The Whiteboard

Robert Harvey

02:57

Welcome to the wacky world of Academia, where preserving people's feelings trumps actual results. — Robert Harvey 41 secs ago

Thomas Owens

11:31

I don't suppose anyone is familiar with GStreamer?

Kit Z. Fox

12:34

@ThomasOwens I wish I could help.

Aaron Hall

13:18

Guess who's back... back again?

Kit Z. Fox

You!

Aaron Hall

Tell a friend!

Kit Z. Fox

hee hee hee

Aaron Hall

14:20

Hey mon! I see that name and I get taken straight back to the islands (well just Crown Heights, Brooklyn...) and now I want me a spicy patty.

Robert Harvey

15:23

Walk the BST and insert each node into an AVL. That's O(n). — Robert Harvey 1 min ago

Ixrec

@RobertHarvey Walking a BST is O(n) but each insertion is O(log n) for an AVL tree, leading to O(n log n). — amon 26 secs ago

Robert Harvey

Is that how the math works?

Ixrec

yes?

n * log n = n log n

you can ignore multiplication by constants because O(2n) = O(n), but O(nlogn) != O(n)

ratchet freak

but you could probably balance a tree in O(n)

Ixrec

it does sound possible, I just don't care to look up how AVL works lol

ratchet freak

15:38

if only by dumping it out into an array and then splitting up the tree from the ground up

Robert Harvey

So you can combine O's across two different processes like that.

Kit Z. Fox

I need a sanity check.

Robert Harvey

Sorta makes sense.

ratchet freak

you have O(1) random access in an array

so dumping out takes O(n)

then you know that the median value is your root

Ixrec

sounds a lot like an in-place heapsort

ratchet freak

15:39

then all elements smaller than it are descendants on the left

and all elements larger go to the right

so filling a AVL from a sorted array will be O(n) as well

Ixrec

now that you mention it that sounds completely trivial

ratchet freak

it does take O(n) extra memory

Ronak Agrawal

hi

Aaron Hall

@KitZ.Fox crazy like a fox?

Does communications of expectations magically happen?

Ronak Agrawal

i was working with C# and used 'virtual' keyword and override the method using 'override' keyword in the derived class,,but if i remove both the 'virtual' and 'override' keywords, i am still able to override the method in base class...so i thought every method in C# must be virtual by default like in Java, but turns out that is not the case...so how am i suppose to override the base method without using 'virtual' and 'override' keyword

Ixrec

15:55

@RonakAgrawal are you sure you're still overriding it and not merely "hiding" or "shadowing" it? that's one of the classic newbie mistakes when stepping into the mindgames that inheritance creates

i.e. if you invoke the method polymorphically from a base class reference bound to a derived type instance, do you get the derived type's implementation?

Kit Z. Fox

@AaronHall It's not that. We've got this group of filters that I labeled "Products" and business says it should be "Availability" or "Status" and neither of us thinks the other one is making any sense.

I think they are crazy.

Ixrec

the internet is telling me that if you're missing either keyword, it hides the base class method instead of overrides it

Ronak Agrawal

what would be the difference from a derived class perspective?

Ixrec

define "from a derived class perspective"

ratchet freak

if A is the base and B is the derived and foo is the function then check is which foo gets called when you do A a = new B(); a.foo();

Aaron Hall

15:59

you're labeling in terms of what the items in the filter are, and they're labeling in terms of results.

ratchet freak

inheritance is overrated anyway

Aaron Hall

:/

Ixrec

if you do B b; b.foo() then you get B's foo no matter what, likewise A a; a.foo(); always gets A's foo

the whole overriding thing only matters when you want polymorphism

though still don't hide base class methods, it's confusing and nobody ever wants that behavior (even though every OOP language allows it...)

Ronak Agrawal

if I am inheriting a class, i would just not use the 'override' keyword, and when i call B.foo(), it would always call the new method

Ixrec

if B is the base class, then no it would not

Aaron Hall

16:02

Put their label on the results, put your label on the filter, and tell them it's final since they aren't qualified to know what they want.

ratchet freak

yeah but what happens if you have a B but the code has the (static) type as an A

that's where the difference lies

Ixrec

(and yes, inheritance is overrated; this stuff is hard to understand properly and for most problems it's simply more hassle than it's worth)

(except when it's only interface inheritance, that's a good thing that's easy to understand, but it's not what we're talking about atm)

Ronak Agrawal

@ratchetfreak sorry if i am being naive, but '(static)type'-->are we talking about a static method?

ratchet freak

well yeah but when implementing an interface you should get a compile error if you fail to implement a function

Ixrec

@RonakAgrawal Nope, completely unrelated to that kind of static.

