The Whiteboard

Jimmy Hoffa

00:00

Try reading Philip Wadler's blog sometime, the diagrams on there make me realize how completely uneducated I am

@WorldEngineer General idiom for dealing with it that I've learned from other haskellers is that you create your records on your data types, and then you create getter/setter functions in the module with the data types using the record accessors, then when people import your module they specify the getter/setter functions but not the record accessors to avoid the namespace pollution

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa You should write a short intro to haskell for our blog. Not the basics, something a bit more practical...

Jimmy Hoffa

Rather you don't export the record accessors

@YannisRizos this morning I actually scheduled a reminder for myself to try and write another blog entry tonight, one detailing combinators, their definition and their benefits, as a preface to start writing a blog on compositional control flow

Anything I write as a blog post you're more than welcome to edit and repost on the P.SE blog

BTW check this out @WorldEngineer "School of Haskell" just went out of beta this week.

Interesting concept, will be neat to watch as they grow the content. They're starting with 3 extremely well known guys writing their content

Anyway, time to head home; I wrote like a few hundred lines of code today and 30 unit tests! This new job rocks, actually having stuff to do makes the days so much more pleasant.. Will see if a bit of whiskey tonight can help me channel my inner yegge and write something up or not.

Jim G.

00:33

122

Q: Why does automated testing keep failing in my company?

We have tried to introduce developer automated testing several times at my company. Our QA team uses Selenium to automate UI tests, but I always wanted to introduce unit tests and integration tests. In the past, each time we tried it, everyone got excited for the first month or two. Then, several...

@Rachel ^^^ I need a reality check. This seems like an awesome question; yet it's already received two close votes. Is there something that I'm missing?

psr

@JimG. - Both close votes say it's a duplicate.

49

Q: When is it appropriate to not unit test?

I work in a small company as a solo developer. I'm the only developer at the company in fact. I have several (relatively) large projects I've written and maintain regularly, and none of them have tests to support them. As I begin new projects I often wonder if I should try a TDD approach. It ...

unit-testing tdd

user20683

yeah it's a fine question, I'm not sure I'd call it a dupe

psr

I haven't compared them, just trying to answer JimG

Jimmy Hoffa

01:42

Ok, whiskey is poured. Now to see if I can say anything meaningful about combinators, or if I even know anything about them at all..

psr

If not then you can talk about whiskey

Jimmy Hoffa

Also a perfectly viable use of blog space, now that's some premium grade P.SE blog material right there. "How to appreciate whiskey for programmers: A guide to smiling despite your office space life."

user20683

@JimmyHoffa a whiskey blog might work better on Seasoned Advice

Jimmy Hoffa

You'll think differently after your third month working with a couple Bobs

You should actually write a blog about your experiences entering the real world after college when you start interviewing into getting a job and the first 6 months on your first job as a programmer. Would be interesting reading for anyone looking to enter the industry

user20683

@JimmyHoffa plan on it

user20683

01:56

I'm actually gonna write a blog soon about what to major in and why

user20683

run it by some people to see what they think as far as experienced hands go

Jimmy Hoffa

Day 42: I've been begging the architects to upgrade to BLUB2.0 for a week, no dice. Those reports I started are finally getting done but Bob asked me to work Saturday with him, apparently they were supposed to be done last week.

Day 43: Turns out they want the report written using time-weighted averages now. Going to work Sunday too because I need to rewrite them from scratch now and Bob's boss said Bob promised it to him 2 weeks ago.

Day 44: Bob just got fired, new guy came in, wonders why I haven't finished the reports yet, apparently marketing told corporate they were done last quarter.

Day 50: Just started my second job, I think it'll be much better than the last one!

Day 84: I think the project manager might not have an english degree like he says, he never spells anything right at all. I've started growing a beard and I don't know why. Yesterday I yelled at someone because I could see them in the little mirror stuckied to my monitor. I knew what they were up to, they didn't think I knew, but I know...

user20683

@JimmyHoffa I already have a beard

user20683

I work in a store that routinely sees all kinds of crazy

user20683

from every possible angle

user55340

02:04

I keep getting tempted to go for an asymmetric beard for a day. Side burns and mustache on one side, goatee on the other. For some reason, I keep thinking this might have negative employment consequences... sometimes, I'm not sure if I care.

user20683

@JimmyHoffa my father was a systems admin for SGI once upon a time. I've far fewer illusions than most.

Jimmy Hoffa

02:39

Aye, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't be in this industry if I really didn't like it, or on this site as much as I am for that matter. Every good engineer is overly critical, we'd be no good at evaluating competing ideas otherwise, side effect being the prototypical whiney engineer stereotype. Even the bad engineers I've worked with are actually surprisingly level headed friendly people...or the vast majority of them anyway..

