The Nineteenth Byte

Nathan Merrill

2:01 AM

do you have a good idea?

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

sort of

Nathan Merrill

then try it

also, on a personal vent here: does anybody hate how "try/catch" generally works in programming?

Calvin's Hobbies

what do you mean?

Nathan Merrill

I've been trying to figure out a better way to do error handling, and curious if anybody has seen a language with a dramatically better way

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

seriously seriously has no serious errors

Nathan Merrill

2:03 AM

the entire "stop the workflow, and go up the stacktrace until somebody catches it" seems like bad design to me

not that I can come up with a better way (other than preemptive checking, or special return values, but those aren't language features)

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

2D pattern matching
"Metro"

>	turn current metro right
<	turn current metro left
^	advance the current metro forward
^{N}	advance the current metro forward N units
v	move the current metro backwards
v{N}	move the current metro backwards N units
@	station; add the character pointed at to the "passenger list"
;	execute following regex on the "passenger list"

Comments?

feersum

Does @NathanMerrill know about RAII?

Nathan Merrill

yeah, I do, how does that relate?

RikerW

^

feersum

Can you give an example of a situation you don't like?

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

2:08 AM

@feersum when my head ****ing hurts and I'm trying to program

I loathe that situation

Nathan Merrill

@feersum the typical try{} catch{} block

I'm looking for a fundamentally different way to do error handling

feersum

I meant a more specific example than that

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

You could threaten the code

feersum

There's always Vigil which deletes the code :P

Nathan Merrill

consider in Java. It is not uncommon for a variable to be defined before a try/catch, then it is assigned inside the try catch, then used after the try catch

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

2:11 AM

@feersum Soon to be tracking and punishing the user who comitted the code, as well

feersum

I was just wondering whether Vigil has support for VCSes yet

Nathan Merrill

it feels so wrong to write code like that

feersum

e.g. error occurs -> Vigil commits the deletion to git

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

6 mins ago, by Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Comments?

please help me ;-;

RikerW

Add support for rickrolling. Like the 'R' command in jolf.

feersum

2:13 AM

@NathanMerrill It's hard to say how the code could do be better, if anything, if you don't have an actual example

Nathan Merrill

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ what if you wanted to match a square of an arbitrary size?

@feersum I'm looking for language-design, not code-design, so I don't have a specific piece of code

sorry for extra ping :P

Alex A.

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ You should try drinking lots of water (not super cold) and taking some ibuprofen or similar.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@AlexA. not super cold? SHIT

thanks :)

Alex A.

:P

Hosch250

What do you think of the new licensing issue?

RikerW

2:15 AM

IDK.

Alex A.

@Hosch250 I want it to die in fire

4

RikerW

^, Too much fuss.

@AlexA. alex-is-actually-right

feersum

@NathanMerrill When I use exceptions, I usually don't do this

Alex A.

Amon Amarth "Death in Fire"

►

feersum

So it could be a code design problem.

Hosch250

2:16 AM

@AlexA. This can be the beginning of the Code Review and PPCG alliance.

2

Code Review hates it too.

RikerW

@AlexA. Ow, ears and headphones... :(

@Hosch250 We don't treat code the same way.

Alex A.

@RikerW Embrace it.

Hosch250

@RikerW No, but we can fight together against it.

@NathanMerrill Use finally?

feersum

2:18 AM

Avoiding finally's is what RAII is especially good for

ՊՓԼՃՐՊՃՈԲՍԼ

My first Piet program!

Alex A.

@Hosch250 Our overlords seem pretty adamant about forcing this on us

^

2

Unfortunately.

2:19 AM

rofl

^ to ^^^

@Doorknob how common are killer bees in nethack?

Alex A.

@Doorknob Story of my life. My sneezes startle my girlfriend literally every time.

Doorknob

@RikerW very

RikerW

damnit

What about hives?

Doorknob

One or two per game usually

RikerW

Okay.

Doorknob

2:20 AM

There's a guaranteed one in Rodney's Tower unless that's changed since 3.6

RikerW

Found three...

Alex A.

