The 2nd Monitor - 2015-09-11 (page 2 of 4)

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1:01 PM

Review questions should go to codereview. — Kayaman 41 secs ago

Wish I understood why people upvote ...

1

Q: Synchronize access to instance method using static serial queue

In my current project I have a number of data services classes, each one dedicated to a specific source of data so that it's responsible of downloading data from its api, checking for local database and doing inserts or updates as necessary. I needed to synchronize access to the entry point meth...

objective-c synchronization grand-central-dispatch

@Donald.McLean I live in a major metropolitan area that is...rich in crime?

OMC - How Bizarre

@SimonForsberg I was actually thinking of that song.

Monking

1:05 PM

It's more Code Review than Stack Overflow, I think... — Aedix Rhinedale 14 secs ago

Only 78 rep to 3k...

@Donald.McLean Then let's make that today's Friday song!

@Zak he's not your personal mover

me fix

2

I meant to do it automatically. At the code review, the size_t assignation is being done automatically by the compiler, but not hard wired. — alesegdia 23 secs ago

1:07 PM

he was the most recently active person I saw with chat migration powers

and i=Ismael was right, it was getting off-topic

there's always mods

→ 30 messages moved to The Nth Monitor

@Phrancis monking

Yeah, mods. People whose name is in blue type.

Simon, I could use your 5th vote

1:08 PM

how do I ping mods?

Ask nicely and hope

This is purely hypothetical/example/stub code, which is off-topic for Code Review. Importantly, with code like this, it's impossible to answer yes to the list of scope questions on this page (especially since one of them asks "Is it actual code from a project rather than pseudo-code or example code?") — nhgrif 1 hour ago

closed

I'm not certain that was close-worthy.

thanks @nhgrif for the note, this is actually a working code from my project, only I changed the class name. About both methods getData and downloadAndPersistDataWithSuccess, I omitted their code because I wanted the review to be focused on the implementation of the shared serial queue. Is that still not enough? — merocode 48 mins ago

apologies if you wanted a diamond close @nhgrif

1:09 PM

That comment is entirely irrelevant.

How?

Because it doesn't change the question or our rules

How exactly does this question violate the rules?

Should the OP have just omitted those two methods altogether?

Should the OP change Foo to some non-pseudo word?

Then it doesn't compile and its call FooSinethingOrOther

the name FooDataService is a bit problematic.

Code posted on Code Review doesn't have to compile by itself.

1:11 PM

It's called FooDataService, which implies that it's a DataService of some (unknown) type.

Perhaps he didn't want to reveal the actual name?

Which means, @EBrown, he can't answer yes to "Do you want any and all aspects of your code reviewed?"

And he unquestionably can't. In fact, his comment emphasizes that point.

He has intentionally obscured the bits he doesn't want reviewed.

@nhgrif He wants any-and-all aspects of the code he posted reviewed.

what EBrown said ^^

Isn't that the point of Code Review?

And we have intentionally put in rules to prevent that.

Who are you "that ^^"-ing?

1:13 PM

I purposefully omit certain things that I don't want reviewed. Should we go VTC all my questions because I omitted them?

The main question should be: Can the "shared serial queue" be reviewed on its own?

It depends on how you omitted them

@SimonForsberg And it looks as if it can be.

Which means, it should be completely on-topic.

No

How so?

1:15 PM

What if getData isn't thread-safe?

The implementation of the method he primarily wants reviewed actually very heavily depends on the implementation of his other two methods.

I mean, let's first of all start with the fact that no matter anything else, it's got hypothetical names

FooDataService alone is enough to make it off-topic.

I don't agree with that at all.

Yes, they are potentially hypothetical names, but that's not grounds for closing it.

It's a declaration that he doesn't want the class's name reviewed, even though he has included all the other bits of the classs.

Yes, it is.

I've posted reviews that do nothing but review variable names.

You can't mutilate your code in such a way as to prevent particular types of reviews that you don't want to receive.

Hypothetical code is not code with hypothetical names, but code that is a hypothetical implementation.

You can include a limited amount of code, but you can't omit sections out of what you have included.

