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12:32 AM
@tchrist I found mine, thanks though.
 
Vegetable insults is #1 on the multicollider.
 
Has been all day.
Hence the gold problem.
I finally voted to close.
 
Meanwhile, my nice plug for Robert Pinsky's English translation of The Inferno got deleted along with the question itself.
Go do something useful. Delete veggie insults. Let's close that sucker right now. It's gotta be off topic or something. Not constructive.
 
I’m sorry.
I liked your terza rima thing.
 
Three votes for closing veggie love.
Can we get two more? I say, Can we get two more freakin' votes to close the worst question we've seen all year?
 
12:41 AM
It’s a start.
 
Seriously, one in seven gold-badge questions (10k views) has been closed. And most of the rest ought to be.
Keeping Up With The Cardassians.
 
All those views golds suck.
I don’t know what that means, Rob.
 
Pun on Cardassians from Star Trek => The Kardashians from who the fuck cares where.
Keeping Up with the Kardashians (often referred to simply as The Kardashians) is an American reality television series that premiered on October 14, 2007, on E!. It follows the lives of the Kardashian/Jenner family, including sisters Kourtney, Kim, and Khloé Kardashian. As of September 2012, seven seasons of the series have aired. On April 24, 2012, E! signed a new three-year deal with the Kardashian family that will keep the series on the air through the ninth season. The series' success has led to three spin-offs: Kourtney and Kim Take New York, Khloé & Lamar and Kourtney and Kim Take M...
I've read about this and I still don't know what it is.
 
Fuck that noise. I mean, really. Not just TV but irreality TV!?
 
It's of a piece with our veggie question.
 
12:45 AM
We have a question about these chickies?
 
No.
I'm trying to find an unreal-world parallel.
 
ok
 
For the vapidity and aridity of such questions.
 
1:11 AM
Hola.
 
Hullo.
Can you help rid us of this turbulent vegetable question?
 
Maybe. I dunno. I'm on the iPad, practicing Cyrillic.
I was just popping in to ask @Reg if the handwriting here is cursive, or just regular, like people usually write in italic script.
 
I can tell you that it is.
I had to learn to write cursive Russian when I took it in high school, and that's what it looks like.
 
Oh. I didn't know you knew any Russian. Thanks.
 
I know very little. That was a long time ago. I only took the class because it was a catholic high school, segregated by gender, and I knew there would be girls in that class because they couldn't afford to have two Russian teachers.
 
1:18 AM
Good reason.
 
The clumsy-as-a-cauliflower question’s closevote is still at 3. Well, maybe people think it is useful. I’d like to find those people and have them tell me why.
Clever as a cattail. Frisky as a fern. Daft as a daffodil. Nimble as a nasturtian. Wry as rye. Cute as a catkin. Horny as an artichoke. Cheerful as a cherry.
 
Yes
Tried to type in chat for past days with no success.
I removed Yontoo, and it worked again.
Anyway
 
It’s your login name.
 
After one year of using 5-year old slide-phone with ladybug equivalent functions,
@tchrist Cool, right?
My parents finally bought me Galaxy 3.
Woot.
This calls for celebration.
 
Raunchy as a redwood.
 
I’m insulting people using members of the plant kingdom as models.
It isn’t going very well.
 
Agile as an aglet.
 
@SȱɳɨȼƮħeǶḝÐɠḝħȱɠ Someone's feeling entitled. . .
Blergh, the single-character ellipsis (U+2026) looks awful in Symbola.
 
@Mahnax Yeah, I know. But it is a good feeling after 1 year of using numpad for testing.
 
OK, it's closed. The battle to delete it now begins. I voted, and it needs five more votes.
 
1:34 AM
@Mah Bad day?
And by Lord, that numpad was horrible.
It took me 3 times more time to type in words.
 
@Robusto I don't think ethically I can do that. Probably not. Right now.
 
Nah, I know you can't. But when it bets more votes maybe.
@tchrist: You in?
@Kit: One of the funny things about writing cursive Cyrillic is that m is the character for the t sound.
 
In?
 
Deleting vegetables.
 
@tchrist Hey, I got one. Horny as Hornworts.
 
1:39 AM
@Robusto I know. Freaky.
@Robusto Exactly.
 
So... Mchrist?
Instead of T?
 
Lower case, @Kit. Lower case.
 
Great, it takes six delete votes already.
 
Dicksonia antarctica. Now that's an unfortunate species name.
 
@Robusto Uh. What?
 
1:42 AM
@KitFox tchrist writes his name in lower case.
 
