The Whiteboard

user55340

00:17

@JimmyHoffa masterofmalt.com/tasting-set/drinks-by-the-dram/…

user55340

or how about masterofmalt.com/tasting-set/drinks-by-the-dram/… ?

user55340

Or browse through masterofmalt.com/tasting-set ?

Jimmy Hoffa

oof you wound me

Truly though, this stuff is great. Perfect for the cold which is what I wanted.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa You? or your pocket book?

Jimmy Hoffa

00:31

@MichaelT precisely the conundrum; I don't want to choose..

Daniel

01:15

hey whiteboard

back from school

anyone on from earlier?

around 4:30-5

user55340

Yep. We're about...

user55340

Or some of us. Its mid-evening 'round here.

Daniel

I gave some thought to what you guys were telling me earlier

What about a 4-year degree?

Is that substantial for a programmer

I also remembered systems administrator being something I wouldn't mind

user55340

Yep. Though you need to realize what its giving you. Its not so much "I will be a great coder out of school"

user55340

It is "I can accomplish this multi-year goal" and "I can handle multiple tasks simultaneously and prioritize them in a way that allows me to attain my goal"

Daniel

01:25

Right

user55340

It also gives some nice fundamentals that you can think about and answer in those first interviews.

user55340

Very few four year degree programs in computer science teach programming, though some have classes that will focus on specific aspects of the industry.

user55340

But the foundations and scaffolding that they build are often very useful for learning and developing other software.

Daniel

Ok so

user55340

In my opinion (and its an opinion) it is those foundations and scaffolding for the understanding of systems that are often hardest to get on your own.

Daniel

01:28

just as a stepping stone here

its better to take this champlain.edu/computer-sciences/…

than this bridgeport.edu/academics/undergraduate/computer-science-bs/…

user55340

Scaffolding for a building isn't a stepping stone for building it - its a necessary part of constructing large projects.

user55340

So too the mental scaffolding for being able to understand the why of the framework.

user55340

Sure, you can learn how to build that scaffolding yourself, it takes time. Its a question of if you want to do it over a decade on or half a decade of dedicated study.

Daniel

right...

user55340

Bridgeport looks very much like the degree I got.

user55340

01:31

Champlain is... I want to say glancing at the titles, more vocational and applied, less theory.

user55340

(the classes on security all over the place, a 200 level class on databases (the one I took was a 500 level class))

Daniel

What do you do? If you don't mind me asking.

ok i see the database design is a 400 level

for UB

user55340

Currently, I'm a java developer in the public sector. I focus on the internal web and the data APIs available to other teams.

Daniel

Forgot calculus is part of this too..

Nice, that must be kushy

user55340

Rough history:
Tech support (SGI - contractor)
App dev (Sun - contractor)
QA (Cisco - contractor)
System admin (startup)
Tech support (SGI - contractor)
Web dev (perl, then java) (Netapp)
Web dev (java) (retail)
Point of sales dev (java) (retail)
GIS / Web dev (java) (consulting)
Java web dev (public sector)

user55340

01:35

That spans... sigh 20 years.

user55340

@RobertHarvey say something to make me feel younger. Please.

Daniel

That's a tough fit man, 20 years? wow.

user55340

8 hours ago, by Robert Harvey

@MichaelT I remember the live TV broadcasts of the moon landing.

user55340

Ok, I feel better now. @RobertHarvey thank you.

Jimmy Hoffa

me as well; thanks @RobertHarvey for being the resident fogey.

user55340

01:37

So yea... 20 years. Most of it was at Netapp. I saw a lot happen there. That was '98-09.

user55340

The web was an interesting place in those days.

user55340

Started out with pure perl CGIs (see, the sysadmin perl to web perl pivot).

Daniel

I took a Windows 95 class when i was 7

haha i was hooked when it came out

user55340

@JimmyHoffa The proper term is 'curmudgeon'

user55340

curmudgeon

Noun: curmudgeon ‎(plural curmudgeons)

(archaic) A miser.
2006, The New York Times [1]
2007, The Times [2]

user55340

01:40

fogey

Noun: fogey ‎(plural fogies or fogeys)

A dull old fellow; a person behind the times, over-conservative, or slow – usually preceded by old.

user55340

Hmm... you might have me there though @JimmyHoffa

user55340

@Daniel one of the interesting bits on the Champlain set is the general education courses. Lots of emphasis on writing there. That is a good thing.

user55340

In general, in the programming profession, too few people know how to write well.

Daniel

What does that entail really?

user55340

And...

user55340

01:41

> OMM 270 Intercultural Communication 3 *

user55340

That looks like a useful one too.

Daniel

shoot man

user55340

@Daniel it means organizing your thoughts and putting them down in words in a cohesive way that follows from start to finish.

user55340

There are far too many requirement documents that I've read that lack that.

user55340

And far too many misunderstood emails.

