The Whiteboard

12:00 AM

SE suffers from a lot of those problems, which, imo at least, cause a lot of the problems where people disagree on "intended" vs "actual" functionality

Shog9

SE suffers mightily from people wanting to have their cake and still eat it

enderland

Blaming users for not reading a blog post explaining otherwise counterintuitive features? That's... just bad UX design, and while I totally get where you are coming from, I like to think I ~~drank the cool aid~~ am in the top fraction of users in overall knowledge of how SE works

Shog9

To be fair, I also dragged my feet for two years on publishing those close stats. Finally gave up on wanting to make them pretty. (Oded did a pretty decent job of cleaning up my even-uglier prototype though)

enderland

@Shog9 But again, this is kind of a philosophical thing - if the design allows or even encourages things that are contrary to it's design intent - that will drive me CRAZY because it's a "blame the users, not the design" problem

user55340

> Writing social software is hard. And, as I said, the act of writing social software is more like the work of an economist or a political scientist. And the act of hosting social software, the relationship of someone who hosts it is more like a relationship of landlords to tenants than owners to boxes in a warehouse.

The people using your software, even if you own it and pay for it, have rights and will behave as if they have rights. And if you abrogate those rights, you'll hear about it very quickly.

enderland

12:04 AM

And yes, this is my UX/HCI background.. asserting itself :)

Shog9

Which is why my first answer to your question was, "does it matter?"

I mean, Jeff & Joel in '08 would've preferred one site full of computery stuff... That's not how it was used.

enderland

@Shog9 It matters when multiple employees want the viewpoint which is contrary to how the site mechanics work in many cases, because it causes, ah, friction

Shog9

Closed questions get deleted. By design or not, that's what actually happens.

We can argue over a specific question, topic, field... But we can't deny reality.

enderland

@Shog9 I think that data would look different if it excluded negatively downvoted questions, and only looked at what percentage of positively upvoted (perhaps 2+) and closed questions are deleted

Shog9

Of course

user55340

12:11 AM

I also think that our daily crap is confusing some of the metrics...

Shog9

It'd be a lot smaller, for starters...

user55340

I had 9 questions that I cast close votes on in the previous voting day deleted within that voting day.

enderland

@Shog9 but that's the point - you can't say "most questions get closed" and then assume that the same type of question always ends up in that outcome - just because nearly all bad questions (like, off topic questions without a hope of edit to make them remotely on topic) end up deleted does not directly imply questions which are closed

Shog9

But... If it was 50% or even 20%… is that a good bet?

enderland

there are 7000 questions here alone that are closed and not deleted and are greater than 1, for example

Shog9

12:14 AM

(Also, you're skewing the data by doing that - folks downvote to delete...)

enderland

@Shog9 that would actually make my point even more compelling, since there are still so many closed but not deleted questions - add back in the ones that were, prior to downvotes, 1 or higher too

Shog9

6.8k deleted for that query, btw

enderland

@Shog9 which query? the "downvoted into deletion" one ?

user55340

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

user55340

I will point out a number of those are consecutive posts. Rather disappointing.

user55340

12:16 AM

(4, 5, 6; and 7, 8, 9 are consecutive)

Shog9

Are you saying they're closed and intentionally not deleted @enderland? I'm not sure that's knowable.

enderland

@Shog9 I guess I'm curious what percentage of questions on P.SE that have been closed were deleted

it would be great to know which ones were roomba deleted by downvotes, significantly after the fact

user55340

roomba one is tricky.

enderland

right

Or what percentage of the questions that were deleted in the past year were actually positive voted - ie deleted manually, vs roomba

A lot of the questions here are just not good questions and get -4 or worse downvoted, it'd be neat to exclude all those from this because those questions likely never had a chance of being on topic

user55340

bar chart of reputation buckets of deleted questions.

enderland

12:25 AM

Honestly though, only 74% of questions from a 90 day period that ended a year ago being deleted? I am SHOCKED it's that low, given the volume of crap that comes through

to me that means that nearly all "edge case" questions are not being deleted as I suspect many (or most?) of those questions that ended up deleted were completely hopeless

user55340

Better yet - three overlain bar charts: deleted closed questions, and closed questions, and all questions.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT oh doing an odd scenario of dependant typing. Yeah, that is a neat type level DFA; if you think about it fluent interfaces are an example of a singular re-entrant automoton - by way of type recursion; structure it as mutual recursion and you get two automotons, and through similar constructions you can keep adding. That's neat, I never looked at any of those types of things through that lense

enderland

@MichaelT that might be obtainable from data.SE though I'm not a wizard there..

