The Whiteboard

12:57 AM

@GlenH7 I take it back; I plugged the new DSL directly into the NID and my netflix now get's full-quality; scary thoughts of replacing my NID officially gone!

need a real engineer nothing... we fake engineers do just fine with our spit, elbow grease, and copious amounts of duct tape!

user20683

@JimmyHoffa Tape Monads for those really, really legacy systems.

Jimmy Hoffa

@WorldEngineer Really, really legacy systems all need an ITAPMONROBOT monad

Here's an ITAPPMONROBOT and duct tape monad transformer stack

hasherr

1:43 AM

Hi guys.

I have a question about something I might ask that may/may not be apropriate for the site.

user20683

@hasherr go ahead

hasherr

So, my GitHub isn't working. Whenever I try to create a new Repo with the Github app, it creates the repo, but it doesn't commit any of my classes.

The only two files committed are .gitattributes and .gitignore

And I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Would that be apropriate for the site?

user20683

@hasherr Tool related questions are SO territory.

user20683

git branching and other architectural issues are on-topic here: "when should we branch in a VCS?" that kind of thing

gnat

9:35 AM

well, there you see the cool picture of bright brave new world, right. Now, if you look closer into it, you might notice some... er dark shades lurking around. Think of it. Imagine for example, you post a good question, okay. Then, imagine a complete stranger flagging your question for closure, pushing it into queue where 5 reviewers bandwagon and cast close votes. Imagine this happening in a matter of minutes or even seconds, how's that? By the way... — gnat 11 mins ago

"do you think that it's gonna be all-right?"

►

...note how this risk is "hedged" in other queues that seem to be otherwise similar. Troublesome edit suggestions or answers to wrongly reopened questions bump the impacted post, making it easier to catch and correct review errors when these happen. In close queue, there's nothing like that. Right or wrong, closed question is buried, and there is a huge chance that no one notices. "Do you think that it's gonna be all-right?" — gnat 15 mins ago

gnat

11:35 AM

just submitted one of my funniest flags...

> please take a look: it may look confusing to readers that one of dupe targets ("question title") is a deleted question. While you're at it, please also take a look into remaining dupe target, which is, in turn, also closed as dupe and there, in turn, one of the dupe targets is the same deleted question, again, looking confusing for readers :)

moderator will probably laugh declining it

OP made a fairly impressive edit; I voted reopen

0

Q: Was C designed to facilitate Object-Oriented programming?

I am trying to broaden my understanding of the history and development of object-oriented programming, and I am curious to find out if C was designed to facilitate Object-Oriented programming? (like C++ and Objective-C definitely is) or if it was, on the contrary, simply just a clever exploitati...

Jimmy Hoffa

11:57 AM

As you know this doesn't fit SE guidelines for questions, though if you want opinions from participants of SE you can always ask in SE chat where the question guidelines don't exist. Programmers general chat is here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/21/the-whiteboard — Jimmy Hoffa 3 mins ago

Should someone inflate his rep to 20 to join chat? Not me of course...

gnat

12:10 PM

@JimmyHoffa given that question is written in good English and well formatted, I think OP could get needed rep by simply reading other posts and suggesting edits. 10 helpful suggestions => 20 rep => enough for chat

Ampt

1:50 PM

on a scale of 1 to "This makes me want to stab my eyes out" how bad is this code block

` return (
(
newMessage.getIdentifier() == m_CANMessage->Identifier
or newMessage.getIdentifier() == (m_CANMessage->Identifier - 0x20)
)
and
(
newMessage.getData()[1] == m_CANMessage->Data[1]
and newMessage.getData()[2] == m_CANMessage->Data[2]
and newMessage.getData()[3] == m_CANMessage->Data[3]
)
);`

user55340

2:17 PM

@Ampt Backticks don't work across multiline. Just paste it in, click in the area (or shift enter at the end) to get the fixed font and click that button.