We emphatically do not want askers to say "Well, this review is wholly irrelevant because the code in the question just used placeholders names which isn't what my real code actually uses."

An asker should never be able to say that parts of an answer are irrelevant because there is a discrepancy between the code in the question and the real code.

If that potential exists, the question is unquestionably off-topic.

Guys, if it isn't clear. Meta that question, that should fix it?

1:20 PM

Huh, ok I just found someone who made a second account to suggest an edit to their own question where they should actually be leaving a comment.
Should I hand this to a free mod?

@SuperBiasedMan lol

We don't need to meta every single question. There's nothing new about this question. We've got an extended history of closing questions that make these exact same omissions.

Captain Obvious

0

Q: Checking to see if all values in an array are equal

I have an array that might be either one-dimensional, two-dimension, or three-dimensional. I'm wanting to check to see if all values in a given direction are constant. Here are 3 functions: # Check to see if all values in the first dimension are equal ...

I actually don't even really understand why we're debating this. This question fits perfectly into the mold of tons of other questions we've closed with the same close reason.

For bonus points I think their comment is a reply about something they've misunderstood.
http://codereview.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/44878

1:21 PM

monking

Fake variable/class names and method bodies replaces with a comment that summarizes what the method does. That's off-topic.

@nhgrif I agree with you, really. But if it causes problem, it's annoying to see a debate between 2 persons about something that could be voted in meta

@nhgrif I'm debating this because I don't think those reasons alone really qualify this code as hypothetical/example.

@Malachi monking

just curious, how many people are ignoring me?

1:23 PM

If @EBrown still disagrees, or if @merocode wants more explanation on his closed question, one of those two should open a meta question. Otherwise, the closure of this question is standard operating procedure for Code Review. This isn't even a gray area.

@SuperBiasedMan flag

@Malachi No I.

@nhgrif I haven't seen any consequential evidence that it's close worthy.

Why am I agreeing wiht @nhgrif..... what did you do wrong now, @Simon?

@EBrown Then you haven't payed any attention to every other question that has been closed using this close reason.

@SimonForsberg Done, thanks.

1:25 PM

@SuperBiasedMan 2 users with the same name?

@nhgrif Whether or not there are other questions doesn't make it correct. All it does is make it a pattern.

12

A: My question was closed as being off-topic. What are my options?

If your question is not real code… Unlike other Stack Exchange sites, which encourage general reference questions and offer broadly applicable answers, Code Review aims to offer customized advice specific to your code. To make that work, we need to see real code. If your question was asking ...

The only thing I can even see there that is somewhat valid, is "Stub Code".

@Malachi I think it's the same person with different accounts because their edit is just attempting to address a comment on their question.

But that's not the argument heret.

> Replace generic identifiers such as foo and MyClass with something that would plausibly appear in a real, useful program.

@SuperBiasedMan what a mess, I just saw @SimonForsberg reply to you about flagging it

1:27 PM

Did you read the first sentence in his question, @nhgrif?

@EBrown Feel free to keep arguing, but two things: When a person says: "My code for a data service class would be like that:" instead of My code is: ...... and then when they have stub methods, and interfaces called "Foo", it's hypothetical. Case closed, and the question should be too.

2

Whatever, I'm done with this.

I'm tired of being strong-armed.

Excellent

> Unlike other Stack Exchange sites, which encourage general reference questions and offer broadly applicable answers, Code Review aims to offer customized advice specific to your code. To make that work, we need to see real code.

That sentence? Emphasis mine

@Malachi It was super confusing until I saw the rep difference and realised that same name != same account.

1:28 PM

@SuperBiasedMan Is one an unregistered account?

I can't flag a user....

@rolfl yes

Are they? They have an account page. How would I know if they're unregistered?

It's just an account merge that should have been done automatically.

Approve the edit ;-)

16 1

@nhgrif Fine, whatever, you're right as you always are. I don't have the time, nor desire to continue this discussion, because it's obvious that we take every little pedantic issue into account. Rather than explain to the user how they can fix it (and not even paying any attention to the comment they left) we'd just as soon leave it closed.