That said, I did work with one aspy, and was disheartened at how he was treated by his colleagues in what is supposed to be such a socially-akward culture to begin with, unbelievably intelligent dude

user20683

02:54

@JimmyHoffa discovering the joy of Git at the moment

edmicman

What do people typically use for web-based reporting? We're working on a web app that will have a data analysis aspect - measuring response rates, customer answers, etc. for instance.

Do people usually write custom coded reports, a la Google datavis tools or something? Or do they embed some sort of prebuilt reporting package like Pentaho or Jasper reports or something?

user20683

1

Q: Easy to use web-based reporting tool

I'm looking for recommendations for an easy to use reporting/business intelligence tool that can interface with an sql server or access database. It can be web-based or a desktop tool. Ideally it would be freeware or low cost, and easy to use for users who are not that technically savvy (below t...

reporting business-intelligence

edmicman

I don't think we'd offer customizing reports from raw data source, but instead pre-build things for clients to run.

Jimmy Hoffa

@edmicman I don't know what you're looking for so I'll just throw out a couple things for you to read up on: MS SQL Server Reporting Server, R programming language, Google Analytics, Instrumentation

user20683

@edmicman I'd say make it as easy for the clients as possible

user20683

02:57

if they want raw data reports, be prepared to implement but I'd not give any more access than need be

Jimmy Hoffa

read about those topics for a while and you'll probably have some more clear ideas about what you want. Oh yeah and "Extract Transform Load"

edmicman

Yeah, I use SSRS at work; this would be fitting into a python web app with a mysql backend

I'm familiar with reporting tools, I'm just undecided between embedding some sort of reporting server package vs coding up some custom displays of data, presenting them with some HTML/javascript charting tools and leaving the separate report server aspect out of it.

Jimmy Hoffa

@edmicman google "Python reporting engine", also note "Reports" and "Charts" mean two totally different things and are both completely relevant and worth understanding the difference. Also look at R Programming language

That's an architectural question based on your requirements, including time constraints

edmicman

cool, I'll check that out.

Yeah, we're still hashing out all of the requirements, or at least what the expectations are. At the moment I think it's leaning more on the "reports" side, i.e. tables of data results, vs full on charts and graphs

Jimmy Hoffa

If you know SSRS and are comfortable with that, it might be worth just looking at ETL to move stuff from MySQL into an SSRS system. If you write up all the current requirements (these will be needed to the best details you have) and then detail the pros/cons of the two approaches you're thinking about you probably have a totally valid Q to post asking Which approach people suggest given your constraints and why

At which point people smarter than me will answer..

@WorldEngineer you using the git command line or some UI?

user20683

03:05

@JimmyHoffa command line

user20683

I can't run the GUI for mac, too old

Jimmy Hoffa

good

user20683

and to be honest better to know the command line since I'll likely have to use it remotely

user20683

at some point

Jimmy Hoffa

stay away from any of the GUIs, they seriously confused me until I finally found the windows command line installer (which is a pain because there's a grip of "I'm another git client!" ones out there that aren't the normal one)

user20683

03:07

@JimmyHoffa Mercurial works better on Windows in my experience

Jimmy Hoffa

never touched it, though I've heard it's nice. All the same, the plain old git command line works great now that I have the right conceptual model for it in my head. That said I've never done anything complex with it like cherry-picking or whatever

user20683

@JimmyHoffa I've used dropbox for a while but I need to get familiar with something more powerful

Jimmy Hoffa

isn't dropbox just an internet shared drive?

Create a github account and request permissions to ballOfMud and you can practice pulling and pushing changes there :P

go fix the threading error in the data model while you're at it heh

user20683

@JimmyHoffa I have the account

user20683

sec

Jim G.

03:51

@maple_shaft: I've never seen graphic designers pull long hours, but I've definitely seen testers stay late. // I really agree with Mike Smith though. Even though many people in many professions may log long hours, suits have a particular penchant for asking developers to log long hours to "bridge the gap". Meanwhile, they're home eating dinner with their families and attending Joey's soccer practice. — Jim G. 45 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

04:09

@WorldEngineer I gave you permissions to push into my repo, so when you commit to your local repo, you can push to your github repo, and then push those changes from that repo to mine

not like you can break it, it doesn't even work as it is.

Robert Harvey

04:53

What is that link that used to be in the Programmers FAQ for "any career-development question you might want to know about is already answered here"?

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey you mean the link to the depressed guy who made us all sound like sociopaths?

Robert Harvey

No, that was Paul Graham. :)

Jimmy Hoffa

nyuck nyuck :P

Robert Harvey

I do recall it did have a certain "abandon ye all hope" flavor to it.