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Yep. Most fluent interfaces don't actually do that type juggling though and instead do runtime errors.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I've done stuff like that before; I once created a type: Query that could go to Query, or Result, and the type Result could go to Query

user55340

12:30 AM

@enderland more doable now with deleted question queries, but I haven't dug into that at all.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I've got two answers that piqued my interest in the type system automata... and that got me going.

user55340

7

A: How should I handle incompatible configurations with the Builder pattern?

You've got your Builder. However, at this point you need some interfaces. There is a FileBuilder interface that defines one subset of methods (not setSize) and a SizeBuilder interface that defines another subset of methods (not setFilename). You may wish to have a GenericBuilder interface exte...

user55340

10

A: How to make sure people call methods in the right order?

The fluent interface for a inner domain specific language is built on top of the Builder pattern. Ultimately, you are building up a representation that is to be used. The solution is to then use a stateful builder (related: How should I handle incompatible configurations with the Bulider pattern...

enderland

@RobertHarvey I read your "looking for a union" as "looking for a unicorn" and was.. confused

user55340

@enderland related context for that question: programmers.stackexchange.com/q/298967/40980

Shog9

12:36 AM

@enderland who knows? It could mean that; it could mean some of the crap isn't being deleted either, it could mean most of everything is being deleted and 26% of stuff just falls through the cracks regardless.

enderland

@Shog9 That's why I'm curious for the data :) We can sling opinions all day, but realistically, a deletion histogram for "manually deleted", "roomba deleted", and "closed but not deleted" would be pretty interesting for this discussion (I don't expect you to get this by the way, it seems it might be non-trivial - especially given the DV to roomba factor)

man this discussion makes me realize I am WAY more passionate about good UX and data driven UX than most things I do in my day job

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT the benefit of doing that type of query / result thing is - you can do anything you want without any errors on the query, and then when it comes down to getting the result; that's the only time you need to handle errors; at the end.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I'm thinking back to the parse errors in the interpreter in the receipt printer back at Employer^^^. Read a line of the file, add string to buffer, read a line from file, parse error... boom.

Jimmy Hoffa

It lets you separate your code up more nicely in that way, one section devoted to filtering and querying and finding what you want, and another section for handling the results.

user55340

The language was regular (painfully so)...

Jimmy Hoffa

12:44 AM

@enderland confused? Anytime someone who's talented claims to be looking for a unicorn, you should be excited. Your priorities are a mess..

Shog9

Doesn't help that the data you (or gnat) would like literally doesn't exist: view rate is not tracked. @enderland

enderland

@Shog9 is time of vote tracked?

Shog9

Sure

user55340

@Shog9 still makes me sad.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT yeah, I've spoiled myself with things like this - then I go use other peoples stuff and when I find every other call demands a try/catch or some kind of hand holding I just want to model my whole operation ahead of time and then thunk it later

enderland

12:45 AM

I don't really care about view rate

Shog9

Not fast to query, but its there

user55340

If the view count could have been timestamped with each new post in the question.

enderland

not sure what gnat wants from that, I'm more curious to see histograms with the total votes for questions grouped by: deleted (manual), deleted (roomba), and closed (not deleted)

this might be available on data.SE too now, actually

Shog9

Some is, some isnt

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland histogram... I will only ever be able to think that's a chart of pressure over time even though I think it's more general than that

enderland

12:47 AM

it would be great to see how many roomba questions were hit by DVs after a significant time period though (to try to see how many roomba questions really were "downvote to delete" instead of "delete vote to delete")

user55340

@enderland view count would give us better insight into "did it get 2000 views in the first week? or just 100 in the first week and 100 each month after that" - gives better insight into the "is this a flash in the pan or something people are routinely finding"

Shog9

We're experimenting with deleted post metadata in the dumps, but gotta see where / how it's used

Even metadata can be dangerous

enderland

@MichaelT Yeah, that would help with a different question though - my main question here is understanding what percentage of non-terrible questions are actually auto deleted (or not)

