The Whiteboard

Jimmy Hoffa

4:00 PM

Yeah, just use haskell — Jimmy Hoffa 8 secs ago

@MichaelT today would be a wind day here...

@GlenH7 I didn't know connotation questions were on topic. That's cool.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa It wasn't mentioned within their help-center, so I figured with enough backing research that it would be OK. Or they would close it and crush my feelings.

Jimmy Hoffa

I think I'm the archetypal autodidact, and I can say my experiences agree completely with what you show there. That is, depending on the person I have been regarded as a fool for not following the crowd, wise for being able to figure things out on my own, or irrelevant as though it's quite common.

I don't think there's an agreed connotation for autodidact. Even the thing as opposed to the word itself there is no agreement on whether it's good, bad, or relevant

user41796

It's an interesting chameleon word from that point of view. Most words have a reasonably fixed emotional connotation to them.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Yes but it's a very uncommon word, I think words need broader use than that one to have a majority connotation take root and spread uniform recognition

user41796

Agreed. I'd like to think I know a lot of words, but I looked up the definition on that one.

Sam

4:31 PM

Hi Michael

I'm a bit fed up of facing people who think to be better than the other

can I show you some example?

user55340

@Sam How do you mean?

user55340

Note that we regularly have issue with certification questions here...

Sam

I've been studying psychology

user55340

12

Q: Why do certification questions keep getting closed?

Whenever I look at certification questions on the front page or in tags, they seem to be closed. Why is this?

Sam

I can describe you the mechanism because people do many of the actions thinking it's the best action for the world

without really askying themself about it

have a look here:

one angry guy states: "Dictionary<TKey, TValue> already IS an IDictionary "

and the question become closed since too broad

I clarify the reason because I want to copy the properties one by one

user55340

4:35 PM

I suspect you are reading too much into the statement (I don't read that as 'angry' at all)

Sam

the question remains broad but people now upvotes :)

why?

user55340

Upvotes are about what people like. Open / closed is what is good for the site.

Sam

because their interpretation of the reality was different from the actual

they also voted to reopen

the question is still broad

user55340

Could you link the question here?

Sam

-2

Q: How do I copy every key/value pairs from Dictionary<string, string> to IDictionary?

I'm trying to do as follows: exception.Data = LoggedProperties; But it's not accepted since the Data property on the exception classes has a private setter. So I thought to proceed using ForAll on the first or the second Dictionary. But this class don't have a similar syntax. And neither Di...

c# dictionary collections

user55340

4:37 PM

That's a SO question - not a P.SE question. Each site has a different community. I don't do too much on SO and can't comment too much on their communities, much less the C# one.

Sam

the question was closed as too broad. I only changed the explanation because I wanted to do the thing

user55340

That said, how many different answers are there to the question "So how would you copy from one dictionary to the other one with a compact syntax?"

Oded

@Sam that question already has 3 reopen votes.

Sam

yes.

but the fact because they officially closed that question in an hurried way is still valid

the real reason is completely different

user55340

Close fast, fix, reopen. That is a better thing for the site than Close slow, get wrong answers, close eventually, and not get the question fixed.

Sam

4:40 PM

on this network we? the staff? are making people proud of closing answer

Oded

Yep. And frankly, looking at the original version of the question, this was completely correct.

user55340

stackoverflow.com/revisions/21938274/1

user55340

> How do I copy every key/value pairs from Dictionary<string, string> to IDictionay?
With a compact syntax? I.e. using Linq or Lambda expression? I've seen Foreach doesn't exists on this collection..

Oded

That ^^^ deserved closing. And quickly.

2

Sam

@Oded: the broadness doesn't change in any way

@Oded: why?

@Oded: who are you to say that?

Oded

4:41 PM

The low quality of the question does. Not enough detail, not showing any effort in the question. Not showing any attempt.

Sam

@Oded: you should be proud to improve this community. To teach things, not to over apply rules

@Oded: how can you say?

"The low quality of the question does. Not enough detail, not showing any effort in the question. Not showing any attempt."

Oded

Cleaning up the sites is part of improving the community.

Sam

don't be superficial and childish

user55340

Don't forget that SO is the go-to place on the net for questions because of the quality that people strive to maintain.