@rolfl too late

1:30 PM

@rolfl Ah I see now, it's a split account. I rejected anyway because the edit was bad regardless, they were just bolding something in response to a comment, but now they have a comment on the actual post.

@EBrown Not "just assume leave it closed", but "just as soon leave it closed" ;-)

@Malachi Hello! :D

@TopinFrassi Hello!

the author is free to edit the hypothetical out and make it on-topic

@rolfl well sorry for the unintended language mistake, I should say "is" instead of "would be". And for the stub methods, I thought they are out of scope as what I wanted the review for is how I introduced the shared static serial queue.

1:31 PM

@rolfl Whatever, you get my point, and yet insist on being argumentative about a grammar issue.

@EBrown Some advice: It's easy to get caught up in a discussion with @nhgrif. (I've done it myself plenty of times) My suggestion, be careful with the discussions you choose to be caught up in. Don't burn out because of those discussions.

@SuperBiasedMan originally posted as an answer that was converted to a comment.

@SimonForsberg I don't care anymore, it's pointless. It seems the bulk of the community would rather just blindly side with one person (not even him in particular) because that's just how we do it.

This is not the first time it's happened, either.

And it will not be the last.

and I only changed the class name for NDA agreement with client that he wants to own the code

@merocode - You've arrived at an interesting time in chat.... let me give you some background, and perhaps @EBrown (he's relatively new here) will understand some of the history behind why we "aggressively" close hypothetical code.

@rolfl I know why we do it; I don't think this qualifies.

1:34 PM

There have been a "number" of times in the past few years where questions have been asked that "represent" the code, and are not the actual code. This can be for a number of reasons, but normally it is for NDA, or licensing issues. That's typical.

What happens with these question is that people have to start making assumptions about what the code does, or why decisions were/are made. They make a valiant attempt to answer the question, and put a lot of effort in to it, basing their assumptions on what they think th user wants.

I guess it should be asked at Code review — MatthewRock 40 secs ago

Then, after spending time on it, they don't get any rep, and instead get a comment: "Well, I can't do that ABC thing because my code is actually part of a XYZ thing and this is just a representation.... not the real thing, so your answer is just wrong!"

We have had a number of discussions about what can go wrong with hypothetical code questions, and the concensus has been, for the most part, that all reviews of hypothetical code, are also hypothetical.

@EBrown I'm sad to say that Code Review does have several "grey areas", the one about hypothetical code is one of them. @nhgrif continuously fight for consistency, which is (in my opinion) ~~very hard~~ impossible to accomplish. This question is yet another one of those grey-area questions, some people think it is on the white side of the line, others think it is on the black side.

@SimonForsberg So we just assume it's on the black-side if it's in a gray-area now? Got it.

okay, thanks @rolfl

1:41 PM

@EBrown Absolutely not. That's not how I do things. Some times we open a meta about it, and if there's no meta it will be up to the community to decide. Right now, there have been 5 close votes on the question, but anyone with privileges are free to vote to reopen. Right now, it seems like @rolfl has conveyed to @merocode the concerns about the question, so I hope it will be edited and improved, and then re-opened.

Man, didn't know it was the passive-agressive national day

@SimonForsberg Well empirical data has shown, that historically speaking, whenever a question falls into a "gray-area", we tend to consider it on the darker side of gray than lighter.

@merocode Now, I have been burned a number of times on the hypothetical code side of things (then again, I have a number of answers here), and I find them to be unproductive, and I am perhaps too sensitive about them. Your question hit a number of "triggers" for what I consider hypothetical.... and I voted to close for those reasons.... re-reading your question, it's greyer than I initially thought.

And that's my problem (and probably other people's as well) with Code Review.

@TopinFrassi Growing pains of any new community. Eventually you get enough people for there to be distinctly separate viewpoints on parts of the grey area.

1:43 PM

We seem to have a higher threshold for "lighter side of gray" than "darker side of gray", if you know what I mean.

@EBrown I get what you mean.

@rolfl it's what?