@Hosch250 I'd be surprised if any amount of community opposition would change their mind at this point, given how they seemed to have ignored the feedback on the initial proposal.

Doorknob

@RikerW lucky, grab all the royal jelly

RikerW

Found 3, one in the gnomish mines, 2 on normal level 5.

Hosch250

I wonder if we all left and started a competing site would get their attention.

Doorknob

2:21 AM

👑 \o@

RikerW

@Doorknob Did, but then became a wererat.

Doorknob

@Doorknob royal jelly

@RikerW that's nice

Alex A.

@Doorknob :D

RikerW

Yes, but then polymorphed into a stalker.

Then got poisoned.

Then started hallucinating.

Hosch250

If this goes through, I'll see what I can do about starting one (probably about 5-10 years since I'm still in college).

RikerW

2:21 AM

Then almost got killed by a djinn.

Nathan Merrill

@AlexA. except they can't use the votes as a way to misinterpret the communities response this time

Alex A.

@Hosch250 Code Review and Code Golf can break off into a site with a dual purpose: Get help writing good code and get practicing writing terrible code.

RikerW

Then died by frigging goblin.

Hosch250

LOL, that would be interesting.

RikerW

@Doorknob Wait, is that actually good?

Calvin's Hobbies

2:23 AM

Whats this license deal? Why are CR and PPCG special?

hey guys!

@RikerW ... no

Didn't think so.

@Calvin'sHobbies There was a post on our meta about it; just search for MIT

RikerW

Summoning rats helped with the djinn though.

Hosch250

2:23 AM

@Calvin'sHobbies CR, PPCG, SO and Programmers are pretty much the only code sites on the network.

RikerW

Wait what?

Really?

Nathan Merrill

oooh, you know what

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@TanMath hi

Hosch250

There are, of course, Computer Science, and a couple other related ones.

Calvin's Hobbies

Surely not

Nathan Merrill

2:24 AM

I like how javascript does the fail function

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@ՊՓԼՃՐՊՃՈԲՍԼ nice!

Nathan Merrill

instead of errors

RikerW

Woah, too many convos.

Nathan Merrill

lol

RikerW

Hey @Quill.

Quill

2:24 AM

g'day

Calvin's Hobbies

Ah meta.stackexchange.com/q/272956/266052

RikerW

Do you guys actually say g'day mate in australia?

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

I say it in america. :P

Calvin's Hobbies

meta.stackexchange.com/q/272956/266052 <- what are the +/- votes here?

TanMath

no, in code review, you must say "monking"

Quill

2:25 AM

@RikerW I say g'day sometimes, but I tend to leave mate off. it sounds like I'm addressing someone inferior

RikerW

@Calvin'sHobbies +76/-172

@Quill Okay.

Cyoce

@Calvin'sHobbies too many

Quill

@Hosch250 yeah but quite a few of those have code snippets, Raspberry Pi, Super User, Ask Different, Ask Ubuntu, Unix & Linux, Windows Phone, Tor even

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

er... yes and yes

Hosch250

True. I don't frequent those sites.

RikerW

2:28 AM

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ lol

But only we have the same relation with code. Everybody else does it to help the community as a whole.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

this is true

RikerW

CR is project specific, and rarely helps other people.

PPCG is in essence competitive.

Yes, some people do it for fun, but it is a challenge really.

Disclaimer: I do it for fun.

</rant>

Quill

> and rarely helps other people.

what do you mean by that?

RikerW

I may be wrong, but my interpretation was that CR posts are code-specific, and sometimes don't benefit the community as a whole.

Sorry if I was wrong and/or offensive.

Quill

How doesn't that benefit the community as a whole?

New Sandboxed Posts

2:32 AM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Read the table code-golf Task Read the contents of a table given a set of coordinates. Table formatting Tables will be in this basic format: |[name]|[name]| --------------------- [name]| [val]|[val] | [name]| [val]|[val] | Column names are always unique, as are row names. Names will...

Alex A.

I actually think Code Review is hugely beneficial to the community as a whole.

RikerW

@Quill IDK. I guess I was just wrong about that, sorry.