Daniel

01:43

yea i tested at a college english level in 6th grade

so that's one poisitve thing

positive* hahaha

user55340

Technical writing is another thing altogether.

user55340

And there's also...

Daniel

That I know

user55340

> ENGL 315 Writing in the Workplace

user55340

If I could tell 20 year old me something, I'd tell him to go take writing classes where possible.

user55340

01:44

Granted, I didn't exactly get away from writing... I was 8 or 9 credits from a BA in Philosophy and that entails some amount of writing too.

user55340

But the mythology class and that other one that I really didn't do that well in... those would have been better served in the english department.

Daniel

This has become a bit overwhelming

Maybe I'm not cut out for this stuff, i'm going to sleep on it

user55340

Champlain looks quite reasonable with a very practical syllabus. You might tweak me of the 'professional courses' to another emphasis, but the general ones are excellent for a programming class.

Daniel

Thanks for your help Michael

Alright

user55340

Just going to ping @enderland - any thoughts on the above in the comparison between: champlain.edu/computer-sciences/… and bridgeport.edu/academics/undergraduate/computer-science-bs/…

enderland

01:53

why hello, I am just back after enjoying a delicious work sponsored steak! :)

@MichaelT Stack Exchange has profoundly impacted my ability to communicate

user55340

Mine was everything2 - compare the early write-ups to the later ones. And toss in a fair bit of 20 something angst in there... so proceed with caution.

enderland

so my main observation on those classes relates to the format, one has 7 week long classes and the other seems more "normal" semesters

user55340

@enderland think of them as sprints.

enderland

If you are working FT keep in mind that flexing a few weeks on a semester long course is far easier than a 7 week course

user55340

Agile education! No syllabus - YAGNI. No assignments until they change last week and now the professor wants something different. Constant (unit) testing!

user55340

02:00

"you're just going to keep taking the test until everything checks out green."

enderland

lol

Duga

Questions that ask "where do I start" are typically too broad and are not a good fit for this site. People have their own method for approaching the problem and because of this there cannot be a correct answer. Give a good read over Where to Start, then address your post. — Kevin Guan 20 secs ago

user55340

@RobertHarvey the answer to that sorting question (which I've got an answer in place in draft) is merge sort.

user55340

02:15

If you decide that the Beatles are slightly better than the Monkeys, you aren't going to revisit that comparison again... and future merges aren't going to perturb their position.

user55340

The Monkees Theme Song

►

user55340

(the prefab four... not that they were before the fab four, but rather they were prefab. They were auditioned for their parts to try to make an american answer to the Beatles)

user55340

I'm quite willing to close and delete that post if the answers start going down hill there.

enderland

02:31

@MichaelT link?

user55340

0

A: Sorting algorithm that can handle some error

The key thing here is to avoid making the same comparison more than once. And there is one sort that really meets that criteria in a way that is doable for a human sorting their movie collection. Merge sort. With the merge sort, you recursively break down the size of the set to 2 (or 1). And th...

user55340

When you start doing heap sort or quick sort, they become hard to reason about and the "set half of your collection on this side and half on that side, and then select a pivot and..." no.

user55340

Thats the type of thing that makes it hard and the optimal sorting starts getting really confusing when you realize that because you ranked A better than B this time, you have to go and stick all these other ones between it as your are sorting those other groups.

Duga

Note: I'd think that you might get better and more elaborate answers on, say, programmers.stackexchange.com . I just picked up this question because it has the Python(-3) tag, but it's obviously applicable much more generally. — Evert 13 secs ago

user55340

@ThomasOwens Bangkok half-marathon becomes world's longest after wrong U-turn - Runners express anger and organiser remorse after 13-mile event extended to almost 17 miles because of race officials’ course error

enderland

02:40

@MichaelT I feel like that is one of the more interesting questions I've seen on here in a while

user55340

It is kind of interesting. Again, thats why I answered it.

user55340

But

user55340

my cat jumps on the keyboard and hits return...

enderland

Hahah

user55340

Its a very simplistic answer. And intended for human evaluation... the realm of 'fuzzy sorting' is another one that has much more algorithmic background.

enderland

02:42

This is one of the more interesting questions I've read on here in a while. While at face value it seems rather boring, there are a lot of potential use cases for this - especially if you are basically using any heuristic to evaluate A > B types of questions. — enderland 1 min ago

It seems quite interesting because of how many problems have the same root problem

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT I'm not sure you answered the question though...or I misunderstood the question? It seems poorly worded...needs some help

user55340

@JimmyHoffa It certainly could, though I understood it one way... and if there's an adjustment to that, then I'd need to rewrite it.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa it's asking, how to do a sort and minimize the risk if you get one A>B ? answer wrong

Jimmy Hoffa

I think there's a good Q in there but I don't understand it as written; it sounds like he's asserting that a chained comparison of sorting would fail to sort correctly for some reason? And then asking how to fix that?

user55340

I also added the heuristic of "I don't want to keep saying "is it better than ${worst}" as part of the sort.