@Malachi fixed.,

awesome, that is what I was looking for

@EBrown I don't know what the answer is, but in the absence of experience, I prefer to default on the darker side. I think it's easier to "fix" a situation caused by being too prescriptive, than it is to "fix" being too lax.

1:46 PM

You don't know the power of the Dark Side!

2

@EBrown perhaps for some it is easier to close without receptive intervention than to help the author clarify their questions

@EBrown I can recall multiple times where several members of CR try to find reasons for keeping a question open rather than closing it. I have personally not seen any clear data about whether CR members tend to consider grey-area questions as black or as white. So I cannot unfortunately agree with your "empirical data has shown" statement, I feel that it is your way of saying "It is my feeling that".

@merocode - I think you should be aware that, in general, we close questions "fast" to prevent answers on questions that need to be improved. Once a question is answered we have a "rule" that the code in the question is not allowed to be edited to "fix" issues the reviews point out. It is our experience (at least for the people who have been around a while), that it is better to close, fix, and reopen a question, than to answer "grey" questions that can't then be fixed.

I'd much rather lose some potential users due to a perception of being overly prescriptive, than to risk an influx of questions which need to be dealt with.

Captain Obvious

1

Q: stream manipulating indenter

I've always wanted to be able to steer stream indentation, so that I could write code like this: /// This probably has to be called once for every program: // http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26387054/how-can-i-use-stdimbue-to-set-the-locale-for-stdwcout std::ios_base::sync_with_stdio(false); ...

1:49 PM

I'm out, too much drama

@EBrown removed all "we"s

@Zak I'd rather not lose potential users. We need all the reviewers we can get.

@Malachi Why did you edit this?

it needed code formatting

don't mind me, I'm just ~~working~~ lurking.

@TopinFrassi see you later!

1:53 PM

Well it seems that my opinion of questions is far too permissive for Code Review, I'd rather assume good than bad, so I suppose I'll just stay out from now on. (Rather than start another boring argument.)

A DRAMATIC SURPRISE ON A QUIET SQUARE

3

Don't take life so serious, you won't get out alive

@EBrown "stay out" as in.... stay out from discussions, or from The 2nd Monitor, or from Code Review Stack Exchange?

@Malachi I'm getting tired of constantly being "wrong" because I'd rather not immediately VTC the gray. Rather than allow the OP to improve it (with a comment/whatever) we resort immediately to VTC's.

@SimonForsberg And and all that I deem necessary.

You guys seem to have a specific way of running it, I'll not try to change it.

a community is not made up of one person.

2

1:55 PM

@Malachi /s/is not/should not be/

a car cannot be all wheels.

is not.

@EBrown I understand. Do note though, that "VTC" is actually "VTPOH" - we're actually "putting questions on-hold", whether the question actually gets closed, is entirely up to the OP.

4

it needs an engine, it needs a steering wheel, it needs doors, it also needs a driver

@Mat'sMug They are the same thing. What irritates me is the constant, "it misses one point, better VTC."

1:56 PM

@Malachi been reading Paul's first letter to the Corinthians chapter 12 recently?

@EBrown - @Malachi edited it because he likes putting edited, on-hold questions in to the reopen queue ;-)

I too get frustrated @EBrown and sometimes I don't agree, but I am usually an odd duck in the water, getting everyone wet.

Perhaps someone could recommend how the discussed question can be improved.

2

@rolfl I edited it in the reopen queue, FYI ;)

The question is (if I understand it correctly), how to protect multi-threaded access to a shared resource: a database and a web service. It think it is safe to assume that both database and the web service must not be simultaneously accessed by multiple threads. OP wrote two empty "stub methods" to make the code compile: getData and downloadAndPersistDataWithSuccess. Everything else is concrete full working code.

1:57 PM

@Malachi Ahh

Is it possible to make the question on-topic without adding the full database and web service code?

@SimonForsberg I should be able to say yes. but I actually haven't read it recently

hi

@MartinR Except the FooDataServer, which, to me, means "That thingamabobby that may, or may not be a panouche that does the watszamacallit in the IBM Mainframe server that is on the far side of the recently demoted too-small-to-be-a-planet pluto.