Jimmy Hoffa

@Shog9 you can't pick the data out of quantcast? Views/visits are classical webmaster analytics that I wouldn't expect you guys to have intermeshed with your participation data that runs your algorithms..

user55340

@enderland I know, just explaining the query that the view count would give insight into.

enderland

12:48 AM

Like, if a question ends up at say +1 and closed, how likely is it to get deleted manaully? roombaed (by downvotes later?) etc

oh ya

Shog9

This is a LOT of data, @jimmy

enderland

Lots of interesting info if you can dream up any data you want :(

Robert Harvey

Data is great, but what about all the folks in this room who just use good ole observation?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Shog9 of course; I just mean on a cherry picked per post basis could you not get a simplistic graph?

Shog9

We mostly use GA and we're up against quotas there

Jimmy Hoffa

12:49 AM

ah, makes sense

Shog9

For a given post and timeframe, sure. But that doesn't say much.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Shog9 if we could pull it for a representative sample of say 10-30 posts, it could say something

we would just have to be specific in what we were trying to identify or else the 10-30 posts wouldn't be representative of anything.

Shog9

I'm with @RobertHarvey here: data is great, but once you have some it's time for good old-fashioned prejudice and name-calling

Jimmy Hoffa

@Shog9 everyone already calls you names I thought?

enderland

observation is notoriously biased

(obviously)

well, maybe not obviously

everyone else's observations are obviously biased, just not our own

user55340

12:52 AM

user55340

Yes, Data is great.

Shog9

They calls it like they sees it, @jimmy straps on jackboots

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland yes, that's why it's best to bias against; disproving your hypothesis should always be the goal

enderland

@JimmyHoffa no the goal is proving everyone else wrong on the internet

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland no, the goal is to get the money, then the respect, then the... time to go watch somethin, later.

user55340

1:17 AM

Hmm... confused person asking for language choice advice:

user55340

> Certain language features I just hate. For example, in Javascript you can assign a variable to be a boolean and then re-assign that variable to be a String. I hate that. It just feels wrong.

...

Options include: Node.js, Python, Ruby, PhP, Java.

user55340

So, the answer is "Java"

Shog9

Never show him C

At least, not K&R

user55340

@Shog9 A fuller quote... (still more to it):

user55340

> Certain language features I just hate. For example, in Javascript you can assign a variable to be a boolean and then re-assign that variable to be a String. I hate that. It just feels wrong. I also hate how in C you have to break the type system with unsafe casts.

user55340

1:21 AM

-1

Q: Which server side website programming language should I learn? (Advice request)

* Short Version * I hate dynamic typing and minimalist coding environments. I need to learn a server side website language for things like website forms, websockets, etc. Which one would you recommend? * Long Version * I'm a computer science student familiar with Java, C++, C, and Scala. I am ...

enderland

@MichaelT tl;dr

Shog9

Ha

user55340

@enderland tl;dr: I hate at least one language feature in these languages, which languages (which have these features) should I learn?

user55340

"I hate javascript, should I learn Node.js? I hate dynamic and duck typing, is php, python or ruby something I should learn?"

user55340

@Shog9 as an aside to the bit discussion earlier... not sure if you saw it. Suggesting Math.SE as an example of a well run site gets the whiteboard collective hackles up. We like to pride ourselves on fully answered questions. This search just makes me cringe as its quality... and suggesting that we should be more like that site... its a good way to raise a bit of ire.

user55340

1:32 AM

Shog9

Meh. Every site is different; doesn't mean we can't learn from them

user55340

But with Math, we had an experience where a complete answer was getting down voted because it was a complete answer.

user55340

If you want to compare us to other sites, compare us to MathOverflow, Tex, SciFi, or Skeptics.

Shog9

Lotta stuff I don't like about math, and they've certainly had their own problems to deal with - but they also managed to avoid some of the... Uh, decadence let's say... That plagued SO and later progse

user55340

70

A: which is larger number? $\sqrt{7}-\sqrt{6}$ or $\sqrt{6}-\sqrt{5}$

Hint. $$\sqrt{a+1}-\sqrt{a}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{a+1}+\sqrt{a}}$$

Shog9

1:35 AM

"If x is true for 1 then it must hold for 500"

user55340

45

A: If $a$, $a+2$ and $a+4$ are prime numbers then, how can one prove that there is only one solution for $a$?