Jimmy Hoffa

02:44

@enderland that doesn't make sense though, the comparisons need to be greater than, less than, or equal to; that's the definition of comparison for sorting... how can it be "wrong" ? that's not a valid answer

user55340

The merge sort doesn't get too messed up if you decide that two similar ones are in the "wrong" order later.

enderland

It would probably benefit from an explanation of a sort failing with one comparison mistake resulting in significant algorithm drift

Jimmy Hoffa

That's like 3 > 2 is ComparisonException instead of true or false

enderland

I just edited my comment to point that out

@JimmyHoffa it's more, sort [0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] but when you get 4<3 == true

well pretend it wasn't presorted. lol

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland ..?? How would you get that? It doesn't make sense

That would require a code flaw in your comparison definition

enderland

02:46

@JimmyHoffa he's asking about opinion based comparisons that are not 100% reliable

user55340

The thing is, you may get a 4<3 == true... but you are very unlikely to get a 9<1==true.

enderland

@MichaelT but that should mean all sorts "mostly work" too, decently well

user55340

The other bit is you need to minimize the comparisons between 1 < 3? 2 < 3? 4 < 3? 5 < 3? -- the more times you compare, the bigger the liklihood that you will have an error.

Jimmy Hoffa

No, I still think you're all blowing smoke. For any sorting algorithm whatsoever to work, there needs to be a comparison definition - and that's totally agnostic of the algorithm. It can be weighted in numerous ways and have all kinds of complexity in comparing A and B, but it must come up with a decision and that decision is final..

enderland

@JimmyHoffa I'm imagining this like if you go to the eye doctor, and they ask you "better 1? or 2?" as the sort logic

user55340

02:48

@JimmyHoffa sort your records... and then sit there and hem and haw about if A > B?

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT You mean secondary sorting with a different comparator that's more detailed?

sort-simple; sort-detailed ?

enderland

I'm not sure how this would be programmatically implemented (I asked for an example in my comment there) but I get the idea he's asking

since pretty much by definition a programmatic sort will "work" right because unless you have an RNG in your comparator... it will always work

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland I'm not sure it's a valid thing I mean, the answer to the question in code is the question itself. You can assess and evaluate the question and use that for weighting in a more complex comparator but ... the computer is either answering the question to sort, or not which is an answer in itself; either a null, an error, or a pause...

user55340

Would be something to toss in there... sort 1 .. 100 (shuffle first, then sort) where the comparison function has a + rand (0.0 ... 0.99) on each side.

user55340

And then see how each sort algorithm gets messed up (or not)

enderland

02:51

This makes me want to implement a variety of sorts and override the > comparator to include that, just to see what happens

I somewhat want to write that as a question, how to model a sort algorithm including uncertainty

Seems like it'd be a good question here

user55340

List of lost films

For this list of lost films, a lost film is defined as one of which no part of a print is known to have survived. For films in which any portion of the footage remains (including trailers), see List of incomplete or partially lost films. Films may go missing for a number of reasons. One major contributing factor is the common use of nitrate film until the early 1950s. This type of film is highly flammable, and there have been several devastating fires, such as the 1937 Fox vault fire, the 1967 MGM vault fire, and the Universal Pictures fire in 1924. Black-and-white film prints judged to be otherwise...

enderland

03:25

0

Q: How to model heuristic uncertainty when sorting data?

Sorting algorithms assume you have a defined comparator. For example, if sorting integers A and B, the A > B operation allows you to determine if A should be after or before B. Imagine you want to implement a sort, but rather than a defined and consistent comparator, the comparison uses a heuri...

I'm not sure if that's what he's asking, but I am really interested in this concept myself :)

enderland

03:37

@MichaelT I thought I understood that database question, then read your comment and realized there were many interpretations of the question, and realized it was unclear...

user55340

I don't even know if the data is in the database... or if there are tables in the database.

enderland

I had assumed so, but rereading suggests it might not even have gotten that far

user55340

For that matter, I don't even know if the database is up and running.

enderland

Yeah, that's what your comment made me think. "how far are you in the process?" was my followup thought from your comment

This is a well written and researched homework question. A welcome surprise, thank you! — enderland just now

Jimmy Hoffa

04:14

@enderland uncertainty is measurable, there's various ways of analyzing and giving it a metric; that's what I would look at first. Deviation distance and entropy are the two measurements of uncertainty that come to mind right away

run the comparator 10 times on each comparison; then downsample the results as a signal is one thought. There are surely numerous well known downsampling approaches

A>B = [True, True, True, False, True, False, True, True] <-- down sample to a single value, perhaps true count / false count, then you can say A == B and get a true count / false count and B < A, sort the true count / false count ratios and pick the highest of the 3 as your truth.

