The 2nd Monitor

Easterly Irk

16:00

@Kaz What are company numbers?

Dan Pantry

I think I found a bug in our app. i.imgur.com/0o1KjzM.png

Kaz

IT's not so bad when, you know, they actually match

Bernard Meurer

I'm staring to get pissed off by SO

Easterly Irk

Like non-company people using company phone numbers?

Dan Pantry

@EasterlyIrk Unique identifiers for companies. It's how you work out how much each company pays in tax, etc.

Easterly Irk

16:00

oh.

Quill

@BernardMeurer did you get closed?

Dan Pantry

-2ed on an answer

Mast

@BernardMeurer Join the club.

Bernard Meurer

@Quill No, I gave a perfectly good answer and got some dick to say "this isn't code review" and -2

Kaz

@EasterlyIrk Companies House in the UK manages the register of UK companies. Every single company gets a unique 8-digit company number.

Pin Crash

16:01

Did I just miss a starfish-fest?

Dan Pantry

@BernardMeurer to be fair, you got downvoted not just because "it isn't code review" but also because originally your answer didnt' address the question.

Kaz

I have a list of user-entered "companies" to match against actual registered companies.

Dan Pantry

Originally, your answer read much more like a CR answer rather than an SO one.

Bernard Meurer

@DanPantry He only had the error in the first place for ussing a silly approach, and that had already been sorted in the comments

Kaz

But these can often be things like "Stewart Investment Planning (Backwell Branch)"

Dan Pantry

16:02

I would not have downvoted it in it's original state but would not have upvoted it either

That said, it is fine now

Kaz

or [name] @ [company] of [location]

Bernard Meurer

That and earlier today a good answer didn't get accepted

although I got my upvotes

Kaz

So, for each of them, I have to manually query Companies House to try and find the actual company.

Mast

@BernardMeurer That's SO, not many accepts.

Quill

I've been hanging out over at SOCVR lately

Bernard Meurer

16:06

SOCVR?

Quill

SO Close Vote Reviewers

I don't have the rep to CV, so it feels like sitting at a grownups table as a small child

Dan Pantry

SOCk Virtual Reality

Mast

lol

Quill

good way to learn what flies and what doesn't

Kaz

@BernardMeurer There's a reason why my CR rep is 10x higher than my SO rep

Mast

16:06

Try the Triage, you only need 500 for that.

Bernard Meurer

I LOVE doing triage stuff

Quill

@Mast Yeah, I have Triage and FP/LA

Mast

@Kaz Your VBA works, so you can't post SO questions.

Bernard Meurer

I do it everyday at SO

Quill

Hello, @WeareBorg

Kaz

16:08

@Mast Plus the stuff I'm doing tends to already have SO qestions.

Pimgd

My CR rep is higher than SO because I get write rants here

Mat's Mug

@Kaz SO tends to already have the answers, when one is willing to actually search

Pimgd

constructive rants, but rants none the less

it's relaxing

Mat's Mug

it's ~~relaxing~~ fun to bash on someone else's code and earn Internet points for it

3

Kaz

I find I'm much better at explaining why other people's code is terrible than my own.

Easterly Irk

16:11

We also have good tips on optimizing you code on PPCG.

Mat's Mug

s/optimizing/making it unmaintainable

;-)

Pimgd

/

you forgot your slash on the end

Mast

@EasterlyIrk I call bullshit.

Quill

There's good tips on PPCG

Mast

Unless maintainable means short.

And unreadable.

Quill

16:13

On PPCG, you get to learn about the quirky features of languages

Mat's Mug

for some values of "languages"

Quill

On CR, you get to learn about the best practices

Dan Pantry

Unless you use JavaScript, then you already knew them.

Quill

@Mat'sMug esolangs are still languages

Dan Pantry

@Quill not-all-languages?

Pimgd

16:13

... for some values of "features", more like

Mat's Mug

@Quill what does knowing how to optimize code written in a language nobody uses actually teach you besides things that you can't apply to any real code?