Ampt

    return (
                (
                    newMessage.getIdentifier() == m_CANMessage->Identifier
                    or newMessage.getIdentifier() == (m_CANMessage->Identifier - 0x20)
                )
                and
                (
                    newMessage.getData()[1] == m_CANMessage->Data[1]
                    and newMessage.getData()[2] == m_CANMessage->Data[2]
                    and newMessage.getData()[3] == m_CANMessage->Data[3]
                )
    );

magic

user55340

Looks more like javascript.

Ampt

that's some strait up c++ hahaha

i'm overloading the == operator for a class

user55340

Hmm... they've added and?

Ampt

my compiler doesn't seem to mind

user55340

2:21 PM

Its been a very long time since I touched C++, and back in my day, we only had && and we liked it that way.

Ampt

psh, that's not very readable.

honestly I did it on accident when I was going from python to c++ again

and it compiled

and I thought I had broken the matrix

user55340

That said, I don't have any problem with the general layout.... it could be simplified a little bit.

user55340

((A or B) and (C and D and E)) == (A or B) and C and D and E

Ampt

I just thought it kept the two parts seperate

it needs to meet one of the two first requirements

AND all the second ones

user55340

Stylistic... I'd write the second, but they are equivalent and if it helps conceptually, go for it.

Jimmy Hoffa

2:33 PM

@Ampt so long as that's the entire body of a single method with a name that clarifies what the check means it's fine, if that's a block in the middle or end of another method, blech

@MichaelT I was going to say the same but I'd put the or block at the end, feels more readable to have the necessities first and the options last

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa it's an overload of the == operator. Let me throw up the whole thing

bool ThreadSafeCANMessage::operator==(const ThreadSafeCANMessage& rvalue) const
{
    return (
                (
                    newMessage.getIdentifier() == m_CANMessage->Identifier
                    or newMessage.getIdentifier() == (m_CANMessage->Identifier - 0x20)
                )
                and
                (
                    newMessage.getData()[1] == m_CANMessage->Data[1]
                    and newMessage.getData()[2] == m_CANMessage->Data[2]
                    and newMessage.getData()[3] == m_CANMessage->Data[3]

and theres an appropriate method description comment above that

Jimmy Hoffa

Cool yeah; I like IsBla methods that encapsulate and give meaningful names to complex boolean checks, and I guess overloading == might be idiomatic way to do the IsBla in C++

passes sniff test for me

Ampt

success. Not a complete failure today.... yet

Jimmy Hoffa

0

Q: how to create database in which new columns have to be added periodically?

i want to create a database that tracks different projects and their finances. As finances are tracked monthly ,a new column has to be created for each month.I could create all tables together at the start,yeah , but i guess it would be bad development strategy. Also i would be guessing the numbe...

database

Perfect example of two things: Ask for a solution to a problem, not if your solution is good (his is not), and more than that - Database Modeling should really really be more well studied in schools and industry... It's so pervasive and yet devs who study it are so aberrant...

His is the perfect example of when a data model needs to be pivotted; which is not difficult or even complex (queries get slightly more complex than a flat table but not by much) but even that basic concept is something I've seen so many engineers struggle to see or find, and that's just the beginning of the iceberg. There are far more techniques of much greater complexity that can be used to great effect. I've twice worked in places that had to implement in-database fifo throttling

now that is a complex technique, and the performance will blow away any in-process throttling because you can't possibly manage the transaction scope so fine grained outside of the database, but very few people are aware of things like that

gnat

2:55 PM

@JimmyHoffa lack effort, business as usual...

4

A: Should Stack Overflow be a "last resort" resource?

I believe that idea of what is expected of question asker is expressed reasonably well in Needs to demonstrate research pro-forma comment Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you've tried and why it didn’t meet your needs. This demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to tr...

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat Some people don't have the skills to apply any more effort than he already has; he's not even sure if he can programmatically add columns to a table, the guy's in over his head

user55340

You know what would be neat... a stream chart of site activity.

user55340

user55340

(thats for movie revenue)

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT That is the single weirdest chart I have ever seen, and I do not understand it one bit.

user55340

2:58 PM

Looking for the blog post on its math and why.