Or some other more well-studied signal analysis approach rather than some dumb crap I just baked off the top of my head. Those are the things I would think about because that's what signal analysis is a lot about: representative truth, and in decisions involving uncertainty that's going to be the truest thing you'll get.

Duga

05:31

Since there is no correct answer to this question I would suggest programmers.stackexchange.com instead. — idstam 1 min ago

Duga

09:32

Questions that ask "where do I start" are typically too broad and are not a good fit for this site. People have their own method for approaching the problem and because of this there cannot be a correct answer. Give a good read over Where to Start, then address your post. — DavidG 19 secs ago

Thomas Owens

10:05

@MichaelT Yeah, I saw that last night...that's...wow.

amon

@Thomas quick question, do you actually use UML use case diagrams in a professional context? Your recent answer here suggests you're reasonably familiar with them, but I fail to see their value (I'm currently learning about requirements engineering in my software engineering class)

Thomas Owens

10:44

@amon Nope. I don't think I've ever used them at work. Like I alluded to in that answer, I use other forms. I tend to write use case tables.

Duga

Welcome to StackOverflow! You might not be aware of it, but it is a site for programming problems, not for problems of programmers. ;) Please take the introductory tour. Your question is better suited for superuser.com Voting to migrate it there. Please do NOT double post. — Markus W Mahlberg 11 secs ago

Thomas Owens

I'm about to get ready for work. I woke up early to go to the gym, but then got bogged down in emails and SE stuff. Shouldn't have sat down at the computer. :( I'll be back around 7-7:30ish if you want to chat more about how I do requirements engineering. I actually just finished the initial requirements development for a project at work.

amon

sorry, I have stuff to do. But I always find your perspective on the engineering aspect of programming quite interesting.

MetaFight

I have tried to use UML at previous jobs. I liked the idea in theory, but in practice it was a disaster. I have yet to find two people who agree on correct use of UML (let alone model the same concept in the same way).

It doesn't help that there are several versions of UML, all documented by developers (not humans). And the different versions sometimes have drastically different ways notating identical concepts.

in short: nobody will ever agree how to write or even read your UML diagrams, so don't bother.

except for, maybe, sequence diagrams.

Thomas Owens

11:49

@MetaFight It's true that there are multiple versions of the standard, but each notation does have a correct way. There is a formal language specification.

The only different should be the level of detail. For example, someone can choose to omit private members from a class in a class diagram while someone else includes the.

Duga

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on programmers.stackexchange.com — N3dst4 58 secs ago

Thomas Owens

13:01

Why hasn't anyone here added this question to the list of suggestions for the 2016 dev survey yet?

Jimmy Hoffa

Happy Coffee Day

@ThomasOwens Where's the dev survey?

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa I need to ask...when is Whisky Day? Or is it Happy Coffee Day / Good Whiskey Evening?

Jimmy Hoffa

I've seen the results in past years but never seen a genuine survey to answer

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa It's posted on SO.

The survey isn't out yet, they are just soliciting questions.

There's a Meta.SO question asking for questions to include on this year's survey.

44

Q: Suggest a question for the 2016 Stack Overflow Developer Survey

We're hoping to get an early start on the 2016 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, and we need your help coming up with questions. What do you want to know about the users who ask and answer on Stack Overflow? Who are the teeming masses of programmers who pass through the site every day? Poll the p...

discussion featured survey survey-2016

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens booze is seasonal; Rum when it's hot, Whiskey when it's cold. Lager/pils/blonde/wheat when it's hot, Stout/porter/etc when it's cold.

^--- best summer beer in existence; hands down.

^-- this is our season now

Also that

@ThomasOwens so in conclusion, Whiskey get's much more than just a day.

Thomas Owens

13:13

@JimmyHoffa See, I think maybe it's like "good morning" and "good night". You greet people with "Happy Coffee Day!" when you see them in the morning, and then "Good Tequila Night!" when you leave. The difference is that at night, you can insert any alcoholic beverage.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens what do you mean when I leave?

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Uh...leave the office?

I've actually started greeting people at work with "Happy Coffee Day".

I should end the day by saying "Good{alcoholic beverage} night!"

