@Gilles 12 downvotes on an SO-style non-answer that got massively upvoted from HNQ, and all the necessary delete votes from review and a mod hammer to bury that crap. Whew, there are still people here who care. Thank you, Unix & Linux community!

@Gilles Electromagnetic energy whooshing through the void's?

'S'nice when it works. :)

Does that not actually delete it?

Ah. Net positive score.

@terdon Yes. Thanks for deleting it. It is nice that we managed to find 12 people to downvote (and I didn't even post the link in chat so there was no pile-on).

It wasn't an Answer.

@terdon this is public information if people care to look

I see my r$ peeking out :)

@JeffSchaller SO closed the question anyway. If there are already 3 votes for migration, you can't prevent it anymore, but a mod can. (Except by leaving the question open, but that question shouldn't have been left open)

I want to post on Meta as well, but I'll mention it here in case the audience Venn diagrams don't overlap -- would anyone care if I made a substantial number of post edits in a sitting? It'd fill (flood?) the "Questions/Active" page, so I'm wondering how many people care about that view.

@JeffSchaller please avoid doing more than 10 or so

if you're going to do more, discuss it on meta first, and pick a quiet time and do it in batches

@Gilles I've been restraining myself to 3-4 at a time ever since Jenny D made a polite comment one Sunday morning

wouldn't a "busy" time be "better"?

during a quiet time, my updates would more-flood the page

the idea of a quiet time is that it gives time for people to see new questions/answers before they get shoved down by your updates

another way is to do only a handful at a time, then wait a while, repeat. But that's time-consuming.

ok; and I suppose seeing a flood of "modified by Jeff Schaller" entries would be a tip-off about what I was up to

@Gilles I know, but I saw no reason to point fingers. One of them disagreed, after all.

indeed, I have a batch of "work" waiting in SEDE, so I'm not sure what my overlap will be

@JeffSchaller Dammit! :P

@terdon no worries, I stand behind my voting. (Apologies again for my accidental SO migration vote)

@JeffSchaller Don't worry about it. If everyone were half as conscientious a reviewer as you are, I'd still call it a win.

@terdon I appreciate that. I don't have the answers that some have, but I can try to polish the edges here & there.

though I'll take an easy 50 points thanks to Michael's referral of overexchange's sudo question to the main site

@JeffSchaller so posted:

My head spins when I think about the total number of users vs the active users, so if you care, please comment/answer. Thank you!

@JeffSchaller Why does your head spin?

And personally I don't care how much you edit, or when you edit. Edit away!

But I don't know if that would be a suitable answer (maybe a comment?) to your question.

@FaheemMitha Probably because of the ratio active to total users is really small?

Good morning BTW

New profile picture. Again.

@Kusalananda I'm sure that's true. But also unsurprising.

Or is should be.

@Kusalananda So I see. How are you doing?

@FaheemMitha Pretty ok. You?

@Kusalananda Getting by - sort of. Just had a meeting that was a complete waste of time.

Met with an architect. Asked him for references. The guy flew into a rage, for no apparent reason and said he didn't want the work after all.

Very strange, though perhaps not for India.

@FaheemMitha I was going to something snarky about all meetings being waste of time, but that's not true.

@Kusalananda Depends on the meeting.

@FaheemMitha Did you offer them too little money or something?

@Kusalananda No, he'd already provided a quote.

@FaheemMitha Well, people are odd sometimes.

Well, he provided a quote for drawing up some plans. I was just asking him for references, because I realised I didn't really know anything about the guy. Though in hindsight I should have done so earlier - before getting the quote.

References are really something you want to get as soon as possible. Because if someone can't (or won't) provide (say) three references, you don't want to spend any more time on them.

I've hired people who turned out to be real disasters. And maybe I wouldn't have done so if I had asked for references first.

Though unfortunately in India, at least, references aren't worth much. Though it's still worth doing.

@FaheemMitha When I was running my business if someone asked for references I would point them to my online reviews, and if they still wanted actual references I would politely decline to work for them. I would never feel right asking one of my previous customers if I could give their information to a stranger

@Jesse_b Happily not everyone feels the same way.

Usually people are willing to give references. Whether or not one can contact the references, and if contacted, are they actually willing to talk to you, is of course an entirely different matter.