Calvin's Hobbies

Its more focused on helping the OP's specific code (but that doesn't mean it's bad for the community)

Hosch250

It helps prevent the next generation of maintainers from becoming psychopathic.

Quill

If you mean, we don't write tools or languages like PPCG, then yes, we don't write languages

RikerW

2:33 AM

@Hosch250 lol

NVM, forget I said that pls. I was wrong.

Quill

It's not offensive, we just want people to love us <3

RikerW

lol

Alex A.

Granted, all users here are obligated to hate Code Review due to our ongoing rivalry.

2

RikerW

I don't hate it. I actually have some code to post later.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

ಠ_ಠ

Cಠde review

RikerW

2:36 AM

A learning algorithm based on my state tests.

bai now.

Calvin's Hobbies

@AlexA. Their mods gave me free cookies last time I visited... hint

RikerW

gtg

Quill

@AlexA. hell, I wrote a ppcg answer/question and I still review

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@RikerW bye!

Alex A.

My first gold badge on the Stack Exchange network was on Code Review!

@Calvin'sHobbies You probably get cookies from lots of sites. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quill

2:38 AM

well technically, codereview and codegolf are subdomains of stackexchange.com, and the global site sets global cookies

but sure!

Alex A.

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ Prಠgramming Puzzles & Cಠde Gಠlf

Hosch250

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ I like the eye inspecting the code.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@AlexA. Cಠɴಠʀ ಠ'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Alex A.

(Man, I would love to see "Programming Puzzles &" nuked from our name)

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@AlexA. Me too sorta

Alex A.

2:39 AM

The entire Stack Exchange network knows us as Code Golf and has no idea what "PPCG" is.

7

Hosch250

@AlexA. Super-ping Joel Spolsky.

Quill

Programming Puzzle: Solve why Java is so verbose

quartata

@LuisMendo Just so you know, MATL has been blessed by Dennis: matl.tryitonline.net

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@Quill Java is verbose. Q.E.D.

Hosch250

Code Review graduated just about a week after a CR mod pinged him.

Alex A.

2:39 AM

@Quill Answer: print("Satan")

feersum

Code Golf & Other Things That Aren't Homework

quartata

@AlexA. No no no. System.out.println("Satan");

Alex A.

@Hosch250 Somebody actually pinged Joel? o_O

Hosch250

Yeah, 200_success.

quartata

Wow.

Alex A.

2:40 AM

That guy is a boss.

Hosch250

The CEO.

Alex A.

What'd he ping Joel for?

Quill

yep

quartata

One of you mods with the fancy pings should get on that.

Doorknob

naaah

Dennis

2:40 AM

@AlexA. Branding. Is. Everything.

15

A: Should we change our name?

Code Golf Branding is everything. It's the name the URL uses, the name outsiders use to refer to this site and the vast majority of challenges on this site are code golf challenges. It also eliminates the need for an abbreviation. It describes the site much better than the current name, since w...

Quill

@AlexA. coffee

Hosch250

@AlexA. Because we weren't graduated over a year after our graduation was announced.

Alex A.

@Quill not sure if trolling

@Hosch250 oh

@Dennis Yep! I 200% agree.

Hosch250

You could ping him and ask why you can't graduate.

Alex A.

We know why we can't graduate. :P

RikerW

2:41 AM

How do you ping Joel?

@JoelSpolsky or whatever?

quartata

@RikerW Mods have a fancy thing called super-pings.

Alex A.

A moderator would have to super ping him.

RikerW

Okay.

quartata

It lets them ping people who have never joined this room.

RikerW

How?

Quill

2:42 AM

@AlexA. or challenge him, say "if you outgolf dennis, we don't gradaute for another six to twelve months, but if he wins, we graduate"

Alex A.

@RikerW Like this

Calvin's Hobbies

@Doorknob see? doorknobuadtion-conspiracy

RikerW

@AlexA. So we just can't?

Alex A.

> we don't graduate for another six to twelve months

RikerW

Like @JoelSpolsky does nothing?

Alex A.

2:43 AM

That wouldn't happen anyway :P

@RikerW Correct, it does nothing unless he's been in this room within some period of time.