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens as have I; if I said Good Boozey Time every time I left the office though, I suspect they'd get the ~~right~~ wrong impression of me

Jimmy Hoffa

13:28

The Whiteboard; I need help. No no, I don't have a drinking problem, shutup! You're not helping! I need Monitor shopping help @GlenH7 @MichaelT

I know squat about monitors; just that I've used 2 24" 1080p ones for years now at jobs and that's what I'm used to working with. About to purchase such for my home so I can more easily work from home, but trying to figure out if it's worth going all-out and getting like fancy ones or what.

Was also looking at the idea of getting a larger screen that's 4k and would give me similar screen real estate and same number of pixels as 2 1080p monitors so I could still see the same amount of code/applications/etc at once

Change

would you expect your company to care about seniors more then fresh hires ?

Thomas Owens

@Change Define "care about". They have different needs.

Change

company don't care if senior employees leave as it's less then 31 people company

person with 5 years experience gets same or less benefits then they hired just yesterday

Duga

13:45

StackOverflow is not a site to ask for suggestions, it's for code that you are trying to get working but can't. Try programmers.stackexchange.com — Juan Mendes 42 secs ago

Change

@Duga what ? :S

Thomas Owens

13:57

@Change Duga is our bot. She's helpful.

Change

@ThomasOwens not to me though

user55340

@Change part of the challenge for hires is wage inflation. Many times new hires are paid at comparable levels to those who have been there for awhile.

user55340

In .com boom days, the way you got a pay raise was getting a new job.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa the bright side is if you haven't shopped for years you are going to be very pleasantly surprised how cheap they are now

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT I know of people who changed jobs ever 6-8 months for 2 years.

If they did that in a .com boom and got...let's say a measly 5% each job change, that's like 5 years of merit increases.

enderland

14:07

@JimmyHoffa you should write this as an answer hahah

@Change many companies assume employees are interchangeable cogs, and can be easily replaced (we see this all the time on Workplace)

2

MetaFight

@ThomasOwens I agree with you that it is a formal specification and therefore differences should only boil down to opinions on how to model things. Unfortunately, I've never met two people who've interpreted the UML spec the same way.

Thomas Owens

@MetaFight I've never actually read the spec. But whenever I've read something by a reputable source (Scott Ambler, Martin Fowler, etc.), it's all seemed to agree.

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland yeah, I'm already seeing that I can get them quite cheap; the goal here though is to make it as easy and comfortable to work from home as possible, which is why I'm pondering what will be the absolute best organization for monitors at home..

enderland

@JimmyHoffa my main limitation from liking working at home is my desk (not the monitor I have), just as a point of reference

Jimmy Hoffa

If I go cheap I can snag 2 24" 1080p monitors for $150 each and a dual arm for $60

MetaFight

14:10

@ThomasOwens Maybe there is a UML promised land then. Maybe I just haven't been there yet :)

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland my desk is fine, it's actually intended as a kitchen island so it's pretty tall and I could use it as a standing desk if I please

I'm slightly concerned about imbalancing it with the monitors though..

Thomas Owens

@MetaFight Perhaps. UML 2.x has been pretty consistent with itself. And I don't remember UML 1.x days.

enderland

@JimmyHoffa mine is too, but has stupid crosspieces that I smash my knees into frequently. I should get a nicer desk :)

Change

@enderland that's what I am having issue with, for bigger compaines it's ok to be like that, but for a less then 30 people company - it's very hard to absorb

@enderland Can I ask this as a question on Workplace and see what advise I can get, as I am getting very frustrated with this feeling

Jimmy Hoffa

@MetaFight the problem is the formality as I've said before: UML is like a 600 page legal ruling, yes it's formal and follows rules, but the interpretation is constantly screwed up because it's too much work to get right. The inconsistent interpretation ruins the entire purpose of UML. Which is why simplest non-formal diagrams are better. Start with something no one knows the rules to and they can agree to your explanation of a diagrams meanings rather than trying to assert their own.

the only UML diagram worth two shits i the state?sequence? diagram, whatever it's called with the bars for different components and lines between them indicating the operation chains and order

enderland

14:17

@Change yeah, but if you don't focus it on "what can I do" or "how can I make this situation better?" it is likely to come across as a rant

Jimmy Hoffa

For all other things, you should use basic flow chart concepts and make sure you don't use any of the iconography related to UML when doing so or else you're going to have someone look at it and try to interpret it as UML and completely fuck up the interpretation.

@ThomasOwens ---^

now I need to go shovel snow. Feckin' snow.

Thomas Owens

I disagree. I think you should understand what the notations of UML (and other design notation languages) and use them appropriately. Otherwise, people need to read more to figure out what you're trying to say.

MetaFight

@JimmyHoffa that's exactly what I was trying to say... except I was too lazy to use words to say it.

@ThomasOwens That makes sense if you want your diagram to be documentation. I normally use a diagram to facilitate communication and throw it away after the end of the meeting.