Dan Pantry

@Mat'sMug it makes you feel special inside.

Pin Crash

Quirky features like this one? Array.apply(null, Array(N)).map(function (a, b) { return b + 1; });

Dan Pantry

@PinCrash Yes.

Pin Crash

:D

Dan Pantry

16:15

I'm still not sure if that is a hack or genius

with javascript you can never really tell

Pimgd

Uncaught ReferenceError: N is not defined(…)(anonymous function) @ VM1435:2InjectedScript._evaluateOn @ VM1434:875InjectedScript._evaluateAndWrap @ VM1434:808InjectedScript.evaluate @ VM1434:664

welp

Dan Pantry

@Pimgd you need to specify N

Quill

@Mat'sMug Esolangs are great ways to learn about how different languages handle information and internal data and memory.

Not to mention a great way to have fun in the process

Dan Pantry

@Quill so is C. Although, to be fair, that's basically an esolang sometimes. (same for assembler)

Mat's Mug

^^

Quill

16:16

There's still an underlying programming and computer science fundamental topic hidden underneath the obfuscated code

Mat's Mug

I'd rather make an esolang than use one

Quill

pretty much every regular PPCG user has either tried it, or wants to try it

Dan Pantry

@Mat'sMug he says as he writes an IDE for VBA.... ;-)

Pimgd

VBA is an esolang, but it escaped

Quill

@DanPantry sure you can. if you want to gauge your eyes out then it's usually genius

Mat's Mug

16:18

I'm not writing an IDE... I'm enhancing one :)

Dan Pantry

@Mat'sMug yeah yeah and Russians "enhanced" nuclear weapons ;-)

Quill

why not go the full 9 nine yards and just write an IDE

Bernard Meurer

sopython.com/salad

Apparently this is a thing

Dan Pantry

@BernardMeurer wtf

> Tomato - Mild swear word

Quill

Yeah, that salad joke is old though. I think it's retired now

Bernard Meurer

16:18

Just popped on SO python

Mat's Mug

@Quill because...

in VBA Rubberducking, yesterday, by Mat's Mug

I'm starting to hate COM

Quill

apparently most users don't do it anymore

Bernard Meurer

and someone said Cabbage @Bernard Meurer

Vogel612

@Quill because VBA is in a way bound to the Application Host

@BernardMeurer that's normal

read the room rules

Bernard Meurer

I was like fite me dude ur a cabbage lozer

Vogel612

16:19

be happy as long as they don't call you beansprout

Captain Obvious

0

Q: Mini HTML document builder in Java

I have this tiny library for building HTML pages in Java code: HtmlViewComponent.java package net.coderodde.html.view; /** * This abstract class defines the API for logical HTML view components, that * may consist of other view components; * * @author Rodion "rodde" Efremov * @version 1...

Easterly Irk

@Mast Define optimization then.

Dan Pantry

@CaptainObvious java html question without regex?

Mat's Mug

am I the only one scanning for a regex tag on every question that has "HTML" in the title?

Dan Pantry

quick, catch it, it's a unicorn

@Mat'sMug nope LOL

Quill

16:20

16 secs ago, by Dan Pantry

@CaptainObvious java html question without regex?

I hope not

Dan Pantry

I didn't ctrl+f though because that would be cheating

if you scroll through a html question looking for the words "regex", the suspense is very entertaining

Easterly Irk

2

Q: HTML downloader and parser for CR

This program downloads a Code Review HTML file and parses it. Could you review my program? Main.java import java.net.URL; public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { final String site1 = "http://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/"; St...

java html parsing regex web-scraping

Dan Pantry

I thought you were @CaptainObvious then, that would have been comedically great timing @EasterlyIrk

Easterly Irk

rofl

I used to have a bot named Captain Obvious, but he got merged.