Jimmy Hoffa

Yeah, I took particular issue with the parts where it spoke about your colleagues are not your friends and do not care about you one single bit parts, I'm the colleague of people who may read that, and I'm no self serving robot

Would help but I don't recall the name of it or the guy who wrote it... maybe someone with FAQ edit perms can view history on it to see

Robert Harvey

05:00

Meh, the guy I was trying to write an answer for decided to become a douche, so I lost interest.

Jimmy Hoffa

haha, hate when that happens. You suddenly realize you shouldn't have even spent the time you already did trying to help.

Robert Harvey

-1

Q: Has anyone started their programming career over the age of 30?

Has anyone with little to no prior programming experience, started programming at, around or above the age of 30 and had success? I have been a server (waiter) for about 7 years, and before that I dropped out of school. I am going back now to finish a degree in CS, but when I finish I will be 34,...

career-development job-market experience career-transition

Eh, I dumped what I had by way of an answer into a comment. He can chew on that.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey I'm surprised, you just posted a meta Q that convinced me to start flagging and down-voting a lot more specifically because I don't want to keep seeing questions like that polluting the front-page, and you were actually writing an answer to that one?

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa I'm mistaken about this one. It's both too specific and a poll; it has nothing to do with being off-topic, it's just not a good question.

"Has anyone out there older than 30 years old with a felony managed to get a programming job?"

Eeek. Migrated to The Workplace.

Jimmy Hoffa

Is career advice on-topic there? I thought it was off-topic everywhere.

Robert Harvey

05:12

@JimmyHoffa Like Programmers, The Workplace has a hodge-podge list of off-topic questions in its FAQ that have been randomly built from Meta activity. Kinda hard to tell whether career advice is specifically on-topic or not. It's a great way to build consensus, but a terrible way to run a website.

Heh, I have 1478 reputation on The Workplace from four answers. About 1300 of it comes from only two answers.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey total side-note, you're a C# guy, I'm writing something up and not sure what language to write the examples in. I tend to use JavaScript because most people can read it, but the type verbosity in C# makes what I'm trying to portray more clearly; do you think most people are familiar with the C# Func<T,U> syntax enough to understand examples using it?

Robert Harvey

@JimmyHoffa What is the example about? If it's about delegates, Func<T,U> is a non-starter (unless you're using it to explain how delegate work). If your audience already knows delegates, Func<T,U> should be readily understandable to them.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey hah, even funner most of your points there come from answering a disgruntle coworker of @YannisRizos

@RobertHarvey is there a different language you can think of that's commonly known and makes function's as variables clear? I'd use javascript but since there's no type signatures the example wouldn't make clear that a function is being used as a variable.

C# is all that comes to mind

Robert Harvey

05:28

C# is unclear only in the sense that functions as variables are a two-step process. You have to either declare and create a delegate object and pass that around, or create a lambda expression, which should read MyFunction(someOtherFunction(x)), but really reads`MyFunction(x -> someOtherFunction(x))`

Although the lambda syntax is awkward at first, in the long run it's actually more flexible, because it creates a closure around the inside variable.

I'm not sure function expressions are any clearer anywhere else. There's always good ol' C, but then you have to explain pointers.

And then, of course, you have Scheme, which passes functions freely.

Scheme is probably the easiest to understand, in terms of first-class function passing.

Jimmy Hoffa

The lambda syntax is just C# syntactic sugar over the Func/Action types, likely using the same inference the var does. Here's an example for instance:

int AddOne(Func<int> closure) { return closure()+1; }

Robert Harvey

You're probably right about that. Man, I learn something new every day from someone at the Stack Exchange network.

Jimmy Hoffa

in javascript it would be function(closure) { return closure()+1; } and lisps are not well-known enough

Robert Harvey

Well, that works for me. Seems easy enough to understand, and it's apparently somewhat portable.

Someone asked "Can we overhaul the look and feel of Stack Overflow, like Facebook periodically does?" on Meta. It lasted three minutes; the question got six downvotes before he decided to delete it.

Jimmy Hoffa

that was very smart of him; that is, for someone who posted that Q to have deleted the Q, the difference between the two acts indicates one of the acts was extremely smart comparably

Robert Harvey

05:39

Jin changed a couple of fonts on Stack Overflow about two months ago, and the Meta community railed on it for hours. I can only imagine what wailing and gnashing of teeth a complete makeover would cause.

Jimmy Hoffa

Tell him next time he feels like going back to fix the look of one of the SEs the P.SE community would more than appreciate his time...

Robert Harvey

06:19

Will do.

Jim G.