I did, once, spend a bunch of time creating UML diagrams for documentation. Nobody read them, though. And they quickly went stale as the new developers slopped their shit over my relatively unshitty design.

And, to be clear, I'm not complaining about the other devs. They were simply doing what they were asked to do, in the (little) amount of time they were given to do it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens guarantee you misunderstand them in some ways you don't know. Guarantee. They're too detailed to completely fit in your head. How many times have you argued with someone on the correct interpretation of something in a UML document? Don't lie. Each time that happens it may be you who's right, and it may be them who's right, but you know who's wrong? UML for wasting your and their time.

enderland

@ThomasOwens this makes me want to put a question about this for the SO survey, something like, "what documentation types do you use?" with a multiselect list

MetaFight

14:23

UML? I'll have coffee instead. Thanks.

@MetaFight ways to get irritable at work.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Try me.

user55340

@Change in a 30 person company, talk to your manager about it.

Change

@enderland maybe i used wrong words there

-2

Q: Employee or just Object

Many companies assume employees are interchangeable cogs, and can be easily replaced. This may seem just OKAY for large companies, but my company has same sort of policy and it's just less then 35 people company, I find it really hard to absorb this policy. I am working here for around 5 years ...

work-environment

I had to delete it

Jimmy Hoffa

14:50

@ThomasOwens I avoid knowing them so I won't but as I said; tell me you've never had that argument with someone over what an element means. I've seen it happen among folk who knew UML quite well too many times to count.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Usually not an argument. An instructional session. I taught an OO software design course when I was school, so people usually defer to me to notational questions and pull me in to bounce ideas off of. I'm only good at designing in a group. Can't just sit down and throw together a good design like some people. I walk through good things and bad things and work my way there.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens instructional session; I'm sure ~~scotch's~~ that's how they see it ;P

enderland

15:06

I asked my question here at the wrong time, too many crap questions have already buried it :P

Thomas Owens

@enderland What's it about?

enderland

2

Q: How to model heuristic uncertainty when sorting data?

Sorting algorithms assume you have a defined comparator. For example, if sorting integers A and B, the A > B operation allows you to determine if A should be after or before B. Imagine you want to implement a sort, but rather than a defined and consistent comparator, the comparison uses a heuri...

algorithms sorting heuristics

enderland

15:29

@Change hmmm, it kind of comes across as a rant against your company

user41796

@JimmyHoffa - RE: monitors. Unless I'm comparing them side by side, I have a hard time telling the difference across monitors. I tend to stick with bigger / well known brands. And if you're getting two of them, then make sure they are the same make / model. Otherwise, you will notice the differences.

enderland

@GlenH7 ugh, having two close-but-not-the-same monitors is one of the worst first world problems EVER

Thomas Owens

I've been very happy with Dell monitors.

Go to Dell, find a monitor that you like, buy 2. Done.

user41796

I've had good luck with dell, acer, view sonic, asus(?)

user41796

any more, it seems that they all are able to hit a minimum level of decent

Thomas Owens

15:32

BREAKING NEWS GUYS.

user41796

?

Thomas Owens

Drink To Your Health: Study Links Daily Coffee Habit To Longevity

4

user41796

Oh, wait, did'ya mean "don't base your presentation on functionality that MS promised to turn on the night before?"

Thomas Owens

> People who drank three to five cups of coffee per day had a lower risk of premature death than those who didn't drink, a new study finds.

enderland

@ThomasOwens 3-5 cups? woooooooooooow

user41796

15:33

Poor speaking skills; nothing to demo; just a lot of filler

enderland

@GlenH7 I'm in an allweek long workshop. :\

user41796

pretty much the same here, except it's a dev conference

enderland

I don't think I really am going to be needed here, either, though it'll be a high profile project

user41796

All these assumptions....

user41796

At least I have been able to get caught up on things I've been neglecting. Definite benefit of bringing my own laptop

Ampt

15:37

@JimmyHoffa I think its a combination of "Finding good programmers is hard" combined with "The pool of people claiming to be able to program is too damn high"

when everyone and their uncle has made one webpage with JS claims expert level java knowledge, it's easy to narrow down the pool by saying "Only accept resumes of people with bachelor degrees", and is a reasonable way to do so.

then when you start actually talking to the people, you realize they all suck at programming

@GlenH7 learn something for me.

Thomas Owens

@Ampt How much do you think it matters what the degree is in? Compare someone with no degree and someone who has a non-technical degree who has the same amount of education - a combination of free online courses, a GitHub account with projects of the same quality, and perhaps a paid boot camp.

Ampt

@ThomasOwens I'm not claiming that it's the best way to filter your candidates, just that it's a widely used method

enderland

it matters because a lot of people just go with the "do you have CS or CompE degree? if yes, you can code. if no, you can't code!"