HINT: One of the numbers $a,a+2$, and $a+4$ must be divisible by $3$. Why?

user55340

I hope that we never accept answers like that.

Shog9

Remeber, math.se was aimed at least in part at students

Socratic answers are not so bad in this context

user55340

And claiming that providing a never-ending stream of hints is something that should enable us to also allow a question with 20+ answers to remain open...

enderland

@MichaelT is that votes vs views? The title is misleading :)

Shog9

1:37 AM

I don't think that was the intent of the comparison

enderland

unlabeled axis FTL

user55340

Given the context of the question that was getting reopened, that is how I understood it.

user55340

(it was a "what are your opinions on this subject" soft question with 26 answers)

Shog9

Ah. Again, I haven't looked at the question that prompted this debate.

user55340

Giving Math (with a dozen hints) and AskDifferent (with its "what are your favorite features in iOS 9?") as examples of sites that are able to handle it... it was a pair of examples that rubbed me the wrong way.

Shog9

1:38 AM

My goal is simply to inform the discussion; I have no opioon on the outcome

user55340

(AskDifferent has a rather cohesive and like minded Q&A population - which contributes to their ability to handle big list questions... similar to how MathOverflow can do it too)

Shog9

@MichaelT So that's actually a good example of what I was alluding to with Math: Apple.SE did become considerably more disciplined WRT these questions after their early days, to their benefit.

user55340

But with Math, we've had people (decades out of academic settings) ask questions there and get hints. We've had people give answers there and get down voted for having a complete answer to the question. Just one of those "yep, you didn't know the history there - a bad choice of sites"

Shog9

@MichaelT I hardly need mention that folks have similar experiences on Progse...

enderland

Nah, here's it's the opposite problem - they know only the oldest history ;)

user114359

1:42 AM

@MichaelT Math is one of those sites I avoid (SF is another one) for fear of being chastised through my keyboard.

Shog9

I doubt most folks asking questions know either

user55340

You mentioned our reputation in the SF election a bit ago.

Shog9

Who did?

user55340

You did.

Shog9

I did?

Not the most recent election then

user55340

1:43 AM

> It kinda sounds like you've correctly identified the problem, and then... Arrived at the status quo as the solution. Let's face it: as a community, your reputation for cruelty, snark, and general unhelpfulness is unmatched - even Programmers, which attracts far fewer questions per day and rejects nearly all of them, doesn't come close to generating the levels of straight-up vitriol that y'all do.

enderland

need more vitriol/hate. let the hate flow through your veins...

That's the takeaway right?

Shog9

@MichaelT ah, well... That's just accurate.

enderland

@MichaelT to be fair, SF makes everyone look like adorable little kittens

Shog9

y'all get very few on-topic questions, but at least you're nice about turning folks away

user55340

Trying to find that comment that @Ixrec made early on in his tenure in chat about the difference between SF and P.SE's attitude.

Shog9

1:47 AM

SF has this charming "we're being swarmed by ants - quickly everyone, aim down and empty your clip!" attitude

user55340

(it was about how when we get off topic questions our attitude isn't "burn them!" but rather "sigh, another misguided soul...")

user55340

Apr 10 at 21:10, by Ixrec

it does seem like over here the prevailing attitude regarding the bad questions is one of melancholy rather than anger

user55340

2:05 AM

@Snowman one of the problems with being on mobile all day, you don't see name fonts.

Stack Exchange

MichaelT has added Snowman to the list of this room's owners.

user55340

Welcome to the italics. Still not blue though.

user114359

Yay, now what?

enderland

you weren't a room owner?

you can read deleted messages now

user114359

Ah, cool. Nope, I was not a room owner.

user114359

2:08 AM

Is it supposed to show up in red like on the main site?

user55340

And you can pin. And clear pins. And stars.

user55340

Nope.

user55340

Try pinning that stack exchange message. Everything of importance is accessed through the drop down on the left side of a message.

user114359

I'm a room owner of the cv-please room but never did any room owner stuff

user114359

I don't normally go looking for privileges until I need them. Less stuff for me to break.