07:55

surabhi

1

android

^^^ @Goma clone?

user20683

13:17

@JimG. IP isn't even close but thanks for the heads up

Yannis Rizos

13:51

@WorldEngineer you around?

user20683

@YannisRizos ish

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer Re the migrate to SO flag: Did you try to migrate? I suspect a q-ban on SO.

user20683

@YannisRizos yes

user20683

he is q-banned

user20683

I lost the post in my browser and then forgot to add a message about it

Yannis Rizos

13:58

@WorldEngineer That's what I thought, I'm declining the flag then. It's a shame because it's not a terrible question for SO.

user20683

@YannisRizos it really isn't

Yannis Rizos

...but he should work to improve his SO posts, not post here to circumvent the ban.

user20683

@YannisRizos yeah, regardless I must get back to work. a mountain of boxes awaits.

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos but that's a YAGNI

Yannis Rizos

@WorldEngineer Cool. Flag declined, question deleted (since we can't do anything to salvage it)

Jimmy Hoffa

14:00

Are you going to start deleting questions quickerly?

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Well there was nothing we could do about this one. Blatantly off topic, and we couldn't migrate to SO as the OP was banned there.

Jimmy Hoffa

14:12

What's off-topic here but on-topic at SO?

Also you evaded my question, are you going to start deleting questions more quickly? I am curious what would happen if the front-page wasn't littered with closed questions

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Implementation and programming tools questions.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Lots of things. Using tools comes to mind (although I don't like that we migrate design tool questions since architecture and design are on-topic here).

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Oh, that was a question? No idea what will happen, but hiding things under the carpet is not a solution. That said, lately I do prefer insta-deleting outright crap...

Jimmy Hoffa

I wouldn't really calling deletion hiding things under the carpet, more like cleaning. (If these things mean the same thing to you, I think you've been cleaning your house wrong)

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa I'm talking about the "more quickly" aspect. I could be deleting them as they come, but that's not really a solution.

Jimmy Hoffa

14:20

@YannisRizos are you sure? Have you emperical evidence proving it wouldn't solve some of the problem?

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Yes (in a way). MSO gets a ton of programming questions from people banned on SO every day, and they usually get deleted pretty fast. But they still keep on coming...

@JimmyHoffa That said, we get a lot less career related questions since I cleaned up our broken windows (deleted about 1K career related questions).

Jimmy Hoffa

You have no control for that evidence though; You don't know if it would occur more or less frequently if they didn't get deleted fast.

Aye broken window theory, yeah I suppose that's about what I'm thinking may be causing a portion of our ills

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa In very broad terms, there are two groups of noobs: the well meaning ones, and the "oh, a textarea, let's put some words in it" ones. The first group benefits from speedy deletions, less crap around to confuse them on what's on and what's off topic. The latter...

In any case, personally I'm only interested in the people that have spend 5 minutes reading the FAQ before asking. There seems to be some confusion there, and we should find a way to help them. We can't change the name, we can't change the design, I'm open to suggestions on everything else.

@JimmyHoffa Now go back to doing some rep-whoring and get to 10K already. We need more delete voters.

Jimmy Hoffa

14:43

@YannisRizos nah, I just completely rewrote someone's question

woo.

Let me know if my edit is...too much...

Jim G.

@WorldEngineer Right. Obviously I don't have access to the IP logs; but that user's behavior seemed very suspicious so I raised a flag.

Jimmy Hoffa

I think it's fine just because, well, the initial question was way too confused

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Link?

user55340

@JimG. There are many Gomas in spirit, but there is only one Goma. Even those who seem like the Goma, may not be the Goma... just channeling the underlying malicious confusion of the Goma.

Jimmy Hoffa

-1

Q: Are there any programming languages understood by all operating systems, if so what?

I'm curious if there's a programming language that you can write code for all operating systems in, and if so what language that might be? I'm guessing something very low-level like Binary could do this, but am not sure.

programming-languages

Yannis Rizos

14:45

@JimG. A better way to raise a flag would be to... flag.

@JimmyHoffa No idea why people are upvoting that. Where's the effort, where's the prior research? <sigh>

In any case, good edit.

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos to be fair, someone at his level wouldn't even be capable of doing the research to answer the question (he didn't even understand how to ask the question on here, his google-fu would have been a complete failure)

user55340

@YannisRizos The original form of that question has a familiar feeling (though the user name hasn't been changed to something 'silly' yet)

Jimmy Hoffa

haha good catch @MichaelT

user55340

That said, its much less than my other hunches. Its more like a faint whiff than a "this is he."