Ampt

maybe "Reasonable way" was the wrong wording - "reasonable sounding" may be more apt.

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Well, what are you thoughts or experiences?

Ampt

15:44

@ThomasOwens previous paid programming experience > academic background

enderland

it seems to me, the only reasonable way to interview people is a coding exercise, followed by a phone interview where you ask questions about "why did you do X?" or questions showing they actually were able to write the design

Ampt

for someone who's already got the job - AKA Jimmy, the academic background is less important. I think Jimmy would disagree with me if I said it wasn't important at all

enderland

plenty of companies are obsessive about things like degrees...

Ampt

@enderland agreed, but that's an HR thing more than anything IMO

enderland

@Ampt yeah but in many (most?) companies HR controls hiring

Ampt

15:46

that's more "Well how do we pay someone without a degree compared to one with a degree doing the same thing"

enderland

or filtering of applicants. etc

Ampt

I guess I need to ask then: what's the question here? How do you find good candidates, or how do you get past HR screening?

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens me as well, Dell, Samsung and Philips (Samsung) are the ones I've had that stuck in my mind as "these seem nice"

Ampt

@ThomasOwens they make some good stuff.

I've got an asus now and enjoy it quite a bit

samsungs are OK, they use them a lot a work, but they're probably not expensive so maybe thats why they're kind amessed up

Duga

Your question in Stack Overflow is likely to be off-topic. Please ask your question on programmers.stackexchange.com — Hi I'm frogatto 18 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

15:49

@enderland realistically if you measure my cups against a norm; I do 4 a day so I'm right in the sweet spot. just 2 larges

enderland

Oh okay thanks i'm on the wrong section. I'm changing it right now. — Rémy Laville 17 secs ago

Duga

@HiI'mfrogatto this question will be downvoted and closed on programmers.stackexchange.com. It's very vague and not at all a good fit on any SE site currently. — enderland 28 secs ago

enderland

ughhhh

Ampt

Furiously mashes refresh button on home page

Jimmy Hoffa

I'm pondering whether it's worth while to grab one of these 120hz or 144hz monitors considering it's my home system so I'll be gaming on it as well.

enderland

15:52

pew pew

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa get one of the ones with the Nvidia G-sync. I hear it's an absolute game changer

enderland

lulz. 46 seconds, 3 close votes, and 4 downvotes.

Ampt

@enderland YOU'RE OUTA HERE

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt oh! Yeah I should definitely do that, thanks for reminding me since my card supports it

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa haven't used it yet, but it's definitely on the list now that prices are starting to get more reasonable

no more screen tearing, EVER

Morning @JonEricson

Jimmy Hoffa

15:55

@enderland need to put that fastest-close query into the queries meta post to see if you guys beat the record..

Ampt

huh - there's a handy notification when a post you're editing has been deleted

enderland

@JimmyHoffa I'd think that was pretty close, I feel bad for that guy. I kind of want to go downvote that person who suggested p.SE but there's really no way to educate people who spam "post on p.se" stuff (btw @JonEricson if you can fix that problem we'd be quite a happy bunch)

Jimmy Hoffa

ugh G-Sync significantly increases the price..

amazon.com/Acer-XB240H-Abpr-24-Inch-Widescreen/dp/B00QS0AK6U

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa that is the downside, yes. It's not super mainstream yet.

@JimmyHoffa Here's a 1440p 27" with G-sync. It's like 30% more than comparable non-gsync 27" 1440p

Jimmy Hoffa

All told the cheap option I was looking at involved 2x 1080p X 24" + arms -> 2*(160) + 60 -> 380, I could go to a single large screen like 27" or 30" with higher res to get little less screen real estate with same pixels available for viewing apps/etc

@Ampt amazon.com/Philips-272G5DYEB-27-Inch-Ultimate-Performance/dp/… 27" g-sync philips for $500..

Ampt

16:02

@JimmyHoffa I'll tell you what - I have essentially the non-gsync version of that 27" and I love it

@JimmyHoffa 1080p vs 1440p

Jon Ericson

@enderland You guys have a pretty good idea of how often that happens, I imagine.

Ampt

@JonEricson the above may be one of the most prime examples I've seen in weeks.

14 mins ago, by Duga

Your question in Stack Overflow is likely to be off-topic. Please ask your question on programmers.stackexchange.com — Hi I'm frogatto 18 secs ago

Start there

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt ah yeah, if I go for a single screen instead of two I need more pixels to fix visual studio + applications all visible at once..

enderland

@JonEricson there's a reason there's a bot here posting those comments :)

it's a horrible UX when someone posts a question on SO, gets told to come here, then gets closed/downvoted..