3

Sam

I'm a 6 years developer. I did more

Oded

4:42 PM

I can say as someone who has been part of the community from the Beta days of SO.

Sam

I did many tentatives

Oded

I am a 16 years developer. So?

Sam

@oded: really?

Oded

Really.

user55340

I started professional programming back in '96... I've got the grey hairs to prove it.

Sam

4:43 PM

do you know what is mental rigidity?

Oded

Frankly, I didn't close that question. 5 community members did.

Sam

@Oded: yes..

Oded

And they applied their sense of what is a suitable or not suitable question to that question.

Sam

SE was a place were people answered questions, now is becoming a place where people close questions

Oded

Note - the question. Not you. The question.

And now, that is has been improved, it is on its way to being reopened.

The system works.

Sam

4:45 PM

yes.. it's not very bad.. But it makes people very angry

and for what?

becouse some members want to be proud of closing answers?

user41796

@Sam Maybe you should take a deep breath, relax, and realize that your question being closed wasn't intended as an insult.

user55340

@Sam are you of the opinion that we need to not close questions to keep people happy?

Sam

but let's be proud for the quality of your software, for your formation, for

Oded

@Sam blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand

Sam

@MichaelT: no

I think that one human need is the one of being proud of something

you can notice it everywherer

from mafia

user55340

4:46 PM

What process should be in place to keep people from giving poor quality answers that don't answer the poorly specified question?

Sam

to developer

from knights

everywhere

in SE people were proud of answering questions

now are proud of closing questions

the guidelines written by the staff are very relaxed and flexible

Oded

People are proud of being part of a community of excellent Q&A.

Keeping the excellence means closing the bad stuff.

And that will make some people unhappy.

We don't want to end up being Yahoo Answers

2

Sam

Have a look here

I spent some hours to explain my point of view...

then I discovered that the staff was sayng exactly the same things

here

Blog - Stack Exchange: Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

Robert Cartaino on September 29, 2010

Stack Exchange is about questions with objective, factual answers. We’ve been crystal clear about this for as long as I can remember, even back to the earliest, pre-beta days of Stack Overflow. It’s right there in the standard Stack Exchange FAQ:

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Thus, questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates, opinions — should be closed as subjective. It seems simple enough: Fact good; opinion and discussion bad. But why? …

it's not the staff the problem..

it's the way in which hurried people interpret it in a too strict way

the post from the staff is REALLY clear

questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates

amon

@Sam … but your question isn't. This is not about subjective vs. objective. It's about quality of questions. And your recent Q is hard/impossible to understand

Sam

Only math is not subjective

yes, but it's happening the same..

My question was really clear

I want to copy every key value pair from dictionary to dictionary

in a compact syntax

Oded

4:52 PM

Clarity is not enough. We expect people to make an effort. Of course people have to show they made an effort - as otherwise the assumption is that one didn't.

Sam

guys: "this is a stupid guy which doesn't know Dictionary inherits from IDictionary" downvote him!!!

@Oded Ok.

Oded

One thing that the community decided very early on was to not accept "give me teh codez" questions.

Sam

but this time I did the effort

user55340

In the first iteration of the question, it is very hard to see the effort.

2

Sam

it was enough to write a comment

and when I got the comment

after (2 close vote and 4 downvote)

Oded

4:54 PM

Would you have edited the question if all you got was a comment?

Sam

I improved the question

no..

I would admit

Oded

Not everyone would. We can't judge you by mind reading.

Sam

I'm sincere

i wouldn't

but you too should be sincere

Oded

So... closing motivated you to change the question to be a better one. One better suited to SO. win-win

Sam

and admit that there is some margin for making this community better...

user55340

4:55 PM

And thus, down vote as unclear, close as too broad, avoid answers that don't answer it, fix it, and (currently in process) reopen the question.

Sam

:D

Oded

The community is amorphous - there are lots of things people disagree on and judge differently. One reason we have Meta.

Sam

1) you could vote for close for a better reason

user55340

SO has even more communities that are active on specific tags - some of the tags on SO are bigger (have more active people, more questions) than other reasonably sized SE sites.

Oded

You really should visit Meta. Better close reasons are in place. And this has been discussed there at length.

user55340

4:57 PM

(C# has 20x more questions in it than all of P.SE)

Sam

I got upset when I'm reading on the official guidelines that the final objective of this community is teaching people and spreading knowledge. And that the main real reason for closing question is to pursue this objective. And then reading: "it's too broad"...