Jimmy Hoffa

However the user is a touch lower level than I'd expect from Leslar

Leslar has at least some technical aptitude, this guy is totally lost.

user55340

14:54

Oh, he loves binary and assembly and programming the computer directly...

user55340

But yea... its a whiff rather than a hunch.

Jimmy Hoffa

Yes, but look at the unedited question this guy wrote, he's conflating the OS and the CPU working with the presumption that all OS's understand the "binary language"

user55340

As I said... it has some of the feelings... but not all (the lack of a silly name, any mention of video drivers or firmware... and no response from Robert explaining why its all wrong.)

Jimmy Hoffa

haha

@YannisRizos I should have never touched that question. It would have been better to let it die quietly, now it's turned into a me-too haven

MadKeithV

@JimmyHoffa In my defense, I'd been writing my answer from when there was only one response, but Martin Wickman beat me to it, and I did upvote his answer because it contained the same information I wanted to convey.

Jimmy Hoffa

15:08

@YannisRizos fix the broken window, delete that question pretty plz

I really wish SE had a messaging subsystem...

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa I don't delete questions that aren't closed.

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos it's closed

@YannisRizos also, the user actually got his answer according to the comment he posted to delnan's answer, so he doesn't lose anything by the question being deleted

MadKeithV

@JimmyHoffa At this rate, I'll never get to the magical all-powerful 10k rep! ;-)

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa The answerers will lose their rep.

Jimmy Hoffa

It'll be easier for them to get rep in the future if the front-page isn't cluttered with broken windows

user55340

15:16

@YannisRizos Is Leslar getting better at avoiding my troll detector? If that can be answered that is...

user55340

(Though, if he is able to completely avoid it, that would be a good thing)

user55340

And what about all the people who won't be able to join the community because they're terrible at making helpful and constructive co-- ... oh.

Yannis Rizos

@MichaelT I haven't noticed him lately. The last incarnation was destroyed pretty quickly, I think Thomas saw his "question" before anyone else did.

Jimmy Hoffa

The last incarnation had a name that was such dead giveaway

maybe 19915 is leslar trying to avoid notice thinking the names are giving him away

@YannisRizos it feels like our question rate has taken off quite recently, I find myself seeing the "There's 1/2/3 new questions, click here to refresh." bar on the front page a lot more than I used to

Any ideas if that's so?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa The rate is certainly up (I wonder if DE.SE has refreshed recently enough to show it...)

Yannis Rizos

15:29

@JimmyHoffa 30 q/day the past couple of weeks.

MadKeithV

@YannisRizos It's that time of year when programmers come out of hibernation, I guess.

Yannis Rizos

Which is probably a lot less than the actual, as I've deleted a lot of questions in that 2 week period.

user55340

data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/84695/…

user55340

(and yea, its a "it hasn't refreshed this month yet" - the most recent data is Feb 28th)

Jimmy Hoffa

I wonder if the election for SO had notices mentioning P.SE election as well that got some SO folks over here

user41796

15:42

@JimmyHoffa - I didn't see any cross post-posting regarding the elections. I wouldn't have known about the SO election if it weren't for the whiteboard.

user55340

remember that silly name thing... 19915 has morphed...

user55340

Nikola Tesla, Moving Along through a Mind

5 1

programming-languages

Jimmy Hoffa

Not certain that counts as a "silly name", definitely nothing like his previous ones

Also I wouldn't expect a troll to list his age

Yannis Rizos

@JimmyHoffa Not Leslar. If he was, you would know by now, I would have suspended the account.

user41796

@MichaelT - that user would be starting to match another troll's profile because of the EE account. Can't find the user reference though. @JimmyHoffa - easy enough to lie about in order to mask the MO.

user55340

15:50

For those who like Ward's wiki on agile... a fork of it was the Meatball wiki for online communities. Some good read there (similar style / depth as one would find on C2) - meatballwiki.org/wiki/WhatIsaTroll and meatballwiki.org/wiki/TrollingTactic

user55340

The challenge is the "Assume Good Faith" part... and admittedly, that becomes difficult over time as one becomes a bit more cynical.

Jimmy Hoffa

data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/102122/…

last 3 months of Q/A count per 7 day period

the edges are partial periods

user55340

There does appear to be an uptick. It would probably be a more useful graph if it was summarized week over week rather than day over day. This way the dips from weekend don't show.

Jimmy Hoffa

ah my time math is wrong.

data.stackexchange.com/programmers/query/102122/…

that's better

user55340

Yep. And that last precarious dip is an edge problem.

Jimmy Hoffa

16:00

mar 8 shows mar 2-8 summed, mar 1 shows feb23-mar1 summed etc

aye

user55340

Line chart shows it... I'm wondering if there is really enough data in a day to do a box chart...