To explain what that meant, consider: A a = new B();

the variable a is declared as having type A

ratchet freak

16:05

@RonakAgrawal no I mean that a variable has a dynamic type (which class it was initialized as) and a static type (the declaration of the type)

Ronak Agrawal

okay..

Ixrec

that is its "static" type, in the sense that that's what the compiler gets to assume and uses for all of its compile-time checks on what you do with a

its actual concrete type at runtime happens to be B, but the compiler still won't let you do any B-specific things with it because you bound it to a variable of type A

ratchet freak

if you then call a virtual function on a the compiler will check the runtime type for the correct function to call.

Ronak Agrawal

oh...i did not know it works that way

Ixrec

yeah, it takes some getting used to

Ronak Agrawal

16:08

i will try and implement and see what happens..

Ixrec

notice that the way this weird inheritance relationship works bears no resemblance whatsoever to the way the real-world Player <-> Batsman relationship works =)

Ronak Agrawal

exactly, i was having the same thoughts..

Aaron Hall

Batman <-> Robin?

Ronak Agrawal

this is not traditional Inheritance.

Ixrec

lol

Ronak Agrawal

16:09

i am like, where were these concepts all my life before o_O

Ixrec

the main place where this stuff is actually useful is for "interface inheritance"

where an interface is an abstract base class with no fields, and no method implementations, only a set of method signatures for each derived class to implement

interfaces are useful far more often than base classes

ratchet freak

there can be some utility functions in the abstract base

but those should be minimal

Ixrec

you mean static functions?

Ronak Agrawal

well, my current notion is slightly different; i tend to try with abstract, and that usually suffices all my requrirements

Ixrec

I'm not sure what that means but I assume we'll find out next time you show some code

Ronak Agrawal

16:13

:D

thanks for being a great mentor, my learning has spiked since i joined this ChatRoom
Hail *The WhiteBoard*

Ixrec

usually the interface thing shows itself as a program that wants to call foobar() on a bunch of objects, but each of those objects wants to do the foobaring in a different way, so they all implement the IFoobar interface and the top level of the program just iterates over a bunch of them calling foobar() polymorphically

e.g. when I'm using SFML I'll have a container of Drawables and iterate over it calling draw(window) on everyone, so they draw themselves to the window, even though some of those objects are colored rectangles and others are pieces of text and others are image files

it's awesome when it fits the problem, the main thing as a beginner is to avoid overusing it

Ronak Agrawal

yeah..makes sense, may i did not try enough problems, to get Interfaces implemented

*may be, i

Ixrec

in fact in real apps I suspect the most common usage of interfaces is swapping out the real implementation with a mock implementation for unit testing

Ronak Agrawal

yeah..i think i have seen that implementation

i will take a look at the concepts above and get back.

Kit Z. Fox

16:30

My devs are making me crazy today with "ask the other dev".

Ixrec

I sometimes feel guilty for ping-ponging bug tickets between teams even when there's no way I could've solved them myself because they are for some other team

Steven Burnap

That's been my life lately. I make the mistake of being the only person to comment on the ticket and suddenly I'm the go-to guy for it even though I haven't a clue about the code it involves.

Kit Z. Fox

I don't mind it so much except that what I want today is for one dev to say "I'll take care of it" and if that means to give it to another dev, then he will give it to the other dev, instead of giving it to me and asking me to do it.

Ixrec

ah, yes when a ticket lands in my bucket it is always my job to throw it into another bucket

Kit Z. Fox

This isn't middle school. We don't need to pass notes via friends.

Ixrec

16:33

or if I'm very lucky, actually fix the problem

the downside of being one of the client-facing parts of the system is that we get all the tickets for every other part of the system

Kit Z. Fox

I'm just being crabby today anyway.

Steven Burnap

Yup, that's where I am. We do the client code, and so often I am proxying defect communication down a stack of ten layers.

Ixrec

I'm half-joining you since I'm on bug week

Kit Z. Fox

Oh, and our team got everything out to UAT a day early, and business still didn't look at it until today.

Because they were too busy and no one could make it to the regular backlog grooming meeting and blah. grumble

Thomas Owens

17:01

@KitZ.Fox Did you really think that they would look at it if you got it to them early? In my experiences, delivering on time can be a surprise.