Ampt

we had little to no chance to educate the real user problem here either

which is the one recommending to post here with poor questions

enderland

16:05

@Ampt yeah, I was thinking that person probably didn't get a comment ping from me

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa I can send you some pics when I get home of mine if you'd like

@enderland if they did, they very likely didn't get a chance to read it.

enderland

maybe. I have a notification still for my ping on the now deleted p.se question?

Duga

Questions that ask "where do I start" are typically too broad and are not a good fit for this site. People have their own method for approaching the problem and because of this there cannot be a correct answer. Give a good read over Where to Start, then address your post. — DavidG 20 secs ago

Ampt

did he just link to our where to start?

I.. what? I can't handle this rollercoaster of emotions.

enderland

That's happened a few times now

> We have performed this process with Europe for 30+ years

ok... guess I won't be changing that process. lol

Jimmy Hoffa

16:09

@ThomasOwens I can't agree more with how good for you coffee is. However those studies are almost always lacking in really important controls... who drinks that much coffee? Mostly people in specific income categories, participating in certain levels of activity per day (ergo the coffee). Increased income + activity = longer life... that's already known.

Thomas Owens

That's true.

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa get out of here with your logic. I want to believe that me sitting on my ass for 8 hours a day chugging coffee is actually good for my health.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt Shutup with your implications that it's not! You assault my way of life sir! Now where are my tardis slippers, my feet are cold..

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa are they bigger on the inside?

Thomas Owens

I'm thinking about licensing my blog and all of its contents (including media that I post) as CC-BY-SA or CC-BY.

Ampt

16:14

@ThomasOwens I don't mean to be rude, and please don't take this as anything but constructive criticism, but I think your time in government work is showing. You seem to be way more focused on the process than the actual thing being created lately :)

Nothing wrong with that, just an observation with the recent chats haha

Thomas Owens

The process is the most important thing. You can use it to create n things.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens so long as someone is willing to create them

...goddamnit. @Ampt freesync (apparently AMDs competitor with G-Sync) monitors are considerably cheaper :|

Thomas Owens

I wish I could use my lunch break to write posts. But our stupid filtering software makes that damn near impossible.

Ampt

@ThomasOwens It begs the question - do you want a blog, or do you want to perfect the process to make the blog.

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Yes.

Ampt

16:17

you can have both, it just takes considerably more time.

Jimmy Hoffa

Can someone explain to me why the hell somebody would want a curved monitor? I just don't get it

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa yeah but then you have to use poopy AMD drivers

Thomas Owens

Although there is no such thing as a "perfect process". It's "my perfect process, in this given moment".

Ampt

</fanboy>

phew, almost forgot that

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt I wouldn't go AMD especially with how much I use game stream on my shield

Ampt

16:18

@ThomasOwens I feel like your "good enough" for a process is a few factors higher than most bloggers

I hope it works, you're going to have the most pristine and clean blog ever, which is awesome.

@ThomasOwens Pen and paper?

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Yeah, except I have drafts in the blog started.

So instead I read SE, Quora, and other blogs to find interesting things to write about and make a list.

And answer questions, too.

Jimmy Hoffa

I think I'll just get 2 of these amazon.com/Acer-XB240H-Abpr-24-Inch-Widescreen/dp/B00QS0AK6U and no monitor arms

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa hold on, are you gaming on both?

otherwise I would say just get one with gsync and one without

save some $$$

Jimmy Hoffa

57 mins ago, by enderland

@GlenH7 ugh, having two close-but-not-the-same monitors is one of the worst first world problems EVER

but you're probably right. I've had such in the past..

I don't think it would irritate me too much

Ampt

find the model that the gsync one is based off of

Jimmy Hoffa

16:31

Have any of you seen a curved monitor?

Ampt

yeah, one of those funky superwide ones

the 21:9 one

it was actually pretty slick,

gah they don't use that chassis for anything but that stupid monitor

it wouldn't look the same

CURSES

user114359

2

Jimmy Hoffa

28" UHD (3840) with G-Sync would probably give me enough real estate...

Ampt

@AshleyNunn I stole my GFs kindle and bought the next Mira Grant book - about 1/4 through it now - it's great so far

dialog is just a little hard to follow

she tends to ramble between people talking, or even in the middle of people's sentences. Maybe it's to further the whole "insane" thing, but it just makes it difficult to read.

user55340

hidden-features

Ampt

16:46

@MichaelT Can we delete both those questions but leave the tag open? :D

@JimmyHoffa And a good neck workout :D

Thomas Owens

I just got an email about a company developed plugin for Outlook. If I install it, I can choose to disable the "reply all" function on emails that I send. However, it only works for other employees and not on their smartphones.

ratchet freak

BCC also solves reply all

Thomas Owens

@ratchetfreak That's exactly what a coworker said.

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