Shog9

2:11 AM

@MichaelT I just realized that I read the title of your question all wrong; it wasn't a question about broads, it was a question you thought was too broad

user55340

There's also stuff in the 'room' drop down under the icons.

enderland

@Snowman I am still learning all about chat things, they aren't really intuitive sometimes (you can reply to the transcript, in case you or others didn't know this - I learned this not very long ago)

user55340

deleted messages don't show up in the transcript even to room owners. Need to page back for them if you want to read them.

user114359

@enderland that's how I got in here this time, JimmyHoffa pinged me and I hit reply from the transcript.

user114359

well, I replied to someone else's post next to his.

enderland

2:12 AM

@Snowman I learned about that just a few months ago... :)

user55340

@stephelton welcome to the white board (a new face... literally)

stephelton

=P

user55340

(we get tired of looking at @enderland's smiling mug all the time)

enderland

@MichaelT 1. ping. only.

stephelton

are linux specific questions appropriate here?

user55340

2:13 AM

Here being where?

stephelton

the chat room, i suppose

user55340

Most anything goes in the chat room.

user55340

The level of discourse is that of what you would find talking to a co-worker... while the boss is in the next cube over. So if you would talk about that there, you could talk about it here.

user55340

For main site, the guidance is best summarized in:

user55340

19

Q: Where does my git question go?

You've got a question about git. Its not uncommon, lots of people have questions about git. But where should the question be asked?

discussion faq-proposed site-rec

user55340

2:15 AM

8

Q: Where does my tool question go?

I have a question about tools. According to the on-topic page, tool questions are off-topic on Programmers Stack Exchange. Is there a site for me to go to ask specific tool questions?

support faq off-topic site-rec

user114359

You can ask pretty much anything here, no guarantee you will get a usable response.

user55340

@Snowman it is coffee day after all.

user114359

That depends on the coffee to scotch ratio

user114359

If you ask something suitable for the main site we might direct you there, it is a bit more permanent and you might get fake internet points out of it.

user55340

You need to learn to code. You basically ask the equivalent of "I want to make wiskey, and I have 30$ and know how to drink it". — Per Alexandersson 47 secs ago

user55340

2:17 AM

Its such a beautiful comment.

enderland

lol funny timing

stephelton

in linux, when you fork(), all memory pages allocated to the original process are shared between the two processes, and marked COW (copy on write). so if both processes have memory pointers that point to the same address, and that's copied after being written, the same pointer must now point to different physical addresses. so more a question about virtual memory -- how does the MMU know how to differentiate?

user114359

Being a big whiskey fan, I love that comment.

user55340

@stephelton ech... thats at a level deeper than I dealt with back in MIPS class decades ago.

stephelton

i'm trying to dig deep... :) no real need to know, just curious.

user55340

2:19 AM

Hmm... docs.blackfin.uclinux.org/doku.php?id=living_without_forks

user114359

@stephelton that is a bit low-level for me too. I have a few educated guesses that come to mind, but I just don't know.

enderland

21

A: Specifically, how does fork() handle dynamically allocated memory from malloc() in Linux?

Each page that is allocated for the process (be it a virtual memory page that has the stack on it or the heap) is copied for the forked process to be able to access it. Actually, it is not copied right at the start, it is set to Copy-on-Write, meaning once one of the processes (parent or child) ...

user55340

100

Q: The difference between fork(), vfork(), exec() and clone()

I was looking to find the difference between these four on Google and I expected there to be a huge amount of information on this, but there really wasn't any solid comparison between the four calls. I set about trying to compile a kind of basic at-a-glance look at the differences between these...

process exec clone fork forking

stephelton

haha thanks guys =P

user55340

> Some consider the semantics of vfork() to be an architectural
blemish, and the 4.2BSD man page stated: "This system call will be
eliminated when proper system sharing mechanisms are implemented.
Users should not depend on the memory sharing semantics of vfork() as
it will, in that case, be made synonymous to fork(2)." However, even
though modern memory management hardware has decreased the
performance difference between fork(2) and vfork(), there are various
reasons why Linux and other systems have retained vfork():

user114359

2:20 AM

Never underestimate the "search" function on SO with its 10,000,000 questions.

stephelton

related question: when the original process dies, or for that matter free()s memory, can the memory truly be freed until the fork()ed process dies as well?

user55340

@stephelton Remember that everything is a fork of the kernel....

stephelton

fork of init... right?

user114359

@MichaelT Is that really true? Fork is not the only way to start a process.

user55340

@stephelton init is a process that the kernel runs.

user114359

2:22 AM

Seems like a really bad idea to fork a core system process with elevated access to security and other core stuff

user55340

> init is one of those programs that are absolutely essential to the operation of a Linux system, but that you still can mostly ignore. A good Linux distribution will come with a configuration for init that will work for most systems, and on these systems there is nothing you need to do about init. Usually, you only need to worry about init if you hook up serial terminals, dial-in (not dial-out) modems, or if you want to change the default run level.