Kit Z. Fox

@ThomasOwens They asked for it early. They complained that we hadn't been giving them enough time.

So we gave it to them early and they are looking at it late.

It couldn't be more obvious that our lateness in giving it to them in past sprints was a convenient way for them to blame us for their lack of readiness.

Thomas Owens

Oh. Well, I don't know what to say about that.

Kit Z. Fox

@ThomasOwens "Man, I hear you."

It's just today. Tomorrow I'll be cheery again.

Robert Harvey

17:19

@toddmo: We're here to help people with their conceptual software development problems, not to locate words or make up new vocabulary. The latter is the very definition of "primarily opinion-based," and the very essence of bikeshedding. — Robert Harvey 7 mins ago

Kit Z. Fox

Paint it red. That's the best color for a bikeshed.

Robert Harvey

17:41

Your little red wagon will be hard to find in there.

Kit Z. Fox

Not the inside. You don't paint the inside red.

EcstaticSnow

shhh

Aaron Hall

19:22

Is it a good thing to be on an SME list in a large org?

Simon Forsberg

@Duga will now give each "programmers"-comment a score using real Machine Learning. So far only logged in Duga's Neighborhood, but if everything goes well I will use that classification to decide what comments to post here.

As an example:

in Duga's Neighboorhood, 3 mins ago, by Duga

Certainty level 0.4 (ML Classification 0.0014800626095624802)

Aaron Hall

neato!

Ixrec

does that mean we'll soon be able to tell it when it got a true positive or a false positive like with SmokeDetector?

Simon Forsberg

@Ixrec Possibly.

Aaron Hall

and countermand it?

:P

Simon Forsberg

19:27

Is SmokeDetector also using Machine Learning? Or is that more hardcoded?

Ixrec

considering how many people reply to it with "TP" and "FP", either there's some massive cargo culting going on or it's doing real machine learning

Simon Forsberg

You know if it is open source?

Aaron Hall

Could I train it to be an SME like me?

Simon Forsberg

What's an SME?

Ixrec

I feel like it probably is

Aaron Hall

19:29

Subject Matter Expert

Pressure's on, but I can do it.

Ixrec

just say "guru" like the rest of us =P

Aaron Hall

Yeah, no way we're ever going to have a "guru list."

Simon Forsberg

@AaronHall Probably not yet for several years :)

Aaron Hall

"Now this looks like a job for me. So everybody just follow me..."

Simon Forsberg

@Ixrec SmokeDetector might have done some Machine Learning, but now it seems to be just regex and stuff.

Ixrec

19:43

darn

Simon Forsberg

@Ixrec Unless this counts as Machine Learning....

Aaron Hall

"Cause we don't want any controversy..."

heuristics?

Simon Forsberg

What are you talking about, @AaronHall?

Aaron Hall

heuristics are rules of thumb that (AI's|anyone) can use to help make better decisions.

Simon Forsberg

Isn't this entire ML project for @Duga a kind of heuristic on it's own? Or perhaps it involved too high accuracy to be called "heuristic".

Ixrec

19:56

depends on what definition of heuristic you're using

if you're going by ordinary English definition, yes every "AI" program ever is a blob of heuristics

more strictly speaking, there are particular AI algorithms such as A* that have a formally defined component called a heuristic; the algorithms we normally call machine learning such as neural networks do not have any direct equivalent to it

Simon Forsberg

yeah, exactly.

Ixrec

in that formal definition, the heuristic is a relatively cheap function the programmer supplies which the algorithm knows nothing about and is incapable of improving in any way, and usually it's up to the programmer to prove the heuristic is any good

and my god is it a pain to prove it

Duga

20:15

This question is off-topic here. This site is for programming and programmers tools related questions, not general computer or software support. You're looking for Super User instead. Voting to migrate it there. — Ken White 9 secs ago

Simon Forsberg

@Ixrec So where there is Machine Learning, there is no heuristics ("incapable of improving in any way")

in Duga's Neighboorhood, 2 mins ago, by Duga

Certainty level 0.81999993 (ML Classification 0.12003470462706806)

Machine Learning vs. Old Classification: 1 - 0.