@rolfl You left an open double-quote.

1:59 PM

Drat.... you're rig

Obviously that fire yesterday caused some interesting issues with your typing.

So that is the explanation of all @rolfl's typos

2

I have no excuse.

@rolfl Well, I am late to the discussion and probably everything has been said already. But OP make it clear that he had to change the class name to protect his clients identity. Would "HeWhoMustNotBeNamedDataService" make it better? Also this seems be a minor point to me, just my 2ct. (I voted to reopen.)

@MartinR That's my point exactly. We're focusing specifically on closing it for two (minor) issues: the fact that ___DataService was named FooDataService, and the fact that he omitted two method implementations to draw attention away from them.

2:08 PM

I really want to say something to that code but please post it on codereview as @Kayaman said. — Flown 25 secs ago

@EBrown (s/he)

@SuperBiasedMan Can't edit it now.

@SuperBiasedMan it's she actually :) and I will try to put the 2 omitted stub methods later on today.

2

I wrote a C sieve and it is fast as hell, but crashes at a measly 9 000 000 limit, that means 9 Megabytes, but I have 8 GIGAbytes of RAM, so this looks weird to me, ideas?

@Caridorc 9,000,000 whats, though?

2:12 PM

@EBrown up to the number 9 000 000

If they are int types, then that's 36,000,000 bytes.

@EBrown they are bool types

@Caridorc Which are secretly int types. ;)

@EBrown what a grevious inefficiency!

@Caridorc Yep. It's done so for other reasons, though.

2:14 PM

@EBrown where can I find a true bool in C?

@Caridorc Make one, unfortunately.

@EBrown this seems all but easy

@Caridorc You can define a struct with an int type, and a Set(int index, bool value) which uses bit-wise operators to determine which int bit to set, and a bool Get(int index) which does the same for a Get.

@EBrown this is way over my knowledge of C

Maybe I should just go segemented

@Caridorc Which version of c is it?

2:17 PM

@EBrown the last one.

I'm not even sure if I have a C compiler anymore.

I go biking now, see you soon.

I thought Visual Studio had an option for coding C?

@Malachi I think it does, but I have to find it again.

IIRC, you have to make a C++ project, then down-convert it to C.

Captain Obvious

1

Q: Java Optimize-code

I've been working on this elevator program for quite some time now and finally finished it and made it work and I'm pretty proud of myself, but I'd like to see ways how to optimize my code so I can learn for the future. By optimizing I mean, making the code look better, maybe by using less lines ...

java performance memory-optimization

2:37 PM

@EBrown I have never tried to write in C before, but I do remember seeing C++. sometimes I wonder if I should learn C++....

@Malachi Yeah, to use Visual Studio with C you just rename the .cpp files as .c.

does it have intellisense for C and C++?

Yeah, albeit not as good as C# but it's still pretty good.

would be awesome if I could write Arduino code in Visual studio! something I need to learn all over again....lol

Man, my head feels really foggy today...not sure why either.

2:41 PM

@EBrown - while you may not realize it, this question has become a somewhat decent example of how on-hold questions should be working (in Code Review). The question was incomplete, it got put on hold, there was communication with the asker, they have indicted that later today that will improve the question. The site now has a decent-quality question in the making.

3

@rolfl It seems to me, that more often than not, the asker never returns because their question was put on hold merely minutes after being posted.

While that may be how it seems, and it may even be how it is, if people are not willing to put in the effort to ask a question that's worth sticking around for, do they really care about the answers?

^^

The close reason is very clear, if they bother to read it.

@rolfl If my question was put on hold immediately after posting, I wouldn't bother returning either, because it's clear to me at that point that this community nit-picks.

2:44 PM

> "Questions must involve real code that you own or maintain. Pseudocode, hypothetical code, or stub code should be replaced by a concrete example

(note the dangling " ;-)

Consider how much effort goes into answering - if OP puts zero effort in asking, and gets away with it, something isn't right

You guys may not realize it, but some people take that personally.

And unfortunately, one of the things this community really lacks is tactfulness.