When the kernel has started itself (has been loaded into memory, has started running, and has initialized all device drivers and data structu…

user55340

@Snowman The kernel runs init in user space. Everything else is a fork of that.

user55340

This also (reading this now) makes it clear to me how that kernel space memory was always available - it was always there because everything was a fork of it.

user114359

@MichaelT I admit I am not really an expert on the low level guts of process management in Linux (birth and death, I can manage them on the command line), it just seemed a bit off.

stephelton

thanks, @MichaelT

user55340

2:25 AM

@Snowman nor am I... just remembering the classes and some things clicking.

user114359

There are toolkits out there a Google search away. Honestly, the lack of research on your part and the inability to read the help center does not endear me to recommending one to you, sorry. — Snowman 3 mins ago

stephelton

i thought processes had to be explicitly re-parented by init, otherwise they were zombies

user55340

@stephelton chat tip: you can click the arrow on the far right of a chat message to reply directly to that message.

stephelton

thanks :)

user114359

I hate coming across as not "being nice" but sometimes people need to know that asking people for help means following community guidelines

user114359

2:27 AM

@MichaelT I never had anything Linux-specific in either of my degree programs, just theoretical OS classes, one per degree.

user114359

although the graduate OS class was mind-breaking: distributed operating systems.

user55340

@Snowman when I was in college, Linux was in the v2.0 and v2.2 period.

user55340

My first machine of my own was a slackware 486 DX4 (at 100 mhz)... and my lab mates were impressed with its speed.

user114359

> Welcome to Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.13.0-62-generic x86_64)

user114359

Yeah, that was a while ago. I first ran Linux in the 2.0-ish days

user55340

2:29 AM

@stephelton process resources are released with the exit() call. Zombies call exit(), but still have their pid and exit state lurking around.

user114359

late 90s

user55340

While I don't have the stuff to test it, create a zombie intentionally. Have it open a file, (and not close it) and allocate some memory. When it becomes a zombie, check /proc for it and see what is still there.

user114359

How critical is it for me to update my Linux home server given it is behind a NAT firewall?

user114359

> 51 packages can be updated.
> 29 updates are security updates.

user114359

I am normally pretty lazy about it

user114359

2:31 AM

I figure if the NSA wants in, they get in

stephelton

@MichaelT maybe something like: (1) start program, allocate lots of memory, (2) fork, (3) exit (parent). the child will then be owned by init -- but what happens to all the COW memory that the child (probably) doesn't care about?

user55340

@stephelton that may very well still be there.

stephelton

@MichaelT it must be... there's no way to know whether or not the child still wants that memory

user55340

@Snowman The professor that I had for computer architecture was Prof. ames Larus - he wrote the software for the class: pages.cs.wisc.edu/~larus/spim.html

user55340

Note where he's working now.

user114359

2:35 AM

@MichaelT Nice. I wouldn't mind having that job.

user55340

> New address:
Microsoft Research
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

user114359

he wrote SPIM?

user55340

Yep.

user114359

sweet. I used that in my undergraduate program

user55340

sourceforge.net/projects/spimsimulator

user55340

2:36 AM

> spim mips simulator
Brought to you by: jameslarus

user114359

one of my computer architecture classes, a 200 level class. I still remember the professor and the class.

user55340

CS 354. courses.engr.wisc.edu/ece/ece354.html

user114359

That was the same class where we had to code in binary for a VM

user114359

it was a VM designed for education, nothing like a "real" VM

user55340

21

A: Frame Pointer Explanation

In MIPS assembly, the stack pointer points to the top of the stack. As you allocate space on the stack, the stack pointer ($sp) moves to point to the free memory. When calling a subroutine in MIPS assembly (registers were at a premium in those days - register based parameters where unconvention...

user55340

2:38 AM

It's come in useful since then...

user114359

-1

Q: Which language should I start with?