Jimmy Hoffa

It looks like someone projectile lost their morning cup of joe

user55340

Vertical scale is the money it makes. Horizontal is time.

user55340

And it is intended to reflect the 'flow' of the data.

Jimmy Hoffa

I catch that, but there's a competition in the scales on the top-to-bottom; how do you choose which one fights which? chronologically alternating?

and is it a stack chart?

What decides when the bottom goes into the tops territory (crossing that midline) and vice versa? is it just some divider of the wholes on each side for fun effect or is there purpose?

We get the message, but you should really post your data model here; perhaps draw.io can help, @MichaelT is right, you have your model wrong. What database server are you using? Is this by chance an access database? — Jimmy Hoffa 5 secs ago

What do you think the chances are he comes back "Yeah, Access 2012 - it's great!"

gnat

3:15 PM

@JimmyHoffa well, however cruel, this doesn't matter to me as an answerer nor to future site visitors. What matters is...

> the main point is for research to be sufficient to save answerers "from reiterating obvious answers". As long as the question asked meets this criteria, it is on the road to receiving good answers

what matters is if it will attract good answers or not

in that regard by the way I kinda hate "I am stuck" statements in questions. Not wuite hate but edit them out mercilessly. I don't give a shit if asker is stuck or not...

...if they're stuck at trivial web search, tough luck. their question, nor answers to it, are zero value

on the other hand, asker may be not stuck at all, but if their question poses an interesting problem, prompts for valuable answers, I don't care that they didn't go that freaking last mile to find the answer themselves

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I completely understand; my point was more of a "Don't hold it against him, he's doing the best he can" but in regards to SE the not holding it against him should have zero affect on moderation/voting/editing behaviours

gnat

what matters is whether answer that remain on the site for future readers are valuable or not. From this perspective, it doesn't matter if asker was stuck or not

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat 100% Agree, and in that way I feel bad for people like him; that the best they can do still isn't good enough for SE.

gnat

@JimmyHoffa oh that I can understand. Close and delete the question, but without cruelty :)

Jimmy Hoffa

Software has always been one of those strange unfortunate things where to an extent you really need to help yourself for a good long period before you'll ever be good enough to get help from others. Disregarding SE completely, this is just a fact of the complexity of the content. Until you are at a certain level, the right answers simply won't make any sense, and there's no way to explain them to you until you have grown to that minimum barrier.

Until you reach that minimum barrier, you won't even ask the right questions

user55340

3:28 PM

@JimmyHoffa its called a 'stream graph'

user55340

Streamgraph

A streamgraph, or stream graph, is a type of stacked area graph which is displaced around a central axis, resulting in a flowing, organic shape. Streamgraphs were developed by Lee Byron and popularized by their use in a February 2008 New York Times article on movie box office revenues. References External links * [https://github.com/leebyron/streamgraph_generator Lee Byron's streamgraph_generator]

user55340

And visualisingdata.com/index.php/2010/08/… is a good read.

user55340

And if you're not afraid of an academic paper with some math in it - leebyron.com/else/streamgraph/… explains the reasons and development of the stream graph.

user55340

Section 5.4 of this paper talks about your question of where the data is layered.

Jimmy Hoffa

Depends on language, day, task, in-place codebase, timeline, current peers, future peers, company culture, usable frameworks, userbase, number of colleagues collaborating with, availability of users, marketing studies, my mood, the temperature, current solar flare coefficient, school loan rates, known future work, unknown future work, number of other tasks I'm working on, current company valuation, GDP, internationalization concerns, characteristics of clientele, characteristics of current countries trans-atlantic relations, my wife's mood, if I'm at home, for fun or for profit, and others — Jimmy Hoffa 8 secs ago

user55340

3:50 PM

So anyways... stream graph... I'd love to see a similar graph of review activity over time.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT If I was, I would have learned nothing about haskell

(Not that I understand many of the academic papers I've read completely...)

user55340

The Last.fm graphs also include a color dimension to indicate popularity of the artist.