Sep 4 at 13:32, by EBrown

@CaptainObvious VTC borken

It seems you are happy to slam shut questions too.

> it doesnt appear to work.

So?

2:48 PM

That's pretty much in the question itself.

there used to be a flag that was auto raised by the system to let people know that a question was closed (put on hold) without a comment

@Malachi still is

It's the first question by a new user to the site, and it was put on hold immediatly after.

it is good practice to comment when you vote to close, so that the user knows what is going on

> Hi, you may find this question is better suited for StackOverflow; we only review working code here. Sorry! – A Red Herring Sep 4 at 13:33

> apologies I've just realised I posted in the wrong area, many thanks for letting me know. – Max Thorley Sep 4 at 13:35

2:49 PM

@Mat'sMug I never see it anymore..... is it a low rep feature?

@rolfl But it's not gray.

5 mins ago, by EBrown

@rolfl If my question was put on hold immediately after posting, I wouldn't bother returning either, because it's clear to me at that point that this community nit-picks.

I was respoinding to that.

@rolfl With an invalid scenario.

We nit pick about broken code too.

Borken code is different from hypothetical/stub/example code. Code either is or isn't borked. There's no gray there.

2:51 PM

Time for some "Are we too nitpicky?" meta?

> Borken [...] borked.

@Morwenn Yes, I purposefully spell "broken" wrong.

Well, I understand why you feel the process was harsh, it was harsh, but I have experienc ein this area that you are not taking in to consideration which is that it is easy to ask questions, and hard to answer them, and that it is much harsher when you answer a question to be told "that's not the point".

@Mat'sMug Haha, I always answer « yes » to that question :D

@Mat'sMug I'm more concerned on the "Should Community Challenges be monthly, or quarterly" Meta.

Which I am preparing at the moment.

2:52 PM

THey should be neither, by the way......

they should be "when the community feels it would be useful".

4

Of course, that's a grey area, which sucks.

@rolfl Then you're welcome to propose that as an answer when this question is up.

@Malachi It is a moderators-only thing. Previously, those with access to mod tools were able to "help" moderators with some flags, but that was changed long ago as it didn't really have any effect. Only moderators see real flags now.

eh, last time I posted a community-challenge meta, was for April.

23

Q: April 2015 Community Challenge

Last time we created and reviewed Simon Says games, and that was a lot of fun. So, what should we do this time? Feel free to resubmit non-winning ideas from previous rounds, although new ideas are usually more successful. Post an answer to this question with your challenge Vote for those answe...

discussion fun community-challenge

0

Q: Should Community Challenges be monthly, or not?

Noticing the the September 2015 Community Challenge has just started (10 days ago), a few things came up in chat (that concerned me): http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23991661#23991661 @EBrown Community Challenges never die out, they just take a break every now and then. Pers...

discussion fun community-challenge

and before that, was pre-WinterBash

May through October are all your doing, folks!

2:59 PM

Winterbash is coming

I need to write a to do list for next week.....

Captain Obvious

0

Q: TI-Basic: Sieve of Eratosthenes for Prime Generation with Python translation

I was originally going to write this intro as just being the bare-bones "here's my problem, here are some ideas, what do you recommend" format (Which I am still going to follow, mind you), but I've decided to also add some backstory to it. In High School I would write inefficient programs that g...

python performance memory-optimization ti-basic

4

Q: Should Community Challenges be monthly, or not?

Noticing the the September 2015 Community Challenge has just started (10 days ago), a few things came up in chat (that concerned me): http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23991661#23991661 @EBrown Community Challenges never die out, they just take a break every now and then. Pers...

discussion fun community-challenge

@Mat'sMug and when was the last time you posted code for one?

@SimonForsberg Simon Says

@SimonForsberg Interesting question..........

the last challenge code I posted was 2 days ago, but because we have a structured challenge system going at the moment, instead of saying "Let's do a Mandelbrot challenge as a community" I just went my own way.