I want to program games and I don't know which language I should use first, I have absolutely no budget, and no experience where should I go?

programming-languages

user114359

This user is cruising for a question ban

user55340

That's going to be 2 of 2 for closed.

user114359

I want my CV back!

user55340

2:44 AM

Five of my close votes so far have gone to now deleted questions.

user55340

Yesterday it was nine.

user55340

42

Q: Refund close votes for questions deleted on the same day

When a question is deleted the same vote-day as it was closed, refund the close votes cast on the question. There are three situations where this comes up: Question has a close vote or two, a comment tells the OP that this is off topic (or about issues with the question) and the OP self delete...

feature-request vote-to-close deleted-questions

user114359

Oh I know the MSE question and how SE staff are pretty apathetic about it.

user114359

I like how the question title "Which language should I start with?" is almost word-for-word off-topic as stated in the help center.

user55340

@Snowman You want 200 rep? I've tossed another bounty on it.

user55340

2:49 AM

(gnat had 50 in the past, I've done 50, 100, and now 200)

stephelton

Are "how does X work" questions generally acceptable?

user55340

@stephelton They're... possibly borderline depending on how specific you get into it (the more specific, the better)

user55340

How does an MMU work would get closed as too broad.

stephelton

how about "how can the MMU tell the difference (blah blah blah our conversation about fork() earlier)"

user55340

How are resources released when a process exits that has been forked on a system that has a MMU would probably do reasonably well.

stephelton

2:51 AM

i distilled our conversation into two questions, i guess :)

user114359

@MichaelT how does that even work? I post an answer saying "I agree"?

stephelton

(1) process A starts (2) process A allocates memory page at virtual addr 0x1234 (3) process A forks to process B (4) process B modifies its COW page at 0x1234 (5) now both processes have virtual addr 0x1234 that points to different physical addresses -- how does the MMU know the difference?

user114359

@stephelton please keep in mind that hardware is off-topic here, unless the question has to do with software interacting with hardware (and is conceptual)

user114359

lol, 216 MSE rep

user55340

@Snowman Bemoan about the loss of close votes with a few more words than what would be appropriate for a comment.

stephelton

2:53 AM

@Snowman yeah, that's why i came to chat in the first place =P

user55340

I'd still consider it more borderline, and more answerable here than other places. And if its off topic here, its a question that would be migrated rather than closed to not migrate crap. Because it doesn't sound like a crap question.

stephelton

@MichaelT heh, thanks. i might go poke my head in hardware chat or something first

user114359

@stephelton If you want more feedback on the specific question, you can always post on a site's meta and say "here is my proposed question: ZZZZZZ is this on-topic and good quality?"

stephelton

@Snowman that's a good idea... thanks

user55340

Gives a more persistent and different population view of the question.

user55340

2:56 AM

(we're one population... and apparently the only ones still up... europe hasn't really gotten going yet and we've got a number of people there who don't visit this chat, but do visit meta)

user114359

Personally I find hardware discussions fascinating even if I cannot contribute much to the topic. I have written some device drivers but my knowledge of how a CPU's guts work is limited to what I learned in college and an occasional article or blog.

stephelton

@Snowman indeed, i'm just curious... i never went to college, so this is how i learn :)

user114359

@stephelton even if you are gainfully employed, it is worth getting a B.S. in computer science. There are many employers who demand it regardless of work history.

user55340

Until you have enough work history to start at senior... its helpful.

user55340

Employer^^^ had a off the bat $1.00/h difference for the same job with vs without relevant degree.

stephelton

3:03 AM

@Snowman i have about 10 years of professional experience. i still consider going back to school, but i'd probably want to do something other than CS

user55340

(in other words, it took an additional two years to max out pay there - and that $2k (+ OT) would have impact on their bonus structure which was a percent of total earnings for the year)

user114359

0

A: Refund close votes for questions deleted on the same day

In the past day on Programmers I have had six votes on questions that were deleted the same day. That accounts for 6/24 = 25% of my votes for the day. By lunchtime (US) we are 8+ hours away from resetting votes and typically get a few questions in need of quick closure. Sometimes these questions...

user114359

From personal experience I have had my B.S. so I never had to deal with any issues, but I have had coworkers who lacked the degree. Clearly they were able to get the job, but pay was always a very sore subject with them.

user55340

Half Adder in Mario Maker

►

user114359

@MichaelT crap, looks like an official Wii-U app. Not something I can do on the desktop.