Jimmy Hoffa

Let's see if I can write a decent WCF Rest Help Page parser in F# by day's end.. would come in quite handy here..

...or maybe I'll try in Scala, it has traits which might make it easier and calling it from SoapUI would be helpful..

gnat

4:48 PM

recently, I am pondering over an idea that maybe, SE team has a bunch of good reasons to keep large CV queue backlog and, OTOH, no good reasons to drain the queue (yet). I wouldn't mind to see it proven wrong but so far, this is not what I observe — gnat 4 hours ago

Jimmy Hoffa

Algebraic data types really model things interestingly...

Ampt

5:05 PM

solved the problem of the day at work

Junior team member to the rescue

Ampt

6:03 PM

quick, my code will compiling for the next 15 minutes. someone give me something mind expanding to absorb

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt quanttec.com/fparsec/tutorial.html

user55340

@Ampt theonion.com

user55340

@Ampt Actually, more seriously and fun to work with... processing.org

gnat

6:27 PM

@MichaelT SEDE data has been updated few hours ago, have you tried your query with new dump? At length 255, it still shows depressing 1300+ posts, but if you lower it to 170, there's already fairly manageable 91...

(I configure it to look for answers with any score, not just below +5)

user55340

Haven't poked there yet... playing with processing on various old sites. Some neat visualizations there.

Jimmy Hoffa

@gnat I was thinking, you want to further filter it down to even more likely to be terrible questions? With the 255 add and body like '%http://%'

sorry answers not questions

oh it has that haha

gnat

@JimmyHoffa yeah and it works like a charm. Terrific tool for site cleanup. the way it picks crappy questions through crappy answers sometimes feels like magic

user20683

131

Q: What's the difference between a temp table and table variable in SQL Server?

This seems to be an area with quite a few myths and conflicting views. So what is the difference between a table variable and a local temporary table in SQL Server?

sql-server sql t-sql temp-tables

user20683

Holy Self Answer, Batman

2

Jimmy Hoffa

6:36 PM

@gnat Think about ordering by date DESC, newer stuff is more likely to be found by google and users

@WorldEngineer Whoa. That's up there with the hashing answer

gnat

@JimmyHoffa well there's naturally less of newer stuff with the parameters I am using. Answer length 170, along with some chars taken by the link, is blocked by quality filter nowadays

7

Q: Is it time to tighten up the quality filter at Programmers?

Some recent posts make me feel like these could be automatically rejected by quality filter, thus saving community efforts for better quality questions and answers. "I want To develope My Own linux Distro for Linux Beginners." "I want To Know How To prepare An understanding Doc To Track what I ...

support status-completed answer-quality quality quality-filter

stuff like "I am A New Joinee In a major MNC And Currently I am Working In Vitria Team I dont Know Much about Vitria From Career Persepective.Plz Guide" won't fly anymore :)

NRGdallas

quick question for some of the C++ programmers here - I personally know and use PHP/ASP on a semi-pro level (1 year of experience, I freelance on the side and would consider myself good enough to "tinker" but not good enough to write anything from scratch) - what would you recommend as a start for learning C++, and do you feel that the current outlook bypasses web languages?

user20683

@NRGdallas what do you mean current outlook?

user20683

as for starting go find ye the C++ book list on SO

user20683

C++ is not a language you tinker with, it's a language you commit to. With a mortgage and fights and everything.

NRGdallas

6:45 PM

@WorldEngineer outlook as in do you feel that learning C++ has a better future then PHP/ASP, do you feel C++ is on the incline or decline in frequency of use and median pay (just opinions is fine)

user20683

@NRGdallas depends on the industry

user20683

PHP is hard to say, ask YannisRizos about it when it he shows up

NRGdallas

would you say that a focus in one specific industry with C++ is hard to change to another?

user20683

@NRGdallas C++ tends to get used where performance really matters: Gaming, Finance, Aerospace, and Scientific stuff

user20683

the question is not what language you should learn but what do you want to do in terms of projects and industry? Then the language selection goes from there

NRGdallas

6:50 PM

particularly gaming, from what I can tell, C++ seems to be the defacto standard

with a side of LUA

user55340

As a freelancer, I doubt you'll hit a C++ project.