Jimmy Hoffa

eff all that, pie charts are the best! oh sorry, I mean tau charts.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa heh When it comes to culinary matters, I'd rather have two pi's rather than a tau.

user55340

You know the box plot I mean though... right?

user55340

Box plot

In descriptive statistics, a box plot or boxplot (also known as a box-and-whisker diagram or plot) is a convenient way of graphically depicting groups of numerical data through their five-number summaries: the smallest observation (sample minimum), lower quartile (Q1), median (Q2), upper quartile (Q3), and largest observation (sample maximum). A boxplot may also indicate which observations, if any, might be considered outliers. Box plots display differences between populations without making any assumptions of the underlying statistical distribution: they are non-parametric. The spacings ...

Jimmy Hoffa

16:04

oh yeah

Can you change the chart type in DE?

user55340

So you have 7 days in each spot, show the points, box them, and connect the medians.

user55340

I'm fairly certain that DE doesn't have the provisions to easily calculate the inner quartile median and other such things necessary for doing it.

Jimmy Hoffa

16:19

15 new Qs within the last 2 hours

if we average 30/day, that seems..strange..

user55340

17:22

Are github usage questions on topic here? or Stack Overflow? I'm leaning SO for the "tool questions go there" , but I just want to make sure.

user55340

0

Q: How can we search in another branch than master in a private github repository?

On github, when I try to search throught my source code on a private repository, it always show me results from master branch. Is there a way to get results from another branch ?

github search

user55340

And if I did some research... I would have known... stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/github

Jim G.

18:22

4

A: Are you still confused about what Programmers is for?

I've hammered thousands of nails, but no one ever refered to me as a carpenter. Becoming a professional programmer has been a circuitous route littered with coffee stains, lots of books, bad code, and help from a lot of programmers. Maybe Im not there yet? It's been a long time since I've worked ...

@Jeff O and @Rachel: Bravo! Bravo!

@MichaelT Programmers was created to be different from other SE sites. I'm not trying to point out those are on-topic now, only that they were on-topic when the site was first created and were one type of question that this site was created to support. The majority of this site's history can be found in this question and the links it provides if you're interested. — Rachel 1 hour ago

user55340

I think that they are missing the point. The problem questions we have today are not about topicality.

user55340

@JeffO this site wants questions that can be answered - not lists of books, lists of languages, lists of frameworks, overly broad to the point it takes chapters to answer, "why do you hate php?", "What should the user group be named?", "what design paterns do I need to know?", "shark vs gorilla!", "what should I learn next?" and "Is programming for me?" questions. Understanding StackExchange is the problem, not the topic. Look at this search and consider how many are not fitting in SE rather than P.SE. — MichaelT 3 mins ago

Jim G.

@MichaelT: I keep hearing you say, "It scales poorly... It scales poorly..." - What does that mean? It almost sounds like you're saying - "Damn kids! Get off of my lawn!" — Jim G. 26 secs ago

user55340

Slashdot scales poorly - ask.slashdot.org/story/13/03/06/2318220/…

user55340

Someone asked a question, they got a couple hundred comments. Including people making jokes, people answering, people going off on tangents... people commenting on the jokes from people going off on tangents.

user55340

18:33

The niche that Stack Exchange is trying to fill is people who want an answer... not the entire community making jokes about it. For people that want the later, there are other, more well established sites to do it that fit that quite well.

user55340

It may not be the case that every topic fits well into that particular hole, but that is the stack exchange model. And I believe it was designed that way with good and proper intentions (it is frustrating at times, but the alternatives are worse).

Jimmy Hoffa

Here's a great little depressing read I just stumbled across:

csee.umbc.edu/courses/331/resources/papers/sammet1972.pdf

user55340

I used to be active on Deviant Art - the photography forum. It got too hard to ask a question there and actually get an answer (you would get comments on comments on comments... trying to keep up on it and get the answer was difficult). I'm not that active in photography anymore, but I find Photography.StackExchange to be what I would gravitate to.

Jimmy Hoffa

The future of programming languages circa 1972, 40 years later and everyone is still saying the exact same things. This field is at such a stand still.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Ohh... a 1952-1971 language chart.

Jimmy Hoffa

18:38

To summarize he says the future of programming will be: Domain Specific Languages (he calls them "User Defined Languages"), Higher-level programming languages which can be used for systems level programming (who doesn't still want this?), and Declarative programming ("Nonprocedural" he calls it)

I love how he notes multiple times that the majority of discussion about programming centers on a particular set of languages, while all the actual work is occurring in other languages which everyone knows aren't ideal

Huh, the author of that paper is apparently the creator of:

FORMAC (programming language)

FORMAC, acronym of FORmula MAnipulation Compiler was an early computer algebra system based on FORTRAN. It was developed by Jean E. Sammet. FORMAC supported computation, manipulation, and use of symbolic expressions. References Bibliography * Jean E. Sammet, "The beginning and development of FORMAC (FORmula MAnipulation Compiler)", Proceedings of HOPL-II, The second ACM SIGPLAN conference on History of programming languages, p. 209-230, 1993 ISBN 0-89791-570-4 External links * [http://hopl.murdoch.edu.au/showlanguage.prx?exp=158&language=FORMAC History of Programming Languages: F...