Robert Harvey

3:16 AM

@MichaelT An additional $2000 per year. Not even enough to make a car payment.

user55340

The chat design is based on the Programmers SE main design, and just hasn't been changed yet. That's actually how the buttons on Programmers used to look. — animuson ♦ 4 hours ago

Robert Harvey

Because 3d buttons are so 5 minutes ago. — Robert Harvey 13 secs ago

user55340

@RobertHarvey plus OT... I seem to recall that I had an additional 500+h of OT there/year... and the bonuses where things like "10% of all the money you made last year, including bonuses from the year before"

Robert Harvey

So the difference accumulates, then.

user55340

Quite substantially if you are there for the long haul.

user55340

3:19 AM

The golden handcuffs where only in place at Employer^^^ if you were there for more than 5-7 (depending on pay) years. If you had been there less than 5 years, the bonuses didn't seem quite as much of a reason to stay.

user114359

I wouldn't mind golden handcuffs. Right now I only have a gold wedding ring, and that cost me money.

user55340

@stephelton I tweaked your question to make it clear you were after a site recommendation rather than having it getting answered there. MSE is... a different place.

user114359

@MichaelT I also don't quite follow what is going on there. I understand how an adder works, but I guess I don't quite understand what all the Mario blocks are for.

stephelton

@MichaelT well, i was also wanting validation that it wasn't a bad question (etc)

user55340

@Snowman same here.

user55340

3:27 AM

MSE is the meta site of all the sites. And site recommendations are on topic there (they're also on topic on all the per-site metas...)

user55340

MSE is full of the especially... lets call them strict users who are active on all the sites.

stephelton

lol i follow

user55340

So you get people from Parenting, Gaming, whatever new area 51 site was launched, some people who still hang on from the pre-split days of MSO, etc...

user114359

> Jon Skeet is just awesome. We should let him break stuff - there's nothing more epic than having a number of imaginary internet points that overflows the y-axis on a chart.

user114359

0

A: Should we use 1000k, 1.0M or 1,000k in a reputation graph?

I'd be inclined to leave it, for a few reasons: It's using Highcharts, and it's probably hard to adjust the labels anyway (A quick run through the documentation doesn't reveal anything obvious), but the smart developers could probably figure it out if they really wanted to. Jon Skeet is just aw...

user55340

3:41 AM

@Snowman Given that Jon is British and they use a long count, "1,000k" is the appropriate answer, even if the actual answer is 1M in the long count.

user55340

2

A: Can the system leave a deletion reason when it deletes a question?

The deletion notice on a question now includes the scheduled process which caused the Community user to delete the question: One of: RemoveMigrationStubs RemoveDeadQuestions RemoveAbandonedQuestions RemoveAbandonedClosed You can see what each of these terms means in this answer which outli...

user55340

@Snowman given example 3, its append only insertion order that is the bit of interest. So yep.

user55340

> public void add(Rank rank){
list.add(rank);
map.put(rank.getName().toLowerCase(), rank);
}

user114359

@MichaelT that is what I thought, but the requirements were not clear. I try not to infer requirements from the code unless specifically stated in the question.

user114359

My edit shows an alternative, but the list view of the map works the same way.

user114359

4:05 AM

I think my answer to the list/map question is pretty useful now, but it is after midnight and I am open to improvements:

user114359

1

A: What to do when properties of a HashMap and ArrrayList are neccessary?

If you order elements by insertion order, you can use Java's LinkedHashMap You will not be able to view it as a list, but you can easily siphon data into a temporary list and return that list. From there you can sort it if necessary. You can also use a SortedMap (TreeMap is its standard impleme...

Duga

10:49 AM

this might be a question for programmers, and quite likely already answered there: programmers.stackexchange.com — hoijui 36 secs ago

durron597

12:38 PM

@MichaelT Did I ever tell you how I fixed that?

user55340

1:46 PM

As thorough, well written, and well researched an answer as this is, I hope it's wrong just so that the world can have more than one story about cheese powered FTL travel. — Jason Patterson 13 hours ago

user55340

@durron597 yes, you did.

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