MetaFight

My god what a horrible discussion.

2

Sam

what I'm askying is to help me to fin the right tradeoff

you know there are many many people complaining

Oded

msmvps.com/blogs/jon_skeet/archive/2010/08/29/…

Follow the guidelines Jon wrote about ^^^^ You will not go wrong with those.

Sam

yes.. but plenty of people will get upset as well

I think we could

we should

handle this process better

here is very open minded and flexible

Blog - Stack Exchange: Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

Robert Cartaino on September 29, 2010

Stack Exchange is about questions with objective, factual answers. We’ve been crystal clear about this for as long as I can remember, even back to the earliest, pre-beta days of Stack Overflow. It’s right there in the standard Stack Exchange FAQ:

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Thus, questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates, opinions — should be closed as subjective. It seems simple enough: Fact good; opinion and discussion bad. But why? …

he is not hurried

but on the community... oh my god!!

Oded

5:01 PM

3 1/2 years ago. SO was a different place.

Sam

what do you mean?

it become worst?

it passed from diplomatic approch to war approch?

or says we don't want to be like Yahoo Answers to justify lazines and hurried choice?

Oded

It GREW.

Sam

yes.. but it's happening the opposite of YA

MetaFight

18 mins ago, by GlenH7

@Sam Maybe you should take a deep breath, relax, and realize that your question being closed wasn't intended as an insult.

Oded

It gets a lot more traffic. More questions (bad as well as good). It got a lot more users with enough reputation to do moderation. Things move a lot faster now than they did then.

Sam

5:04 PM

as you know from Psychology every excess is a problem

Oded

@Sam Great. We do want to be the opposite of YA.

Sam

do you know fondamentalism?

it means: a very strong belief

when you see things in black&white

you get to extreme

MetaFight

Sam, you're not being constructive anymore.

Sam

@MetaFight explain better please

MetaFight

It sounds like a lot of people here are willing to listen to you and help you... but you're not returning the patience.

Sam

5:06 PM

@MetaFight ok

do you understand what is the problem I see?

MetaFight

There's a fundamental disagreement on what justifies the closing of a question.

Sam

have a look at the guidelines before speaking

Blog - Stack Exchange: Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

Robert Cartaino on September 29, 2010

Stack Exchange is about questions with objective, factual answers. We’ve been crystal clear about this for as long as I can remember, even back to the earliest, pre-beta days of Stack Overflow. It’s right there in the standard Stack Exchange FAQ:

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Thus, questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates, opinions — should be closed as subjective. It seems simple enough: Fact good; opinion and discussion bad. But why? …

they are strongly sharing my opinion

in a inequivocable way

MetaFight

sure, except that's a darn old article.

and as someone has mentioned, the site has evolved over time.

you need to think about the answers people give you. don't just ignore them.

Sam

Have you read that article?

@MetaFight I thougth very well

MetaFight

27 secs ago, by MetaFight

you need to think about the answers people give you. don't just ignore them.

Sam

5:09 PM

I'm seeing the enthusiasm

I think about that answers

but if you look at that article you will see it's really really well written

if you read the answers of people they are not sayng Sam you are completely wrong

And I'm not saying you are copletely wrong

I think we agree on 90% of the stuff

maybe more

However that article is really valid

I hope someone will read it

gnat

5:30 PM

@Sam I read and re-read this article regularly, so what?

8

A: What recourse is there for a post that is locked for reasons that one does not understand or agree with?

You seem to believe that question locked for content dispute at meta should remain at main site as originally posted ("Lock question as-is"). This approach doesn't make sense to me. For the purpose of meta discussion, it is insignificant what particular revision is hanging on the main site becau...

it's one of my favorite references actually

Thing to remember is, this article states requirements for questions, not for the answers. Re-read it again and pay attention to the sub-title (quoted below):

Guidelines for Great Subjective Questions

Article is about guidelines for questions, plain and simple as in the title quoted above.

Whatever requirements for answers you stuff into your questions, you have no ground to link these to the article. These are all yours, and, frankly, from the perspective of those who read your question, these are pure noise, as these add nothing substantial to the question.