Quill

why isn't that tagged stackexchange?

wat

Pimgd

16:22

@Quill 5 tags

Quill

surely parsing is less valuable than stackexchange

Easterly Irk

eh

nhgrif

I'll tell you what

Dan Pantry

hey @nhgrif

Quill

Hey there @nhgrif

nhgrif

16:23

People ask absolutely terrible questions on Stack Overflow.

3

Easterly Irk

leave it be for future generations to horror at.

hey @nhgrif

@nhgrif links?

Dan Pantry

@nhgrif "why is it called Swift when it's slower than C"?

Pimgd

@nhgrif

Dan Pantry

(that's a joke, I have no idea about its speed)

Mat's Mug

Pimgd

16:24

wait, you all had something to say, I thought we were just spamming the guy with pings as a greeting

Dan Pantry

@Mat'sMug .....eat stars

Quill

@Mat'sMug I want to star this, but I don't want a stack overflow link on the starwall...

Mat's Mug

lol

nhgrif

@EasterlyIrk basically, most of the whole site... but more specifically, I believe I've down+close voted the 5 most recent Swift questions.

Mat's Mug

@Quill and this ladies and gentlemen, is why context matters on CR :)

Dan Pantry

16:25

@nhgrif it is a new language - and also the fastest growing after javascript or so I've heard (on SO)

Easterly Irk

@Mat'sMug TNB gets really weird with out of context quotes.

brb finding

in The Nineteenth Byte, 23 hours ago, by Doorknob

@AlexA. "hi, I know your grandson as a bird over the internet" "uhh, okay" "..." "..." "well, see ya"

nhgrif

@DanPantry Yes, but still... the questions are terrible.

Like, one question isn't a Swift question. It's a UXUI question and doesn't belong on SO.

Easterly Irk

link

Quill

@nhgrif, I don't think there's that many gold badge users to close swift stuff yet

nhgrif

0

Q: dismiss keyboard without touch gesture recognizer

I have a view that has two textfields in the top of the view and a tableview in the bottom half. If I add a touch gesture recognizer to the view, table row selection no longer works. One of the textfields uses the default keyboards, but the other uses a decimal pad. I could use return or "Done" i...

ios swift

Quill

16:26

give it time and hopefully it should get better

Kaz

1937

A: Why aren't programs written in Assembly more often?

Hellо, I am a compiler. I just scanned thousands of lines of code while you were reading this sentence. I browsed through millions of possibilities of optimizing a single line of yours using hundreds of different optimization techniques based on a vast amount of academic research that you would ...

nhgrif

@Quill That only helps with duplicates

Quill

really

Malachi

star-fish

Easterly Irk

in The Nineteenth Byte, 2 days ago, by Geobits

You guys didn't know? I thought I gave the webcam address to everyone.

Quill

16:26

I've seen like 50 of those for Obj-C

nhgrif

And a lot of Swift questions have ios on them. I am ios gold badge on SO.

Quill

it's a storyboard thing anyway

@nhgrif Oh, that works

nhgrif

I can dupe hammer anything tagged with iOS.

But the problem isn't duplicates. It's just bad questions.

Easterly Irk

There isn't a close hammer?

Mat's Mug

@nhgrif that's not specific to swift :)

Easterly Irk

16:27

Is that mod-only?

nhgrif

Not a single vote.

Pimgd

Make a canonical bad IOS question

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug I know. It's just specifically bad today.

Pimgd

then you can close as dupe for that one

nhgrif

This question can't even be reproduced:

-2

Q: Swift simple variable error

import Foundation import UIKit class PrincipaleController : UIViewController{ private var datiArticolo : String? @IBOutlet weak var labelProva: UITextView! override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() self.labelProva.text = "holaaaaaaaaa" } func setD...

swift runtime lldb

Mat's Mug

16:28

@Pimgd lol

Quill

You can get the SOCVR script, and hope they'll close stuff, I suppose

Mat's Mug

@nhgrif yet I bet it will reproduce itself hahaha

Pimgd

> self.labelProva.text = "holaaaaaaaaa"

Bernard Meurer

it-compiles-papa-bless

Pimgd

greetings

Dan Pantry

16:29

@nhgrif okay, what does ! mean in Swift? I guess ? means "nullable" or similar. I appreciate I could google this but you'd probably explain it more succinctly.

only asking due to that question having it.

nhgrif

The ! in Swift is a great big sign that says "I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

2

Bernard Meurer

I'm going to write the OGL, Open Goodies License: Everytime it compiles you have to do something good for someone

Dan Pantry

Alright, good enough explanation to me.

nhgrif

Swift has the idea of optionals (nullable). In Swift, if you declare a variable as such:

var someOptionalVariable: Int?