And the capital T in Russian cursive is weird-looking anyway. Not anything you'd write in English.
 
@SȱɳɨȼƮħeǶḝÐɠḝħȱɠ then, not than.
 
I really need to tell them apart.
 
@SȱɳɨȼƮħeǶḝÐɠḝħȱɠ *species
Unless it’s money.
 
1:43 AM
What is the rule about number of delete votes?
 
Add up all the votes for everything. 3 + (sum of votes)/20.
@SȱɳɨȼƮħeǶḝÐɠḝħȱɠ Yes.
 
Look up specie.
 
2:03 AM
FYI:
@JSBձոգչ: I have edited my question. Is it now constructive? Can you consider to reopen again. Please. — Hanu 18 mins ago
It’s not much better, but he has made some attempt.
 
 
2 hours later…
4:06 AM
The most insulting of all vegetable names is Sigmund.
Sigmund, you see, is the name of my pet turnip.
 
#! /usr/bin/perl
use 5.010_000 ;
no 5.014_003 ;
Feature bundle "5.14.3" is not supported by Perl 5.10.0 at line 3
Sucks to be me, apparently.
 
4:24 AM
?
I remember fighting my way with that at one point.
 
I checked the 5.10 perldocs; this seems to be the right way to express it. But I have never used "no" before.
 
macbook# perl5.13.8 -e 'use 5.10.0; use 5.11.0; no 5.12.0'
Perls since v5.12.0 too modern--this is v5.13.8, stopped at -e line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at -e line 1.
I think that "no" means "must be below".
What are you trying to do, make sure that your 5.10.0 <= your version < 5.14.3?
 
$ perl -v
This is perl, v5.10.0 built for cygwin-thread-multi-64int
 
I just realized that @SȱɳɨȼƮħeǶḝÐɠḝħȱɠ’s diacritics are like little hedgehog quills sticking out all over the place.
But what is it that you want to happen, under what circumstances?
 
I'm asserting that the compiler is a version that I have tested with the code, or at least that I have tested it at the two end points.
 
4:29 AM
I just put the exact number I’ve tested it with.
 
I'm asserting, in this case, that the code is written to 5.10.0 through 5.14.2.
 
Did you try it with 5.14.3 and find it does not work there?
Oh.
Did you test 5.14.3, or are you saying you have not tested it with that one?
 
And I am testing the assertion on 5.10.0 and getting the error.
This is my first ever attempt to use "no". 5.10.0 is the first compiler I'm trying.
I developed the code on 5.14.2 so it seemed reasonable to assert "no 5.014_003".
 
I do not think it works right.
Well, in 5.10 at least.
 
@tchrist Quite possible. Are the unit tests for it online somewhere?
Maybe it works if phrased in a particular way. Maybe I need to use the "v" style version or something.
 
4:31 AM
macbook# perl5.10.0 -e 'no 5.12.0'
Feature bundle "5.12.0" is not supported by Perl 5.10.0 at -e line 1
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at -e line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at -e line 1.
Exit 9
macbook# perl5.12.3 -e 'no 5.14.0'
macbook# perl5.14.0 -e 'no 5.16.0'
macbook# perl5.16.0 -e 'no 5.18.0'
No, I tried the v-thingie too.
It just doesn’t work right on 5.10.
 
Well ... crap.
 
Notice the higher incarnations do behave right.
Well, it is trivial to test yourself at compile time.
 
Here I am trying to be smart about what language standard I'm writing to, and the damned feature doesn't work.
 
I think you should do your own calculations.
 
Sure. I can just check $^V or $[ (or $] -- I always forget)
How's that for overlapping brackets.
 
4:33 AM
Right bracket.
To see if you are in the right bracket.
 
See? I should have used the right bracket.
 
macbook# perl5.10.0 -le 'print $^V'
v5.10.0
macbook# perl5.10.0 -le 'print $]'
5.010000
macbook#
macbook# perl5.10.0 -le 'print $^V < v5.14.3'
1
macbook# perl5.10.0 -le 'print $^V lt v5.14.3'
1
 
I just need to install the 5.12 "no" pragma into 5.10.
 
Don’t ask me. I forget. I think they overload both operators.
Good luck with that. :)
 
Somebody beat me unconscious, quick, before I try.
Because otherwise the effect will be the same, it'll just take longer.
 
4:35 AM
Aye.
 
Psi.
 
Wait.
There is no no.
It is a keyword.
 
