The Whiteboard

"Better" is rather subjective. Are you going for testability? Extensibility? Something else entirely? You'll also have to define your problem so there's some kind of context.

Dave Rook

This is perfect, thank you. I will ask away! :)

gnat

@MichaelT Vance's article won't go into "wall of text" because of friggin' post length limit. My original summary was ~1400 chars, now it's about 220 and edit still doesn't save; I tried to condense it further but this results in useless link-only crap.

Torture of trying to fit it in reminded me that back then, I had to drop a couple other references and quotes to cut to allowed size, so it's not only Vance that is missing there (it could very well be that Vance was among these "dropped", I felt deja-vu when reading through it this time). Oh well.

user55340

2:30 PM

@gnat Are there any optimizations that you can do on your text (if you wanted challenge the system to put it in)... such as removing runs of whitespace?

user55340

2:48 PM

Hmm... maybe I could ask the question "Gnat, do you have any other bits that wouldn't fit into your first answer" where you could then expand and and get that linked... or, you could make it into one giant image and have that linked...

gnat

@MichaelT yeah I actually test-dropped a few chars that looked like safe to remove. so actual saving was even tighter, to 220 chars at addition and - about 100 chars at deletion, I seem to be about 50-100 chars close to the limit...

user55340

I recall a talk by Jeffry Fridel on the stuff that he did in the early days of Yahoo Finance on the stuff he did to try to save bytes on the outbound messages.

gnat

...when re-checking the text I found that I likely have condensed it a lot before to the max I felt tolerable to keep

image is a good idea

need to ponder it a bit

I still keep drafts of all four intemediate summary revisions I made for planned addition

(first two were really improvements actually0

it's 3rd and 4th when things became degrading because of info loss :(

preview of addition -> screen shot -> image, this might work :)

user55340

I'm not saying its a good idea... just a way of getting around the character size list of a post.

gnat

sure, that's why I didn't fall at it immediately. Need to count +/- of this. But the idea per se is cool

Oh! no there is better way

better = quoteable text, no scent of abuse

user55340

3:02 PM

Too bad SE doesn't let you inline an entire pdf...

gnat

how could I forget, I used this trick already :) "blown up" comments should do the trick, I'd only add a link to the answer...

Dec 28 '12 at 11:49, by gnat

Rachel

6

Q: How can I update a large legacy codebase to meet specific quality standards?

There is a lot of information about tools and techniques for improving legacy codebases, but I haven't come across any successful real world case studies. Most advice is on the micro level, and while helpful, doesn't convince many people because of a lack of evidence it can help at the macro lev...

This question has been significantly edited, and needs 1 more reopen vote

gnat

@Rachel what this question really needs is rollback of slippery rev 5 before reopening (I voted reopen so it's more of a minor nitpicking, rev 5 doesn't look a big deal really:)

@mikelong rev 5 "Focus the text on the case study or evidence" is quite slippery, resource requests are not quite welcome at Programmers. As far as I understand, one would rather present an underlying problem instead - a problem that was intended to be solved with particular resource requested — gnat 15 mins ago

gnat

3:20 PM

that's... hilarious. How do I tell them stop damaging my brain with useless business lingo?

8

A: How can I tell people to get to the point?

You need to forge a new mission statement which establishes brevity as a core value for your organization. Then hold meetings to find stakeholders who will buy in to the innovative paradigm. Be sure to mark down action items for everyone, and track them so that they follow through with their new ...

Rachel

Bah stupid tab+Enter posting my edit before I'm finished

@gnat What about the most recent edit? I think the OP is looking specifically for answers backed up by a real-life example or case study, and not just some popular steps that in theory, should work

user55340

@gnat At 4 words, my brain started hurting. At 8 it gave up. Then I scanned further ahead and read "core value" and "hold meetings" and "paradigm" and it made an attempt to crawl out my ear and hide under the desk.

user55340

@Rachel I know of very few companies that write detailed histories of internal products that are available to the public. Most times its "this is what should not be done" and its kept internally (don't want their customers to know how badly they messed up). And when it is a success, they certainly don't share (letting their competitors know the right way to do things).

user55340

The consultants doing it (much of the time) find themselves NDA'ed to silence on the projects.

user55340

This is what you are more likely to get - brucefwebster.com/2008/06/16/anatomy-of-a-runaway-it-project

user55340

3:35 PM

Those that do trumpet their success do so only in the most glossy and abstract ways that are only suitable for snippits in "CIO This Week" in ways that are designed not to offend anyone who might have a heaping pile of steaming... legacy code still around their code base.

gnat

@Rachel what can I say? your edit was the first one in a long line that tripped my upvote. Really, really well done

user55340

3:51 PM

0

Q: How to refactor such code?

The project is full of such code and the function is really long and hard to understand.. How to refactor? int get_greate_structure(GreateStructure* st) { switch (st->type) { case 1: do_some_business_and_fill_part_of_the_st(); case 2: do_other_things_a...

refactoring

user55340

There is a line in there that reads GreateStructure *st = AllocateGreateStructure();

user55340

I keep wanting to put a comment on that line that somehow references All your base.... "For Great Justice!"

user55340

0

A: How is Python used in the real world?

I like pie. I like pie. I like pie. I like pie. I like pie.

user55340

This might need some serious content change to be salvageable, but likely is beyond hope.

Rachel

@gnat Thanks :) It still needs 1 more reopen vote though

Yannis Rizos

4:01 PM

@MichaelT Account destroyed. Does it count as "serious content change"?

user55340

@YannisRizos I suspect that would count.

user55340

My co-workers aren't buying my explanation of that the for( X ; Y ; Z) was changed to for (A : B) by smashing the two semi-colons together to make one colon.

gnat

4:23 PM

@MichaelT no wonder it's getting crappy answers; this is a blatant list-question, almost as described in tag wiki

meta.stackoverflow.com/tags/list-questions/info

too bad my close vote on it has expired

100 views from some reddit I guess did it

job-market tag already sends a strong signal

user55340

5:40 PM

There we go... closevotes ahoy!

user55340

6:32 PM

What is the criteria for a close issue to show up in the close review queue?

Yannis Rizos

@MichaelT Questions appear in the queue when they get their first close vote or off topic flag.

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