It is a nullable/optional int which could be nil.

But you have to write unwrapping code in order to use it.

there are a lot of safe ways to unwrap and deal with what to do when it's nil

if let foo = bar {
    // bar was non-nil and can be access through foo
}
else {
    // bar was nil
}

let foo = bar ?? 0

Duga

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on codereview.stackexchange.com — Jay Blanchard 17 secs ago

nhgrif

16:32

^ if bar was nil, assign 0 to foo, else assign the unwrapped value to foo

Pimgd

> I want to generate statistical reports and, I have many deferent where clauses so the function became so long I did many refactoring but it is not enough can some one help me with some technics that these technic make the function short and readable

nhgrif

or this..

Mat's Mug

@nhgrif this makes me enjoy C#'s Nullable<T> and if (bar.HasValue) { // bar has a value } else { // bar was null } even more

nhgrif

why?

C# is quite verbose...

Mat's Mug

what's foo?

Pimgd

16:33

magic

nhgrif

foo is a variable scoped within the if

So the point here is...

Pimgd

what's foo's type

nhgrif

Bar's type is Optional<T> and Foo's type is T

Mat's Mug

A if let foo = bar vs B if (bar.HasValue) ...I go for B

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug let me explain why A is better.

A prevents crashes.

Mat's Mug

16:34

lol I knew that would be your next line :)

B can't crash

nhgrif

With B, you can use bar without checking .hasValue

In Swift, in order to use an optional, you have to either unwrap it (in many of the safe ways to unwrap it) or use the exclamation mark like a clown

Mat's Mug

just like you can use bar with A without checking against foo

nhgrif

No you can't.

Duga

possible answer invalidation by Justforfun on question by Justforfun: codereview.stackexchange.com/posts/123232/revisions

nhgrif

Okay, so from now on for simplicity...

Mat's Mug

16:35

what does the exclamation mark clown do?

Pimgd

> Improved Formatting

nhgrif

Assume we're working with this..

 var bar: Int?
 var foo: Int

bar is always an optional int

and foo is always an unwrapped int

Pimgd

@Duga one of the answers: "indent your code properly"

Mat's Mug

right

nhgrif

This will not compile:

Pimgd

16:35

= rollbaccccck

nhgrif

let foo: Int = bar

Won't compile. Bar is an optional int, foo is being delcared as a non-optional

Mat's Mug

of course not

nhgrif

you can only compile with unwrapping code

let foo = bar ?? 0 // if bar was nil, foo is 0, else foo is unwrapped bar

Mat's Mug

i.e. null-coalescing operator is ??

nhgrif

if let foo = bar { /* bar was non nil do something with foo as unwrapped type */ } else { /* bar was nil */ }

@Mat'sMug yes

Mat's Mug

16:37

except in Swift it's called nil for some reason.

nhgrif

guard let foo = bar else { /* bar was nil, must exit scope */ return }
// use foo in this scope

or... there's this

let foo = bar!

This is the sin.

If bar is non-nil, foo is unwrapped bar.

If bar is nil, crash.

Mat's Mug

rookie mistake I guess

i.e. trying to unwrap a nil and forcing it into an int

nhgrif

The exclamation mark here is referred to the implicitly unwrapped optional operator or the force unwrap operator

Mat's Mug

right, and it can't unwrap because there's no value to unwrap

nhgrif

let foo: Int! = 0 // implicitly unwrapped optional
let foo = bar! // force unwrap operator

Dan Pantry

16:40

So that's why it means "I have no idea what I am doing"

nhgrif

There are exactly zero occasions for which the force unwrap operator is acceptable. There is exactly one occasion on which the first is acceptable.