When you say "no integer", it loads "integer.pm" and calls its unimport() method.
When you say "use integer", it loads "integer.pm" and calls its import() method.
 
Sure, but VERSION is handled as a special case I presume.
 
4:36 AM
So no and use are keywords, that have a BEGIN { require module; module->import }
Yes, exactly.
 
"the peculiar use VERSION form"
 
And that you do not want to come as close as being in the same local cluster with.
Why are you running 5.10 again?
Because it "came" that way?
I thought cygwin has a much more recent port.
 
Don't get me started: I sympathize with: perlmonks.org/?node_id=978273
I have an Ubuntu LTS running 5.8.
 
Please use v5.10.1 not v5.10.0.
 
I understand how great it is for a language to have new features added. But I also know I've got boxen running this or that version, and it's not just a compiler version. It's a language version.
 
4:39 AM
hm.
Ok, rephrase.
Push on stack.
Yes, this is a really nutty thing.
It is because stuff isn't compiled and saved.
If it were, all would be well.
The stuff they’ve added to v5.1[0246] that warps the syntax is just begging for trouble.
 
I really think Perl should have done what many C compilers did: separate compiler version from language version.
 
People do not understand back compat.
Yeah, well.
We figured that out much too late.
 
I should have been able to call up a Perl executable with a switch that identifies the version of the language that I am feeding it.
 
That really is not practical.
We looked at it.
 
I realize it creates a combinatoric nightmare.
 
4:42 AM
That is what we had wanted to do. It was too impossible.
Yes, exactly that.
 
There are already a million platforms to test. Multiply that by language versions. Yes, of course.
 
So you use #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.010_000 or something.
 
Right. But that's not practical either.
 
It is if you require a precise version.
 
Because you can't write #!/usr/bin/perl5.010_000–5.014_002.
 
4:43 AM
There is a reason we make the version available.
 
What I should really be able to do is code something in Perl 5.8 (the language) and run it on any recent Perl executable. But we've just agreed that's a tough one.
 
Just test it.
I know.
I’m sorry.
We have all wanted that.
 
"Just test it" is just moving the problem. Apparently the Perl project can't afford to test all those combinations, so instead the users have to. Which is what in economics is called an externality.
 
I’ve heard it comes with a pony.
No, that is not the issue.
It is the code base.
 
It would actually be much, much more efficient to do the right thing. Just not more efficient for the Perl project itself.
 
4:45 AM
No, you cannot do this.
You explode your executable.
And your source code.
We really did think hard about it.
You cannot maintain bug compatibility.
 
No, I do understand the problem.
 
But is the reason you don’t want to run a newer version because you know for absolute certain that there is a downstream timebomb there, or because you just haven’t tested it that far?
 
I'm not concerned about bug compatibility, by the way. Yes, I understand that too. I wouldn't mind a bit if a problem in implementation was fixed. I want to write code to a language standard, not to a particular compiler. Always.
There's always a downstream timebomb. You don't have to know what it is to put a fence there.
 
You will not be loved.
People have smokers running on all of CPAN to test a new release.
 
What, because the code dies at line 3 with an assert?
 
4:48 AM
If something no longer make tests, then we know about it.
Yes, you will not be loved if for no reason, you have a maximum version that they can use.
Listen, I agree with you about the language version stuff. It just does not happen.
But blocking downstream versions sight unseen seems cruel.
Can you imagine if we made the perl build blow up on the compile if it encountered a newer version of gcc than we released it with?
Complete suicide.
Aren’t you talking about doing the same thing?
 
@tchrist No. You are talking about the compiler version. I'm talking about the language version. The Perl build should blow up if it's written in K&R and somebody upgrades the compiler to C89.
It's too easy when talking about Perl to confuse the two, but they are different.
 
Not for us. Sigh.
 
So I am absolutely not talking about the same thing, you see?
 
The world has become too complicated a place for me.
There is no difference between "language version" and "compiler version" for us.
 
I've written a piece of code to a particular language standard. And it's nice that the code itself can do a sanity check that you're feeding it to a compiler that expects code written to a different, not entirely compatible standard.
I digress: I am happy that John Lawler saw the humor in my meta post.
At least someone has a sense of humor.
 
5:00 AM
It is a mess.
The whole feature thing just didn’t work out.
Too much was changed. Too hard to keep track of.
 
Too tempting to add new features.
Like the // operator.
 
I nearly lost it trying to document it all for the new version of the Camel.
 
Very clever.
 
Yeah, clever and fucked up.
Not my idea.
But it is less bad than many others.
I basically lied about its return value for the Camel, because it was too weird to explain.
 