NRGdallas

oh, the freelancer is just currently for web programming, C++ is a totally different beast :)

any estimate on what amount of time somebody with little programming experience (but some code experience) might be able to pick up enough C++ to be usable on a fundamental level? I know its hard to make an estimate so vague of course, and nothing is set in stone, but just a rough estimate is fine :)

trying to determine what I am up against :)

user20683

@NRGdallas 3 years

user20683

C++ is a seriously hard language

user20683

114

Q: Hidden Features of C++?

No C++ love when it comes to the "hidden features of" line of questions? Figured I would throw it out there. What are some of the hidden features of C++?

c++ hidden-features

NRGdallas

6:59 PM

would you say C is a required learn first, or would it be more time-efficient to just focus on learning C++ with no prior C learning?

user20683

@NRGdallas C is not the same language as C++

user20683

you can write C in C++ but it's generally bad practice

user20683

and often dangerous

user55340

The general consensus is learn C++. Learning C is another language. There are some similar concepts in there, but one will confuse the other... especially if you don't have a good grasp of either.

NRGdallas

ive read that you should learn C before C++ alot, is this no longer the case?

user20683

7:00 PM

@NRGdallas correct

user20683

no longer true

NRGdallas

ok, good to know in that regard :)

user55340

Those were the days when someone would learn C completely, and then tackle the new concepts of C++. C++ and C have diverged enough that the new concepts are most of the language.

NRGdallas

7:14 PM

thanks for the wonderful info, unfortunately I think my lunch break is now going on 2 hours, so I definitely should get back to work, but thanks again, hopefully I will see you guys around!

user20683

<blink> is dead in Firefox

gnat

some MSO regulars think intuition is a good substitute for ability to read the post

I don't know. At 10K tools at Programmers, every time I open flags page, it gives me terrible headache and I simply go away. As for ostrich defense, it happens here quite frequently (there seem to be a gang of brainless regulars who think they've developed great intuition and don't need to read what they vote on) — gnat 12 mins ago

downvoting bug report oh my

I would say it's worse than "ostrich defense". It's mental laziness lack of desire to think

6

A: Vote Early, Vote Often

Active voter tips Voting is easy. Unless you vote a lot. Practice makes you faster Active voting is a skill and you get better at it with practice. As you practice, you'll get faster at reading posts and making voting decisions. Civic duty badge is a convenient checkpoint. Amount of votes req...

Jimmy Hoffa

8:41 PM

@MichaelT ericlippert.com/category/monads

Ampt

8:54 PM

Ok, this actually makes sense so far. Monads for everyone!

Ampt

9:12 PM

what is ()=> in c#?

Jimmy Hoffa

the => is the lambda operator, lambdas create functions on the fly, in C# it's possibilities are:

inputVar1 => valueToReturn
(inputVar1, inputVar2) => valueToReturn
inputVar1 => { blabla; return valueToReturn; }
(inputVar1, inputVar2) => { blabla; return valueToReturn; }
() => valueToReturn
() => { blabla; return valueToReturn; }

in the event of () it means the function you're creating takes zero parameters

the compiler turns them into an actual function

(or delegate, can't recall if those are a special case of the IL or not, I don't think so though...)

Ampt

the article meantions delegate...

Jimmy Hoffa

yeah, delegates are also functions, lambdas and delegates are the same thing

Ampt

oh ok

Jimmy Hoffa

delegates just came before lambdas and have some different syntax

Ampt

9:18 PM

i see...

I think

where are these things used in real life... like what are the applications. I'm still having trouble wrapping my rookie mind around these things

Jimmy Hoffa

LINQ in C# is a hand full of monadic combinators

IEnumerable<T> is a monad in C#

monads are often used for parsing, they're good for handling control flow, and just generally wrapping computations up in a boundary to encapsulate them away from you

that said; practically no one uses monads except crazy people. A minimum of engineers have ever heard of them, more less have any clue about them. I just like taunting @MichaelT about them

user55340

@JimmyHoffa It goes both ways.