3:06 PM

Part of this is due to how this whole thing started. They were "weekend challenges" at first - small projects to be implemented and put up for review within a weekend's time. The idea behind them is really just to make a reason for reviewers to post questions and get their own code peer reviewed. Now they're more or less of a pool of ideas for things one might want to implement for fun, and put up for review. For the longest time, the trigger for the CC meta was someone in chat saying "hey, it seems it's been a while since the last CC, should we do it again?" — Mat's Mug ♦ 20 secs ago

I knew posting that question was a bad idea.

how is it a bad idea? I see +4/-0...

2

Is there any way that previous ones could be highlighted rather than making new ones? Having an array of different challenge suggestions that aren't time based might come off as less pressured and daunting. — SuperBiasedMan 7 mins ago

I like that ^^

We are a bit bad at showing what our previous challenges were.

they originally were all linked together, with nav links and all

The problem with the current CC's (at least to me) is that none of them require abstract thinking. They aren't really, interesting, at least to me.

3:09 PM

I have a meta-se post I should update.....

@EBrown So, propose one that is what you like.

@rolfl I did for October.

I think there's something you're missing when you consider the CC's

you don't have to do the CC at all, or you don't have to do the one that's accepted.

nobody is making you do anything.

I fyou want to do something abstract, then do it....

... don't wait for the community to tell you it's OK.

Well it's no fun if you can't compare how you did it to how someone else did it.

from that POV, my last CC entry was end-of-June:

9

A: July 2015 Community Challenge

Title/Question Analyzer As we all [hopefully] know, posting code that doesn't work as intended is off-topic on this site. Given a title and a body, implement an AI that can detect if a Code Review question is likely to be off-topic broken code.

@EBrown Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe has been my definite favorite. Getting that "right" without having duplicated code is definitely a challenge. Then there's also the one about a Trading Card Game, which the Cardshifter Team is still working on (making a moddable and flexible TCG ain't easy)

3:11 PM

^^ mine too

@EBrown Well, if other people wanted to do it, they would have vote for it.

(and damn, I need to reimplement it.. it was lost with my hard drive last winter)

Agh, finally I realise why my code is throwing an error

@EBrown It's important to add here that the challenges are not competitions. Everyone is a winner. (Not saying that you said that there is a winner, just wanted to add this anyway)

I had a 1 in 10,000 error

3:13 PM

And oh, the Sudoku one was fun. Samurai Sudoku and LINQ ftw :)

@SimonForsberg reminds me of CC#1 or #2, when we rushed to be the first to post!

get-it-done-fast-trap, remember? ;-)

@SimonForsberg Not saying that they are, but if you are the only one who does challenge "X", and there is no one who has also done it to compare notes with, you fall into the trap of not being able to actually improve.

In my opinion, the purpose of CC's should be to challenge the community to create something good together, by combining all sorts of different ways of thinking.

@EBrown While that may happen, that's not the purpose of CC's.

@rolfl Then perhaps I miss the point of this community entirely.

the purpose of CC's is to give people who normally answer questions, an excuse to actually ask them.

The CC's are all about community building..... participation, and fun.

3:17 PM

@EBrown you can still improve from the reviews that you get. Maybe not on how to approach the challenge, but there's always something you can improve on.

Then perhaps "Community Challenge" is the wrong term.

@Mat'sMug like it was yesterday.

Perhaps "Programming Challenge" is better suited.

@EBrown it was considered, but it clashed with programming-challenge

@EBrown It is a challenge by the community, and for the community (not necessarily as a whole).

3:19 PM

Then I've clearly missed the point.

if anyone wants to collaborate on something, they are free to do so. There's GitHub, and there's SE Chat.

For the record, I and maaaaaaaaaaaaaartinus worked a bit together so that he could connect to a UTTT server that I setup, and we could have our bots fight each other.

Other site business, there's an odd question here:
http://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/104433/ti-basic-sieve-of-eratosthenes-for-prime-generation-with-python-translation

Someone wants a code review for a Ti-86 calculator script, but for the sake of readability and a bigger audience they translated it into Python with the intention that answers in Python might still be applicable.

@SuperBiasedMan I saw that too, and was a bit puzzled.