> If, after reading particular answer, you feel like something is not OK there, check whether it fits answering guidelines and if you believe that it doesn't, feel free to raise your concerns.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:04 PM

0

A: C# Internal Class with Public Methods / Internal Methods

In C# the internal access modifier means the thing (class, method, property, whatever the modifier is on) is only accessible by classes within the same assembly (actually you can use InternalsVisibleTo() to make them visible to specified other assemblies too but let's ignore that for now). Why...

ugh...wall of text...

I should rewrite that immediately. Whatever. I'll think about it.

Jimmy Hoffa

6:16 PM

nevermind, apparently he was asking something else completely.

Sam

@gnat yes. of course for the questions. What did I say? I was speaking about questions..

@gnat If it's one of your favorite reference I think we share a lot of ideas. Because it's also one of my favorite references.

If you want to pay attention I will try to be really synthetic

enderland

6:41 PM

can't decide if I should feel bad when I quote the on-topic and then someone deletes a wall of text.

MetaFight

The question I asked earlier:

0

Q: How can Scrum be adapted to a Volunteer setting?

I've recently joined a young hackspace still in the process of setting itself up. The space has a few internal projects that need working on and no shortage of volunteers to work on them. So far there have been discussions on how to organize these projects. My most recent professional experien...

scrum extreme-programming

now in Pog Form (question form).

Brant

Okay, this sort of question is probably off-topic for any stackexchange site I can think of, so I figure it can't hurt to ask in here...

I need a lightweight way to pass messages back and forth between a node.js app and a windows service.

MetaFight

msmq!

Brant

Right now I'm using redis and pub/sub, but the redis story on Windows sucks and I kind of want to ditch it for something else so I can go windows-only

MetaFight

though I have no idea if node.js has support for msmq.

Brant

6:45 PM

The messages are just json strings. I don't really care about persistence or guaranteed delivery, this is just for a chatbot so if some messages fall on the floor I don't care.

I thought about socket.io or signalr, but each solution's respective library for the other platform is pretty rough.

MetaFight

is a Message Queue not lightweight enough?

Brant

I guess it could be, I've honestly never used one.

Which is why I'd want something that has a solid client library on both the node.js and the .net side.

MetaFight

I'll be honest, I designed a system where one was used, but left the company in the early stages of the implementation... so I don't know how easy/difficult it is in practice.

3

Q: Passing messages from Node.js to external systems?

I'm completely new to Node.JS, if I want to pass messages to external systems using a message/event/servicebus.. what alternatives are there that integrates well with Node? The messages are just JSON strings, and external systems can be whatever, e.g. a C# agent or some such. (Maybe this should...

node.js nservicebus cqrs message-bus

Brant

I saw that question too, but I thought someone in here might have more info to add

MetaFight

cool.

Brant

6:49 PM

this is definitely NOT enterprise-level though, I don't need to scale past 10 messages per second

(background: I'm trying to hook up Hubot to my company's Lync server)

MetaFight

I don't know about RabbitMQ, but I'm pretty sure MSMQ is still fairly light weight... making it appropriate for small systems as well.

Brant

Goals: Good library support for both .NET and Node, runs on Windows, simple to set up

Not goals: High scalability, enterprise-level bullcrap

Heck, I don't even need to talk over the network

Brant

7:06 PM

Hmm, STOMP looks promising

user41796

7:21 PM

Are chat message indexes linked to time?

psr

You could test out if the site is useful

It seems at least potentially answerable.

enderland

any of your groups do any sort of flexible working schedules? ie something like 4x10hr days instead of 5x8?

I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to really enjoy it or not at all, my team is talking about it

user41796

In other words, I'm trying to figure out what happened with our recent guest who seemed to fall off the face of the room

user41796

@enderland We do

enderland

I think what I'd MUCH prefer is 4x9 and 1x4 days

user41796

7:27 PM

generally, we have 5x8 and 9x80 (8 9 hour days, 1 8 hour, 1 off)

user41796

we have everything other Friday off for that schedule

enderland

that might be even more ideal

user41796

it works pretty well. The time system is a bit antiquated so they have to do some monkeying in order to make it work around holidays, but it's good enough