Perl needed someone like ... you LIED?
 
5:02 AM
It doesn’t test defined(), but definedness. It is just Wrong.
I presented a simplified version of reality.
I didn’t explain the exceptions.
It’s a lie of omission.
Larry said it was ok to document how we thought it should work, even if it didn’t quite work right.
Because eventually they would make the code act like it was documented to act.
Will you see The Hobbit this weekend?
You cannot describe // in terms of defined(), and you should be able to.
It is not: a // b is like defined(a) ? a : b
 
Perl needed someone like Dijkstra, or Knuth, or even Stroustrup to be there to put on the brakes sometimes.
 
But it wants you to think so.
 
The Hobbit is this weekend?
Damn. This is a heavy weekend.
 
That was today’s 30-second TV spot.
And no, it isn’t Superman.
 
I'll bite. What's the difference between definedness and what defined() tests?
 
5:11 AM
That what I asked.
What do you think &f // &g returns? :(
defined(&f) tells you whether the function is defined.
Which mean you cannot write // in terms of defined.
I understand why Holmes retired to beekeeping.
 
So that'll be yet another incompatible change to the language.
Eventually &f // &g will test whether function f is defined rather than testing whether it returns undef.
 
Yeah.
macbook# perl -le 'sub f{warn "F called"; 22} sub g{warn "G called"; 33}; print defined(&h) ? &h : &g'
G called at -e line 1.
33
macbook# perl -le 'sub f{warn "F called"; 22} sub g{warn "G called"; 33}; print &h // &g'
Undefined subroutine &main::h called at -e line 1.
Exit 255
 
That's fucked up.
 
macbook# perl -le 'sub f{warn "F called"; 22} sub g{warn "G called"; 33}; print &f // &g'
F called at -e line 1.
22
It kinda works.
Until it doesn’t.
 
I have no problem with how that works, actually. Even if it is different from defined()'s behavior.
Where I would object is changing it later.
 
5:20 AM
Yes, but it is hard to explain.
a // b always evaluates a.
And if it evaluates to something that is defined, it returns it.
Otherwise, it returns b.
 
Isn't that what you'd want?
 
Yes, but it is weird.
macbook# perl -le 'print length("" // "fred")'
0
macbook# perl -le 'print length(undef // "fred")'
4
macbook# perl -le 'print length("0" // "fred")'
1
 
Or would you want &a // &b to return ... what? A reference to a function?
 
I very very very almost always just want to use ||.
 
An anonymous function?
 
5:22 AM
Because I know how it works.
No.
It has to do what it does.
 
I like anon functions. But then I like LISP.
 
There is plenty of anon function in perl.
 
I like the LISPishness of some Perl idioms very much.
 
I prefer left to right evaluation.
 
Really a lot of what Perl does should just be implemented as LISP macros.
Shit. I just invented EMACS.
 
5:25 AM
foo | bar | glarch
Not glarch(bar(foo())).
 
My grandmother was Polish. I don't have any problem with it.
 
print reverse map sort map grep glob.
 
print reverse map sort map grep glob if.
 
Much easier as a shell pipeline.
 
Ima off to sleep. Night.
 
5:27 AM
Oh, hi.
Didn}’t know you were here.
 
g'nite hedge pig. See you later.
 
BASIC-PLUS allowed multiple statement modifiers.
 
@tchrist Yes. RTL.
Perl is, as we've discussed, the bastard child of BASIC-PLUS and LISP.
 
It has something of a LISP spirit.
In places.
 
And there's some SNOBOL in there also.
 
5:36 AM
Sure.
 
What I like about SNOBOL is that every statement is a GOTO.
 
At least it has no Prolog in it.
Until you hit the regex engine.
 
 
1 hour later…
6:51 AM
@tchrist Are you around?
 
 
4 hours later…
11:01 AM
I was torn on the "time goes back" question, but went with a close vote after all.
I think I would have voted to leave open had Jim posted his comment as an answer, because that's what people actually say. Instead, rather than educating the OP on idiomatic English, we are trying to shoehorn the poor language into the impossible structure that nobody really uses.
 
user19161
11:20 AM
There was some drama on math today. A mod has left.
 
Oh!
 
user19161
@SȱɳɨȼƮħeǶḝÐɠḝħȱɠ Now you have funny characters too!
 
Juicy details please.
Links, pictures, videos.
 
user19161
@RegDwighт A lot of it is past history and deleted comments.
 