Spoiler alert: He has not.

Calvin's Hobbies

@RikerW normal users can only ping people in the room

Quill

@AlexA. You can reply to really really old messages, tho can't you?

RikerW

@Quill *∞ to 2∞ months

Just go to the tavern on the meta?

Hosch250

in The 2nd Monitor, Nov 18 '15 at 18:40, by 200_success

@JoelSpolsky Could you please help answer some important long-standing questions about the graduation process, and about transparency at Stack Exchange in general?

Calvin's Hobbies

@Quill hmm, you can

RikerW

2:44 AM

@Hosch250 lol

wow

Alex A.

@Quill Yeah, you can reply, you just can't regular ping someone who hasn't been here in a while.

Quill

in The 2nd Monitor, Nov 18 '15 at 18:40, by Mat's Mug

did you just super-ping SE's CEO?

Alex A.

Dam Son

Calvin's Hobbies

@ChrisJester-Young This is a reply to the first human message

RikerW

@StackExchange This is a reply to the first bot message.

Quill

2:48 AM

So it looks like JoelSpolsky has never actually spoken in chat

He's a RO of two rooms, both of which are frozen

Alex A.

In any room ever?

Maltysen

@Quill does he lurk?

Quill

he hasn't visited chat.se in 135 days

@AlexA. I don't actually think so

Specifically for the 'reply spam' reason, I'd assume

Or perhaps he has better things to do

Alex A.

Maybe he's writing Even More Joel on Software, third in a possibly neverending series of insightful books.

RikerW

Joel Spolsky, New York, NY

101 1

PPCG account

Quill

2:50 AM

he automatically has accounts for every site

RikerW

I know.

I just wanted to find his account.

Quill

most of the staff sign up to every site for meta releases anyway

Maltysen

@Quill is there like a bot?

Alex A.

He's visited us before though

By typing his name in the Users part of the site?

Maltysen

or is that like hardcoded into the SE code

RikerW

2:51 AM

oh....

Quill

@Maltysen it's a SE thing so probably just a custom thing that SE does

RikerW

I am an idiot.

Quill

I wouldn't say bot, and I wouldn't say hardcoded, I'd say... more like.... Internal CMS

Maltysen

how can he have 100 rep and not 101 on a site?

Alex A.

He has 101 though

Hosch250

2:52 AM

One question upvote and 2 question downvotes?

RikerW

lol

Maltysen

@AlexA. check his network profile

and scroll down

RikerW

That is the ≥200 rep bonus from other sites, yeah?

Quill

@AlexA. Um, you know:

You get 1 for signing up

and 100 for association bonus

RikerW

^

Alex A.

2:54 AM

@Quill I was talking about our site.

@Maltysen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maltysen

@AlexA. ah answer downvotes

he has critic

Alex A.

One does not simply downvote Joel Spolsky

Maltysen

@AlexA. no he downvoted

Alex A.

@Maltysen Oh, he downvoted. That makes more sense.

Quill

@AlexA. He's the author of like 10 of the most downvoted posts on MSE

Alex A.

2:56 AM

I know, I was kidding

Quill

oh, I was thinking of Jeff

apparently you can

the voting system really sucks on Area 51 though

Alex A.

Why couldn't you?

@Quill YES

Quill

Area 51 needs a whole clean up

Alex A.

YES

Dennis

@AlexA. Or tell him how long his posts must be.

855

A: Will Stack Overflow boycott GoDaddy because of their support for SOPA?

Yes.

Doorknob

2:58 AM

@Quill whatever happened to the "Area 52" project?

Quill

like the entire site needs shamwowing

Doorknob

I kept hearing about that, like, a few years ago, and nothing ever came out of it

Alex A.

@Dennis :D

@Doorknob What is that?

Doorknob

Revamp of A51. IIRC involving making it an actual SE site instead of having it languish in SE 1.0-state

Or at least closer to being an actual SE site

Quill

@Doorknob Not sure, but I know shog's super busy so IDK where on the priorities that is

Doorknob

2:59 AM

@Quill you say this as if Shog is the only programmer employed by SE :P

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