Jim G.

@MichaelT Jokes? Who said anything about jokes?

Rachel

@MichaelT Here's another example question that illustrates the confusion this site has. It's a question asking for an algorithm to take an excel column such as AA and convert it to a numeric equivalent. It currently has 4 off-topic close votes. How are algorithms off-topic? This kind of behavior is what is so confusing to new users.

user55340

@Rachel The off topic votes are accompaied with 3 migrate to SO after he posted code.

Rachel

@MichaelT He's asking for an algorithm, not code

hence the pseudocode and the note that he'll do the work to convert it to C# on his own

I'm just saying, that type of thing only adds to the confusion about what's on or off topic

user41796

@Rachel - agreed, and that question appears on-topic for P.SE. He's explicitly not asking for "gimme teh codez".

user55340

18:47

@JimG. The jokes are in reference to what one finds in an arbitrary Ask SlashDot question.

Thomas Owens

I'm looking into having SO reject that migration now.

user41796

@Rachel - FWIW, I've flagged the question for mod review. Dunno where all of our diamonds are at the moment. First week on the job and @WorldEngineer is slacking off already!

user41796

curse you @ThomasOwens - I almost had my snark about world engineer in before you replied

user55340

Questions mentioned in the meta question that were things people were confused about...

user55340

-1

Q: My Company Wants To Get Into Mobile Development -- And Use Multi-Platform Frameworks

To me this seems like a really poor idea. I've used quite a bit of Java's "cross platform" application frameworks and it all sucked. I'm sure things are better than they used to be when people are making this cross platform frameworks but the differences between iOS, Android and Windows Phone is ...

web-development mobile

user55340

18:49

-2

Q: How can I learn algorithms and data structures of any type?

I am a novice computer science and engineering student. I am learning Java but i want to learn from the basics so I want to learn algorithms. Where to start that?

java learning algorithms data-structures

Rachel

@ThomasOwens Algorithms are on-topic on SO, so I don't see why SO can't have it now that it's there. But having it "Closed as Off-Topic" on Programmers only adds to the confusion about what P.SE is for

Thomas Owens

@Rachel Which is why migration is rejected. We don't migrate questions that are on-topic unless the OP asks for it.

user41796

@ThomasOwens - nice flush of the close votes. That was cool. :-)

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 ?

Rachel

@ThomasOwens Fair enough. I see it's already been sent back and reopened by you anyways, that was fast

user41796

18:51

it shows 0 close votes now

user41796

er, duh. I see you re-opened it. Color me dumb. :-(

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 I had an SO mod reject the migration, then I reopened the question on our site.

I'd appreciate some up votes on my comment so it rises to the top.

user41796

your comment got at least one bump

user41796

random, but related Q - is there a way to see the timing of when close votes are applied to a question?

Rachel

@MichaelT @JimG. Since you're both in chat and we're discussing the question, how come you voted to close it as off-topic? I'm genuinely curious what made that question look off-topic for this site.

user55340

18:56

I interpreted the question being changed when he started asking about the code. I believe this changed question is a better fit for SO.

Jimmy Hoffa

I didn't notice the close votes on that question, that felt like a great question to me... asking about algorithms for doing base conversions

Rachel

@GlenH7 The closest I know of is posts/{id}/timeline which will show you a list of days and actions that occurred each day. Other than that, you might be able to check Data.SE once the post shows up there for exact dates

Jim G.

@Rachel He posted actual code, not pseudo-code, so therefore I thought it was a code question; not an algorithm question.

user41796

@Rachel - thanks! and thanks again for asking about the close votes to that question. As a community, we need to better understand what's triggering errant close votes.

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos 39 Q's so far today and it's only noon (here)... it does seem genuinely odd, is someone got an RSS reader feeding every Q from here to Reddit or something, wth..

user41796

19:00

I don't think that GalactiCowboy's clarification of the pseudocode didn't help the intent of the OP on that question. Yes, it was a good comment, but nudged the perception towards HAZ TEH CODEZ

Yannis Rizos

19:19

@JimmyHoffa Not really odd. 30 q/day is an average. Weekends are very slow (5-10 q/d), Fridays are very active (those last couple of hours of the workweek no one works on).