No fair.
 
user19161
11:23 AM
Also, now that I have 25k, 10k and 2k on Eng, Math, TeX, I am officially retired from all three sites and hence SE itself. My job here is finished.
 
37K?
that's an odd amount to retire at
 
user19161
Your job remains however, as moderator, Reg.
 
Nov 28 at 11:19, by RegDwighт
So if I delete a post of yours a day, you will create content worth another 25k. And another 25k. And another. And then I undelete them all and bam, you're at 100k. Muwahahaha.
 
user19161
@MattЭллен Well, 37 is the number of strokes in my Chinese name.
 
user19161
37 is also a prime number.
 
11:24 AM
@JasperLoy strike it through, then it will be 38.
 
user19161
Note that 3+7=10, the number of fingers we have.
 
1+0 = 1, the number of noses we have
 
Note that 1 + 0 is not the number of fingers we have.
 
user19161
Also, I thought I may have met a third Maria on SE, but I am not so sure now. I will be seeing how this one goes...
 
user19161
In any case, this Maria has nothing to do with ELU so you can all relax. Phew!
 
11:26 AM
hmmmm
/marge simpson voice
 
user19161
That's all for news tonight. Ouvert et haut !
 
in Mathematics, 7 hours ago, by Gone
@JasperLoy The current mod team is completely disfunctional, as the recent events show. That one mod could think that he has the power to single-handedly delete roughly 150 posts without consulting anyone else speaks quite clearly for how bad it is.
Oh-oh.
 
oh dear.
 
I have single-handedly deleted roughly 150 posts without consulting anyone else.
 
and people complain that we're mean!
 
11:39 AM
This month alone.
 
user19161
@RegDwighт Actually I am OK with that. I haven't seen what the 150 posts are though...
 
The total number is in the thousands.
 
I guess we're more trusting of our mods?
dunno
 
in Mathematics, 7 hours ago, by Gone
@MarianoSuárez-Alvarez Honestly I thought that we could still work this our. But when Q unilaterally locked those 2 questions without any discussion and then had the gall to suspend me so to enforce his unilateral decision, that was the last straw. If that's not a dictator in the making then I don't know what is.
Wait, mods can suspend mods?
Watch out, Joel Spolsky!
 
11:50 AM
it's odd that despite being about twice our number of users, Mathematics gets fewer visits per day
 
Well, by adding two and two together, I guess their mods are way better at alienating users after their first visit. :P
 
They do have almost four times our number of questions, too.
And that's after Bill deleting OVER 9000 of them last second.
 
who put the venga bus in my head?
 
Okay, so something does not add up.
 
11:56 AM
@RegDwighт maybe it's the 15% extra answered questions that keeps folks comeing back here
 
They are the same age, have less than four times as many questions, but more than ten times as many questions per day.
Why is that by English math?
 
@RegDwighт presumably they haven't always been at that many questions per day
 
I know, it's the last two weeks' average.
But it's funneh.
 
~257K question at that rate for the entire life
 
And holy crap, 292 questions a day. With one mod single-handedly deleting 10 a day. With nobody visiting. What's going on?
Two-odd people posting a thousand questions each?
I know @JasperLoy has been answering tons of very basic questions lately.
 
12:04 PM
@MattЭллен well it's certainly not your spelling.
 
Perhaps we should start accepting Ramesh's questions now. We'll cut our traffic in half, but our question stats will skyrocket.
 
> Peter performance is better rather than Jim.
 
nah, I prefer being busy but quiet
 
> Peter performance is better above Jim.
I am sorry, I can't be taking this seriously.
 
12:06 PM
I don't understand. What is a peter performance?
 
He's got a meta question now, and I feel like I must first take twenty deep breaths and count till OVER 9000.
Xblast time!
 
Have fun!
 
@MattЭллен a peter performance is performance who is better rather than Jim. Why you not read definition?
Seriously, dude.
pooof
 
12:20 PM
@cornbreadninja You said 'turnstile hopper' then I said 'turnstile jumper' in the next comment, failing to have noticed that you had just said 'turnstile'.
 
@JasperLoy No, we have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs. :)
 
@cornbreadninja Really? I mean, it might but I don't see it as -that- useful.
@tchrist ooh ooh I know another one...litterers. and...and...people who dump or trespass (where there are signs that say 'No dumping' and 'No trespassing'. I sense a pattern.
 
12:46 PM
Trivia: there've been over 9 thousand questions on Stack Overflow where the same user has up-voted and voted to close.Shog9 Jun 7 at 0:10
 

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