Easterly Irk

You guys have a serious lack of ಠ_ಠ in here.

nhgrif

And even in that one occasion, I'm going to make the case that it's not really acceptable, but Apple is the only one that can fix it to do anything else so we just have to deal with it.

Easterly Irk

with that message is 48, and PPCG has about 2615.

Dan Pantry

@EasterlyIrk Because serious discussion going on :-)

Mat's Mug

16:42

wait wait, the first line declares foo as an unwrapped nullable int?? ಠ_ಠ

Easterly Irk

@DanPantry we have serious discussion also!

@Pimgd ಠ____________________ಠ

nhgrif

var foo: Int!

Easterly Irk

49.

nhgrif

foo here is an implicitly unwrapped optional int.

Which means... technically it could be nil, but it never should be nil.

Captain Obvious

0

Q: How to refactor this code?

I want to generate statistical reports and, I have many deferent where clauses so the function became so long I did many refactoring but it is not enough can some one help me with some technics that these technic make the function short and readable public static function allRejUserByProv($prov ...

php laravel

Pin Crash

16:43

Can we keep the horseplay to a minimum while others are talking about code?

Mat's Mug

swift-is-confusing

nhgrif

You do this to allow a variable to be nil, but know that it's safe-ish to do this because in practice it never should be nil.

In reality, there is exactly one occasion on which it is acceptable, and it's only acceptable there because it's up to Apple to fix and we can't do anything else about it until then.

Mat's Mug

so, in practice it's better to throw a frakkin exception.. why is that "implicitly unwrapped optional int" type even allowed to exist??

nhgrif

@IBOutlet var myCoolButtonHookedUpThroughInterfaceBuilder: UIButton!

Dan Pantry

Thanks for explaining this @nhgrif btw, it's really interesting

Pimgd

16:45

incoming duga

for a repeat offender

Dan Pantry

You should make an article for this on your blog

Mat's Mug

^^

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug Because in Swift, every non-optional property must have a value before initialization is complete. Having implicitly unwrapped allows you to let some things be nil while not forcing you to write the unwrap code all over the place.

Dan Pantry

@nhgrif So an example might be using property injection (for whatever reason) where even though it can theoretically be null you know that in practice it won't be?

Mat's Mug

can't it just initialize to int's default value like everyone else? (e.g. 0)

nhgrif

16:46

And again, the only place it's really acceptable is with @IBOutlets, which don't get hooked up during initialization, but in practice are hooked up before you ever use the code. It has to do with whatever magic Apple uses to hook UI elements to properties at run time.

Pimgd

codereview.stackexchange.com/posts/123232/revisions

Mat's Mug

oh wait, UIButton isn't a value type

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug Well, in reality, you should write a proper initializer.

Mat's Mug

exactly

nhgrif

class BadPerson {
    var firstName: String!
    var lastName: String!
}

^ this is bad Swift.

Bernard Meurer

16:47

Do you need XCode to develop for iOS? Never messed with that magic

Mat's Mug

I can see why

nhgrif

class SlightlyBetterPerson {
    var firstName: String?
    var lastName: String?
}

Dan Pantry

@BernardMeurer If you use Swift, no, it works on other platforms without XCode (Linux)

nhgrif

This also works. The ? is better because it's much safer to work with, but it also means you're writing unwrapping code when you use it.

Mat's Mug

in C# when you declare a private readonly string _firstName; field, you have to initialize it in the constructor.

nhgrif

16:48

class WontCompilePerson {
    var firstName: String
    var lastName: String
}

^ this won't compile

Dan Pantry

@Mat'sMug or in the field itself. private readonly string _firstName = 'foo';

Mat's Mug

yes

nhgrif

(the first two compile and the properties get default values of nil)

Bernard Meurer

@DanPantry Cool, papa bless, any recommended IDEs ?