Jimmy Hoffa

JQuery is a monad

Understanding and recognizing monads can give you a tool for designing things that might otherwise be very complex in such a way that using them is extremely easy

user55340

The monad is an extremely useful way of thinking about a certain set of problems. Many people use monads without realizing that they are. Most people don't need to know what they are.

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I dare say... its even... a Pattern.

Jimmy Hoffa

9:28 PM

@MichaelT Ni!

user55340

Man, just tagged all my bookmarks... they're useful now!

Jimmy Hoffa

Today has been very strange; I'm getting bits of rep from a number of arbitrary old answers

Ampt

Interesting. Always trying to become a better developer so I figured I would look into this monad business

user55340

It is a sometimes side effect of having an open bounty on an answer - someone with votes sees it and says "hmm... thats good, what else did he write thats good" and then goes and reads things... and votes.

Ampt

Not sure how much application there would be in an embedded systems shop but hey, I'm working on a web server application next year

Jimmy Hoffa

9:37 PM

@Ampt If you really want to grok it, Haskell is the light and the way

Ampt

Blasphemer. I bet they serve non ordained cigars and whiskey.

Jimmy Hoffa

It makes implementing and working with monads very easy, so it runs rampant with them. Just saying; want to get better at high-level concepts, few better ways than plying yourself to Haskell. Plus it's a ton of fun to learn, learning it feels like someone making holes in your head with a rusty spoon in a power drill, but after you get over that it's beautiful :)

Ampt

I'm not saying that it wouldn't be fun or a great idea, but I feel that my most valuable asset at the moment is my embedded development skills

so I'm really trying to expand those as much as possible

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt Yeah, make no mistake; it will be useless to you more or less. It'll teach you to think at a higher level of abstraction, but almost nobody gets to write code at that level.

Ampt

yeah. Career fair is coming up in late fall so that's the #1 priority at the moment

Jimmy Hoffa

9:44 PM

Not so happy with the current gig?

Ampt

not at all, but the current gig is part time

and not salaried... yet

I wouldn't mind working here

but I feel that I'll be better off if I can snag a few offers at the fair

mind you I'm still a student

so my current job is an "Internship"

user55340

If you can properly describe and utalize a monad, it will impress the guys at an interview.

Ampt

that requires the guy interviewing me to know what the hell a monad is

hahaha

but isn't a monad close to the decorator pattern?

you just keep wrapping what you're doing more and more

and it always returns the same type that it's passed

only it's templated more

and instead of decorating an object you are decorating a function

Jimmy Hoffa

10:08 PM

@Ampt Nah, decorators don't join

You could do something like a decorator with a monad, but monads are far more general

gnat

121

Q: Simple method for reliably detecting code in text?

GMail has this feature where it will warn you if you try to send an email that it thinks might have an attachment. Because GMail detected the string see the attached in the email, but no actual attachment, it warns me with an OK / Cancel dialog when I click the Send button. We have a related ...

algorithms artificial-intelligence machine-learning nlp

"marginal answers" script has lead me to a question that seem to deserve special, individual care. Question per se looks good (why wouldn't it. considering who posted), many answers look good too. But the amount of low quality answers, including high voted ones... is just depressing. What would you guys advise?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt my favorite monad tutorial: haskell.org/haskellwiki/Monads_as_containers - not how it takes a bucket of buckets and collapses (join) them into a single container; this is what makes it not a decorator

well, that and a ton of other stuff, such as really not being anything like a decorator heh

Jimmy Hoffa

11:25 PM

Woo, time to head home and my parser's 80% there, hopefully tomorrow morning I'll be able to tie it up, point it at a WCF REST help page (since WCF doesn't give you a WADL...) and have it spit out an AST defining the contract (Maybe I'll make it generate a WADL from that AST...)

It comes away with field names and types for all the primitive types and one complex type; just 2 more complex types to make it recognize

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