Duga

The correct thing should be to drop the piano on the compiler writers who, given T *p;, are unwilling to regard *(U*)p=whatever; as being a potential access to things of type T or U, but would instead insist that programmers use memcpy, which compilers must treat as a potential access to things of every type even when the programmer knows the pointer will never identify anything that isn't a T or U. I don't know why compiler writers decided they could make the world a better place if they force programmers to write code which is harder to read and less optimizable, but they did. — supercat 7 secs ago

Simon Forsberg

in Duga's Neighboorhood, 1 min ago, by Duga

Certainty level 0.75 (ML Classification 1.0269348006943974E-4)

Machine Learning vs. Old Classification: 2 - 0.

Something tells me I will flip the switch pretty soon. Probably during the weekend or at the beginning of next week.

For the record, I will probably set the threshold for the ML classification to be about 0.3

Intrus

Hello, what's the best IDE with autocomplete (desiderably of syntax too) for C++ for WIndows? And is there any with documentation included?

Simon Forsberg

so every ML Classification >= 0.3 will be posted here in the future. (the current old classification threshold is at 0.49)

74

Q: Best C++ IDE or Editor for Windows

What is the best C++ IDE or editor for using on Windows? I use Notepad++, but am missing IntelliSense from Visual Studio.

Jörg W Mittag

20:30

Problems Americans will never understand #583624: Figuring out what language an Amazon Instant Video movie/show is in. Gargh. Is it asking too much to just list it? </rant>

Robert Harvey

12

Q: I want to make some programmer friends but don't know where to really look

I know this is one good place but what I'm really looking for is contacts, maybe seeing them online, have intelligent conversations etc. Where I live there isn't that many programmers around me because I'm self employed. I'm sure if I were to work in a company I would be surrounded by some. I don...

communication

One more vote to delete.

Ixrec

done

Intrus

Oh, he had 12 upvotes :D

Ixrec

upvotes mean nothing

well, not very much

Intrus

Well, he won't get the reputation... But I would expect downvotes, not upvotes for that question.

Ixrec

20:41

> asked 4 years ago

this is the main reason upvotes don't mean a whole lot

on a newer question I'll take them a bit more seriously

Robert Harvey

Rep gained from upvotes on old questions is preserved anyway.

Intrus

Really? Good to know.

Ixrec

I forget how many days it is but yeah after long enough the rep is locked in place

Robert Harvey

90 days, or somesuch.

Intrus

:O

This is quite a short time I think.

Robert Harvey

20:46

If it's been on the site for 90 days without the community disposing it....

Ixrec

like most places on the internet, almost all activity on a post happens very shortly after it's posted

if it doesn't get deleted in 90 days, it ain't gonna get deleted unless a big scope change happens at some point in the future

Auberon

20:58

shivers

Ixrec

seems like you could just expose the category and skip the obvious isCategory functions

Auberon

I don't feel comfortable revealing categories at all.

Ixrec

if the code working with User objects needs to know if a user is an admin or not, what else is there to do?

obviously doing so securely is entirely beyond the scope of that object

come to think of it it's not clear that getCategory belongs in User

Auberon

I think the same thing can be accomplished using polymorphism.

Instead of classes that are able to reveal what they are.

Ixrec

how would that work?

IUser.executePrivilegedQuery() has to be implemented to throw an exception for all non-admin users?

Auberon

21:09

Admin/Issuer extending User and Dev extending Issuer.

Ixrec

what's the benefit of having that inheritance instead of just a boolean property or two?

Auberon

who knows whatever user specific functionality is required, later.

Ixrec

"I don't know" is not a persuasive argument lol

Auberon

What if Admin can ban Users and other users can not. Would you have, in User, have banUser(IUser user) { if (!isAdmin()) throw Exception(); //ban user}

or would you rather have a subclass Admin in which you have banUser(IUser user) { //ban user }

Ixrec

in practice, I wouldn't put any of that logic inside the User class to begin with

whatever server side process received the { requestType: "ban", userId: "..." } request object would go look up if the sender has admin privileges and if so execute it

EcstaticSnow

21:25

I have to do a survey for computer programming with atleast 10 people, so here's the question... What is your preferred computer OS?

Ixrec

Windows 1

Auberon

TempleOS

EcstaticSnow

@Auberon ReallY?

Ixrec

my honest opinion is that as OSes they're all about the same, it's entirely a question of what software exists for each one, and what culture their userbase has

EcstaticSnow

You have another idea for a survey? That was just the one given

Ixrec

21:32

VTC off-topic

=)

EcstaticSnow

<.<

Auberon

@EcstaticSnow No.