Shotgun Ninja

howdy folks

Yannis Rizos

19:34

Why would a ninja need a shotgun?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Redo your query by day of week?

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos more to the point is does he throw it or shoot it?

...or use it like a sword?

@MichaelT wait wait wait- do you know SQL?

user55340

I'm Lazy. Its the first great trait of a perl programmer.

user55340

And I want it NOW! (Impatience is the second trait)

Shotgun Ninja

@YannisRizos This again?

I use the shotgun in the same way traditional ninjas would use smoke bombs or loud fireworks. As a distraction.

user55340

19:39

@YannisRizos A ninja needs a shotgun so you don't see the minigun hidden behind the tree.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT yes yes, but; do you know SQL?

Shotgun Ninja

@JimmyHoffa ohhhhhh burrrrrn

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Yes. I will admit to having written single SQL queries that are about 300 lines long...

Jimmy Hoffa

Ok good. Call me old-fashioned but I truly lament the death of SQL knowledge among newer developers

Yannis Rizos

I used to show a 1K loc SQL query to candidates during interviews and ask them to explain it to me. Those that didn't broke into tears got the job. (Dirty little secret: I had no idea what the query was about)

Jimmy Hoffa

19:42

Then again, maybe that's because I (sometimes) kind of like SQL. Data modeling and coming up with complex queries to analyse data can be fun.

Shotgun Ninja

@JimmyHoffa I've had to take a course or two on database design; one in high school, one junior year of college.

user55340

And if I can get the DBAs to trust me enough, I also know PL/SQL... I have such fun with joining against dynamic tables -- join ( select ... from ... ) on ...

user55340

Did you ever see that code WTF about sql?

Jimmy Hoffa

? don't know

Dangit, I can't flag one of my own comments. Lame.

user55340

This was one that I saw a bit ago. It had a screen shot that started off... "select (select"

user55340

19:45

When printed apparently was ~7 pages long.

Jimmy Hoffa

haha

user55340

thedailywtf.com/Comments/The-Query-of-Despair.aspx

user55340

2

Jimmy Hoffa

oh my

psr

I got to edit a SQL Server SPROC that was over 20k LOC.

Yannis Rizos

19:49

> Design patterns only work well when the problem domain is sufficiently suited to the features and drawbacks they impose on the design.

Ah, there seems to be a youngster amongst us who knows his trade. Here's an upvote @ShotgunNinja...

psr

Though the daily WTF is really dense with no formatting, so he wins.

Jimmy Hoffa

@psr you frigging wrote MUMPS, you win.

Shotgun Ninja

@YannisRizos whoa, hey.

Yeah, I'm only 21, but I've been nerding out about programming since I taught myself C about 7 years ago.

I'm almost done with a B.S.S.E. from Milwaukee School of Engineering, actually.

Yannis Rizos

@ShotgunNinja What's a B.S.S.E?

user55340

Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering (I would suspect)

Yannis Rizos

19:55

Bachelor Something Something Engineering?

Shotgun Ninja

@YannisRizos Bachelor's of Science in Software Engineering. pedantic But you could have just Googled that first, right?

psr

@JimmyHoffa - PHP programmers need someone to look down on.

Jimmy Hoffa

@YannisRizos I like yours more, I totally want a Something Engineering degree... "What are you?" "I'm a something engineer" "Oh yeah? What do you do?" "Engineer you know, stuff.."

Yannis Rizos

Ah, I see. More used to seeing BSc for Bachelor of Science.

Shotgun Ninja

@JimmyHoffa They have a name for that: Industrial Engineering.

user55340

19:56

BA refers to "Bachelor of Arts" - in a US school, the difference between the two tends to be "BS takes more science classes outside the core area and BA takes more writing classes outside of the core area."

Shotgun Ninja

@MichaelT Yeah... My school doesn't do a whole lot for my program in conventional physical sciences, giving us just past classical quantum theory and relativity as graduation requirements. It does give us a lot of computer science and mathematics, though.

user55340

At UW Madison (and thus likely UW Milwaukee too) - BA requires only 3 credits of bio, 3 credits of physical science while BS requires 6 and 6. On the other hand, BA needs just basic math while BS needs more advanced math. BA requires 4th semester of a language or 3rd semester of one and 2nd semester of another... while BS requires 3rd semester of a language.

Shotgun Ninja

@MichaelT Oh, you're from Madtown?

Yeah, also, UW-Milwaukee is NOT Milwaukee School of Engineering.

msoe.edu

user55340

@ShotgunNinja I'm up in Eau Claire now. Lived in Silicon Valley for 13 years between Madison and Eau Claire.

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