Mat's Mug

point being that readonly prevents post-initialization assignments

nhgrif

16:49

The third won't compile because there's no way to initialize the class.

Dan Pantry

@BernardMeurer I don't develop Swift, just sharing the word.

nhgrif

class DefaultValuesPerson {
    var firstName: String = "first"
    var lastName: String = "last"
}

Mat's Mug

@nhgrif swift classes seem to behave a bit like .net value types then

Bernard Meurer

@nhgrif Any non-OSX bound IDE you recommend?

nhgrif

This will compile. The values can't be nil. They are mutable. This is blech. We've got sentinel values.

Bernard Meurer

16:50

@DanPantry I forgot you develop Angular

nhgrif

class ProperPerson {
    let firstName: String
    let lastName: String

    init(firstName: String, lastName: String) {
        self.firstName = firstName
        self.lastName = lastName
    }
}

^ this is proper Swift.

@BernardMeurer I'm not sure that you need Xcode, but you do need to be on OS X to develop for iOS. And using anything other than Xcode for iOS would be very silly.

Mat's Mug

does Swift not have constructors?

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug That's what init is. That's a constructor/initializer. Not a function/method.

Bernard Meurer

@nhgrif Sigh, but macbooks are just so overpriced

(Thanks for the answer tho :))

nhgrif

@BernardMeurer You can write Swift on Linux.

Mat's Mug

16:52

so the init identifier has a special meaning then

nhgrif

Yes. init and deinit are special methods on the class. Initializer and deinitializer.

Bernard Meurer

@nhgrif But my point was to develop for iOS

Mat's Mug

makes sense

nhgrif

There are also the idea of required initializers and convenience initializers.

Bernard Meurer

Just for the funs of it

nhgrif

16:53

@BernardMeurer Get a job with a company that provides MacBook Pros as your development machine. Tons of companies do unless you're developing .NET stuff (and even then, the .NET devs at the company I work for use MBP machines with bootcamp or something)

Pimgd

Why would you want a macbook

Bernard Meurer

@nhgrif I'm still about to go to college, I'll see if I can buy one with student discount :)

Mat's Mug

and self is like a this. would it be legal to prefix the firstName field with, say, an underscore, and then do _firstName = firstName (almost typed a semicolon) in the init method?

Bernard Meurer

@Pimgd To beat your ass in chess with style?

And to develop for iOS

Mat's Mug

or it's frowned upon to not be explicit about accessing self?

Pimgd

16:55

I was kinda hoping to play without engines, thanks

Duga

possible answer invalidation by ShinyMK on question by ShinyMK: codereview.stackexchange.com/posts/123226/revisions

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug A required initializer must be implemented or inherited by all subclasses. Swift initializers are not guaranteed to be inherited. A convenience initializer cannot call to super.init, but must call a designated initializer on the class (or another convenience initializer which eventually chains down to a designated initializer). Designated initializers must call to a super class initializer (if you're inheriting from a class).

@Mat'sMug Yes. It'd be legal, but we wouldn't want to make our public properties prefixed with an underscore

Mat's Mug

wait, they're not fields?

nhgrif

@Mat'sMug It is not. Our style guide at work specifies you should only use self when necessary.

Mat's Mug

ok

nhgrif

16:57

Self is necessary when scope hides the instance method/property or when you're in a closure.

They are considered properties.

Mat's Mug

so fields are implicitly public... or is there some magic going on behind the scenes that gives them proper encapsulation?

Mast

@nhgrif Is that something done often in style guides or is the company being one of the few doing that?

nhgrif

uh, ish...

Mat's Mug

or there's a different syntax for private fields?

nhgrif

private let thisIsAPrivateProperty: Int

or

private(set) var thisIsAReadOnlyProperty: Int

Mat's Mug

16:59

everything-is-a-property ...looks like they did it right then.

nhgrif

but there's also this...

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