Ixrec

(slightly more serious hint: ask an interesting question)

EcstaticSnow

Maybe I'll just randomly do it

Auberon

Survey suggestion: favorite cat meme.

EcstaticSnow

21:36

New survey Define Rap in two words.

Duga

You might want to head over to programmers.stackexchange.com — azurefrog 59 secs ago

Ixrec

@Auberon personally, I've always been partial to Business Cat

EcstaticSnow

@Duga I was going to put a "programmers.se is not a toilet bowl" comment, but it already got deleted

mdjunction.com/forums/panic-attacks-discussions/general-support/…

EcstaticSnow

22:43

How would I go about starting a SE site

Ixrec

area51.stackexchange.com

Aaron Hall

Be sure to start one called SoftwareEngineering.SE.

Then we can migrate all of our stuff over and they can have NPR again.

:D

EcstaticSnow

Wow, someone tried to start a SE site just for python

Ixrec

23:00

someone successfully started an SE just for emacs

EcstaticSnow

...

OK looks like this room is still working

Anyone know where I can find a chat room or atleast one guy who develops custom android roms, or even a book because it is proving to be ~~a pain in my arse~~ impossible to find any information on this topic.

@StevenBurnap Love your bio "wishes he was doing Python but is instead managing a web development team"

Steven Burnap

23:16

Be warned: don't go into management. You'll have to spend all your time dealing with....people....and not coding

EcstaticSnow

To be honest sounds like your job ~~kinda sucks~~ isn't that great. I'd rather be sitting in a chair using python

Steven Burnap

Oh, it isn't so bad. The Internet is just for bitching about work

EcstaticSnow

As long as you enjoy what you do. Well, I got to get back to trying to find some information to learn

Steven Burnap

But yeah, the problem with software development is that it's hard to stay in it for a whole career without going into management

EcstaticSnow

Well I have no idea what I really want to do yet. i'm just dabbing around in different places. I enjoy coding and development, but I hate sitting down. I'd rather be outside building something than in an office, So I really have no idea yet. Just learning everything I can before I make a decision

Steven Burnap

23:26

Get a standing desk. :-P

People tend to say "do what you love", but in the real world, that doesn't always pay. So really you just have to find the right balance between what you like/can stand, and how much money you want/need

You are in school? Best way to determine if you want to code all day is an internship

EcstaticSnow

Here are the things I'm interested in. I don't know the job categories that have to do with coding, so the naming with those might not be right. Application/Software/Game Developer, Android Development, Personal Trainer, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and then just landscaping and just building what ever

About to be finished with school

Steven Burnap

Game Development tends to require very long hours and tends to pay lower than average. Job satisfaction is high, from what I know.

My next door neighbor is a general building contractor. Makes his own hours, seems pretty happy from what I can see.

Robert Harvey

Windows is the "also-ran" of the C++ world. — Robert Harvey 3 hours ago

Steven Burnap

No one else can tell you what you enjoy

Ixrec

23:42

game dev also has far worse job security

one of my coworkers used to work for Crytek but came to our boring financial data services company because he wanted something more stable

Steven Burnap

Yeah, game companies have a nasty tendency to lay off the dev team when development ends.

Duga

This site is for programming (code) and programmers tools related questions, not hardware recommendations. In addition, questions asking for recommendations are listed as being off-topic in the help center guidelines - see the list of numbered items on that page, and specifically item #4 in that list. Good luck. — Ken White 20 secs ago

Ixrec

@Duga FP

I can dream

EcstaticSnow

I do love decompiling games then adding awesome stuff

Ixrec

make the best mod of all time so the company that created the original game has to hire you

EcstaticSnow

23:51

I decompiled instagram and added a feature which makes a person's followers tag appear green if they are following you. It was pretty easy

@Ixrec I doubt that would ever happen

Steven Burnap

Modding is a great way to get yourself into the industry. Better than a degree

EcstaticSnow

Reall? Because modding really isn't that much work considering most of the work is already done. You just edit what you don't like and add "cheating" secrets

Ixrec

it shows you can actually code a video game

degrees don't quite prove that

@EcstaticSnow I think we're both thinking of "total conversion" mods and similarly high-effort things

EcstaticSnow

meaning/example

Ixrec

the equivalent of you making your own DLC for the game

EcstaticSnow

23:57

Oh makes sense

Ixrec

pcgamer.com/the-best-total-conversion-mods-ever <-- for what I meant by "total conversion"

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