heh I'm writing a cover letter myself actually. time to finally apply out of this rotational program I'm in...

user41796

@AustinMoore That's 90% of most enterprise gigs

Austin Moore

Whelp, I guess I'm just gonna stop caring about the project

@GlenH7 That so good to know...

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore Won't be your last. Enjoy college while it lasts, you'll be required to patch holes with mud for years to come.

user55340

16:08

@AustinMoore about that perl code... do you have package/object/class that represents the data model? or are you just tossing it in a hash or array and reading it from there?

Austin Moore

Crap what field am I getting into

5

ratchet freak

@AustinMoore there there you'll find a way

user41796

@AustinMoore Part of it is that you need to let go over the unrealistic and overly idealistic fantasy that's sold of being a developer.

user41796

Most projects are not greenfield, bluesky things.

user41796

Most projects are maintenance work on line of business applications

Austin Moore

16:09

@MichaelT just read those files into an array. Sometimes, we count lines, sometimes we put the file in it's own worksheet

user41796

And at first blush, it's not terribly glamorous because you're focusing on a (hopefully) tight portion of code to modify how it behaves

Robert Harvey

Thought experiment: which code is safer from prying eyes, the code you keep on the server, or the Javascript that you push out to the web page? — Robert Harvey 1 min ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@AustinMoore you could always get lucky and end up somewhere people care about their code and have the time and foresight to tend it well. HAH. Who am I kidding, we all deal with things in various states of disrepair...

user55340

Its not until you get rather senior in the organization are you entrusted with the "he'll do something right" project.

user41796

But when you realize that the code you contributed too helps run significant portions of society, you get a greater perspective of what you're doing

Jimmy Hoffa

16:10

@RobertHarvey JavaScript -> IIS GZIPs it, that's practically encrypted!

Robert Harvey

@MichaelT You mean when you get promoted to your level of incompetence?

enderland

@GlenH7 or if it doesn't, that's a different level of perspective

user41796

@enderland That's true too. You need to know what makes you tick and how your contributions fit in to the rest of society

ratchet freak

@JimmyHoffa because noone needs to touch the good projects

enderland

@ratchetfreak "guys this works, we don't know how, but DONT TOUCH IT"

user55340

16:12

@RobertHarvey was more thinking the 'it wasn't until a few years in at Employer^^^ that I understood the product, the customer, and the software well enough that I could say 'I have an idea for how to make the KB browse able - let me have a few months to write it...' and the manager would say 'yes'"

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak truth. Phone system I put together last year -> Haven't touched a line of it in... 6 months? Maybe changed 10 or 15 lines since finishing it ~9 months ago... the thing just runs. :)

Ampt

@AShelly if it makes you feel any better, we still talk about farts

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt blasphemer

ratchet freak

yeah I got a few GM scripts that I haven't touched in a year or so they all work great

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak aye, always fun when you put something together and it just keeps going without any code changes. Makes it feel weird that you do all that work to make it cope with code changes in the future so well.... heh

meanwhile the shit you don't design to be maintainable is always what you end up hacking on day in and day out... what a conundrum.

user41796

16:14

@JimmyHoffa Like Perl scripts that push to Excel... :-)

Ampt

You clearly haven't installed the future-seeing patch as of human V1.2

enderland

@JimmyHoffa this is the story of my project. seriously...

ratchet freak

I think the "all old code I work with is bad" idea is a bit of a confirmation bias

Ampt

lets me know which projects willl change the most and plan accordingly

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak makes sense

ratchet freak

16:15

you just never work with truly good old code because you don't need to

Austin Moore

Alright, I'm off to lunch. Thanks for your help guys

user55340

@Ampt I was going to go for a book instead...

user55340

amazon.com/Hot-Sky-Midnight-Robert-Silverberg/dp/055356935X

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak I'm actually in an interesting position that I suspect our legacy stuff is actually decently done, if not great - at least fairly well when you consider it was written ~95-2000 and is still running today. The badness that has us in it now I suspect is just the weight of age and scale on now fraying technologies rather than the system itself having been written poorly. Just needs replacement to meet current requirements

interestingly if it were done more poorly, I suspect we would have gotten off it long ago and wouldn't be so entrenched in this legacy system that no longer meets our scale requirements and no longer have devs that understand (it's old VC++)

user55340

@JimmyHoffa worse is better?

ratchet freak

16:18

worse gets replaced sooner

Ampt

@MichaelT Ahh dangit.

ratchet freak

ergo worse improves first

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak with luck...

user41796

@Ampt Don't try to outguess the master.

Ampt

@GlenH7 I am still the grasshopper

user41796

16:19

Be patient. Soon enough shall the moons pass for you too.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT that's practically no choice at all -> there are satelite cities in space ?? What kind of knobend wouldn't choose to live in those?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Kind of expensive... they've got limited room and not everyone gets to go up there. There's mention of a lottery for new citizens.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa I would guess that space bases would be terrifying for those who are claustraphobic

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT space cities. period. Only an idiot would choose earth.

man, modern visual studio is awesome. I currently have 7 visual studios open. Older versions would have fallen down so terribly hard with 2-3... and I've have these open for weeks some of them

enderland

@JimmyHoffa conversely, it's terrible, if you need 7 instances open... ;)

Jimmy Hoffa

16:26

@enderland it's awesome because I have 7 different solutions open

Ampt

ooh snap

Jimmy Hoffa

why wait to open a solution when they're all open already

enderland

lol

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa how much ram does each instance take?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt 200-400mb

Ampt

16:27

wow

sipping

Jimmy Hoffa

like I said, modern visual studio is awesome

I recall any visual studio instance taking ~600-1000mb in some older versions, and that was when my desktop hadn't nearly the ram they do these days

Jimmy Hoffa

16:48

0

A: Why is representing the number 10 such an issue?

Because 15 was the maximum value of a "word" at one point in time. A "word" refers to (among many other things over the years) the number of bits that a CPU is designed to operate on as a single thing. 4 bits toggled 1111 makes the binary value of 15. Hexadecimal was created with the explicit pu...

did I answer the question? I'm not sure. Maybe I should have just VTC'd

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I just VTC'd. Unclear.

user41796

It's a mind-reading / guessing game.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I read the question as him being unclear why "15" is a useful number and why one should care that it takes one character or two characters to present it. I tried to explain the purpose of having a single character stand in for values up to 15... but you're right, it is unclear so I may be off. I'm going to VTC as such. — Jimmy Hoffa 1 min ago

well, poster thinks I answered his question.

Robert Harvey

Good for him. .. ... ....

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey sore loser? ;P I edited the question to tailor it to my answer. How fun ! :D If the poster thinks my answer is what he was looking for, I may as well try to make his question ask for that answer so it's not so...unclear... is it still unclear ya think?

user41796

16:59

@JimmyHoffa You kind of have to do that in order to salvage the question.

Robert Harvey

Polishing a turd. :)

N^3 parsing

Y-Combinator

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