Not sure what to respond to it with, because I have optimising suggestions that are most certainly Python specific so they're probably useless. And that makes me think that answers in Python wont be of much benefit to them generally.

@SuperBiasedMan Indeed, which could mean we end up with what @nhgrif and @rolfl were saying earlier about "well these suggestions don't apply because I'm not actually using Python."

3:23 PM

that ^^^^

This is one of the darker-gray areas.

Say, "just use numpy".

Well I wouldn't say the question needs closing since the Ti-86 code can be reviewed (albeit by very few people). Just that maybe the Python tag and section could be scrubbed out?

@SuperBiasedMan That is likely the optimal case.

Or the OP can make two questions, one which is python and one which is ti-basic.

Problem there is that the Python question is closable (for hypothetical).

So really, half this question is on-topic and half is not.

Just, which half is which?

Why not just get the TI-Basic code up for review instead? Python code is Python. What if a Python reviewer comes along and recommends such or such library, would the response be "thanks but it's not applicable, because the real code is TI-Basic"? — Mat's Mug ♦ 2 mins ago

3:26 PM

Stop being nitpicky..... ;-) You're looking for reasons to close it.....! ;-)

No, I'm looking for reasons to keep it open by finding reasons to close it and invalidating them logically.

Rather than just finding reasons to close it and acting on them.

That's the difference.

the way I see it, the code that's up for review is ti-basic - the python code could be in a blockquote for context for all I care

Google+ hangout (conference)

@Malachi that's pretty random

some things need a formal sit-down meeting

3:29 PM

One of the problems I find with that question is the way in which it's asked:

> Note: I do use an indentation system here because I loved the readability that indentation provides to languages like Python. Could this have any noticeable impact on the performance of the program?

when people are arguing in a chat room for hours, sometimes stopping and setting a specified time and place for the issue to be discussed is the only solution.

@EBrown I see no problem with that. It's all TI-Basic stuff. basically asking "could my using of instructions separators for indenting cause any performance issues?"

it gives everyone time to gather their thoughts and then bring them to the table.

@Mat'sMug Right, but that's something that shouldn't need asked. One can simply remove them from the programme and then run it and test it.

still it's ok to ask IMO. be it only for idiomatic-ness of the code - I'd say "TI-Basic isn't Python; using instructions separators like this isn't likely to cause any performance issue, but sure isn't very idiomatic, I'd remove them."

3:35 PM

@Mat'sMug Do you know if there is a simple way to create custom "class templates" in a project in Visual Studio?

But only for a specific project.

hmm I remember doing that once...

For example, I have a solution which I use when evaluating CR/SO/etc. questions.

And I have the exact same structure in each class.

    public class CR_104418
    {
        public static void _Main(string[] args)
        {

        }
    }

Where 104418 is the question number.

> I think it makes it clearer that the Python code is "just for context" in a blockquote - feel free to rollback if you disagree

It would be nice to not have to copy/paste that method/header every time I go to make this class.

@rolfl still on the off-topic side of the fence now?

3:38 PM

@Mat'sMug The Python code is for readability, and because I want to see if the algorithmic solutions generated in Python can be applied to TI-Basic. As I said, I don't know if it's orthodox. If it isn't a good idea just tell me if I should just remove it and I will. — Zenohm 2 mins ago

@Mat'sMug I have revoked my close vote, and also removed the python tag

good call on removing the tag... and revoking the close vote ;-)

@Mat'sMug Any idea why the internal static method in this question won't compile for me?

internal static IEnumerable<A> Sort(List<A> leistungen, IEnumerable<Sorting> sortings)

A is undefined

But it's a generic, no?

No, it's not.

3:44 PM

it's a non-generic method

Because <A> is missing after Sort.

^ hence it must be a generic class

Yeah.

Making it a generic method for sake of argument.

@Malachi Brace yourselves...

mmmmm ...... pizza

3:55 PM

This is really a question for Code Review — brettdj 36 secs ago

possible answer invalidation: codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/104412/…

@Duga nope. you do see that diamond, right?

> All edits are born equal -- Duga

4

@Mat'sMug She doesn't respect the badge.

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