Unfortunately people in India haven't entirely mastered the fine art of telephone conversation.

@FaheemMitha That's a skill I don't really have either

Actually, one problem that arises here is that people don't have a problem giving the references, but tell me that the people concerned won't talk to me.

Basically the only person I will even take a call from is my grandmother, everyone else better text or message me online

Those people who go by the acronym High Net Worth Individuals.

You see, in India, people with money are too grand to associate with the hoi polloi. Even to have a phone conversation would sully their delicate ears.

But kidding aside, I can sort of relate. One side-effect of living in a lunatic asylum like India is that if you have money, you tend to wall yourself off.

@Jesse_b I see.

@FaheemMitha You seem to really hate India

@Jesse_b Hate is a strong word.

But it's certainly a Third World madhouse.

Does that make it hateable? I'm not sure.

I have heard a lot about how there is a strong "caste system" there

@Jesse_b Among other things, yes.

Though the rest of the world isn't exactly a bastion of sanity either. So perhaps one should not be too ready to throw stones at India.

Look at your current President and the party running things, for example.

They don't think climate change exists, for example.

Still, for day to day lunacy, India is hard to beat.

I don't think either party cares about the people

I'm actually more concerned with the left in this country at the moment though

@Jesse_b I agree. Still the Republicans are definitely ahead in the raving lunacy department.

@Jesse_b Left? What is that?

left wing. Also I think the "raving lunacy department" is debatable. Once you go far to either side you enter that department and hard.

I believe (Mostly hope anymore) that most people fall in the middle somewhere but anyone proud to fall on one side or another is a lunatic in my opinion

@Jesse_b Does this "left wing" also think climate change is imaginary?

They think gender is imaginary

@Jesse_b I'm not sure what that means.

@FaheemMitha me either unfortunately

@terdon: I didn't comment on the fact that I am using [[ over [, I just did it because it's a better test as long as you are using bash anyway :-P

Yeah, more powerful for sure.

syntax error definition (completely opinionated either way): a character or string incorrectly placed in a command or instruction that causes a failure in execution.

@Jesse_b Exactly

failure in execution would be anything happening that you don't want to happen

@Jesse_b Ah, no. Failure means it couldn't be executed. By your token, using $c=2 when you meant to write $c=1 is a syntax erros as well.

@terdon Could be. What do you consider a "bug"? :-P

Basically any mistake would be a syntax error if you group them all under "anything happening that you don't want to happen"

I suppose

@Jesse_b A bug is indeed anything unwanted. A syntax error is using invalid syntax.

I changed it to "code errors"

Thanks

Although, I still don't see why you're using the plural. What other error was there? Am I missing something?

I still consider it a syntax error though. Because it was incorrect syntax

the shell still interpreted it but the improper syntax caused it to be interpreted in an undesirable way

But that isn't incorrect syntax. Is c=2 a syntax error if you want to set $c to 1?

It is improper syntax by the definition of syntax

So echo foo is a syntax error if you want to print bar?

and $c=2 would be a syntax error, you would want c=2 :-P

@Jesse_b Ha! Yes indeed, I've been working in perl recently.

But what wouldn't be a syntax error for you?

I see what you are saying. So I guess not "syntax error" but it is "improper syntax" in that you have arranged things improperly

writing the wrong word is just human error but forgetting a $ when you want to expand a variable means that you have not properly arranged your statement

It has nothing to do with syntax. Syntax is a thing of the language itself, it has no bearing on what the program is trying to do.

> A syntax error is an error in the source code of a program. Since computer programs must follow strict syntax to compile correctly, any aspects of the code that do not conform to the syntax of the programming language will produce a syntax error.

Yea so forgetting the $ is not conforming to the syntax, although I agree it did not cause an error, in this case it simply caused undesirable results

But it is conforming to the syntax. It just doesn't do what the OP thinks it does.

For instance, [ $foo > $bar ] and [ $foo -gt $bar ] are both correct syntax. Using one instead of the other is a mistake in the logic of the program, but the syntax is fine.

@terdon (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

On the other hand, [$foo -gt $bar ] is a syntax error.

alright you win :)

:)

@Trey Ctrl+Shift+U and then 00AB for « and Ctrl+Shift+U then 00BB for »

Ah no, on my US with dead keys layout, I get them with AltGr (right alt) and [ and ]

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