user41796

1 day off a month isn't quite enough in my book

user41796

I'd want 1 day every 2 weeks

user41796

7:28 PM

4x10s are kind of doable, but they can be hard on the employee

user41796

it can also be hard on team comms if someone is always gone on Friday or whatever

enderland

@GlenH7 yeah, we'd have a rotation I guess so it wouldn't be every week

user41796

We have two groups in the 9x80 plan. And they alternate Fridays. So group A is off today, and group B will be off next Friday

user41796

That can be a little weird since you sometimes have to remember if it's their off day or not, but generally no big deal

enderland

yeah

I was doing 50 hour weeks for about 3 months last fall, 10 hour days wear on you

user41796

7:32 PM

some people can handle it well enough, but I don't think it's sustainable for the long term for most folk. quality of work and team interactions suffer

enderland

yeah, I have a 40min commute each way - if I lived 5 min away it'd be different :)

user41796

bleh. Kiss your day goodbye at that point. That's ~11.5 or 12.5 hours gone from the day, depending on if you work through lunch or not.

enderland

@GlenH7 it was a lot more fun when I had evening/morning activities 4 days a week :P

user41796

1/2 hour is the most I can tolerate for a commute

enderland

I have no traffic atm

definitely not a long term situation I want to be in that's for sure though

user41796

7:37 PM

meh, still. I just don't want to be in the car that long

user15026

Now that I take transit and don't have a car, I am a lot more patient with longer travel times

enderland

@AshleyNunn oh yeah, I'd be fine with what I've got now

user55340

Having lived in Silly Valley, I know what rush hour traffic can be... commutes don't bother me at all.

enderland

I budget $500/month for auto expenses :\

Braiam

Please, before migrating or directing users to Software Recommendations, make sure to ask first in the chat room so we can evaluate if it meets our quality standards

3

user55340

7:43 PM

@Braiam There's a pin for 'ya.

user15026

@enderland Yikes. Makes me really appreciate the fact that my student card still operates as a free bus pass in town for another few years.

Braiam

thanks

user41796

@Braiam And feel free to give us specific examples where corrective action would be helpful

enderland

@AshleyNunn well I figure 60miles a day (wow that sucks to write out... XD) at like 30 cents a mile.... :\

user41796

We know the pain of "oh, you should go ask this on ..."

user55340

7:44 PM

You might want to consider writing a 'software rec guidelines' for various meta sites that are likely to migrate to you.

user15026

@enderland :(

user41796

@enderland You could move a lot closer to work and be able to take a tax deduction for moving expenses since you moved > 50 miles.

enderland

@GlenH7 LOL. I didn't move when I started FT at my current job, and got pretty far into the relocation process before they said "oh hey you're within 50 miles SORRY"

@AshleyNunn it's ok, my housing/utilities/food run me about $450 a month, so it's not all for loss ;)

user15026

@enderland That's cheaper than my rent! :P

user55340

Used to work with one guy who did a MSP->Eau Claire commute... for some strange reason.

user41796

7:48 PM

@enderland yeah, that's a bit of a trade-off. I think the IRS regs look at it from old house to new house. So you just need a new place a little further away on the other side of work.

user41796

@MichaelT Weekly commute?!

user41796

Don't tell me that was daily

user55340

@GlenH7 Daily.

psr

@Braiam Sorry. I didn't actually say "go post on software recommendations without reading the guidelines", but I suppose 90% of the time it amounts to the same thing. In my head he was going to do that first.

user41796

@MichaelT I'm rubbing my jaw after it fell onto my desk

enderland

7:50 PM

@GlenH7 It's ok, all my friends are in the place I'm at currently (plus the GF lives in the same town) - it's a phase of life thing... not a permanent thing

longer term I want to walk/bike to work

user41796

@enderland You'd be pretty dang fit if you biked to your current work

user55340

I'm wondering if he made it into work today...

enderland

@GlenH7 it's about 27 miles if I bike, if it was closer to 15 I would probably

user55340

He made it in when we had 'snow-mageddon' (or so we joked about it) the a year or so ago.

user41796

@enderland keep telling yourself how fit you would be ...

enderland

7:54 PM

@GlenH7 honestly the time is the reason I won't consider it now, 25-30 miles is about 1.5 hours at a good bike pace (there's actually a bike trail about 90% of the way which would be great!)

user55340

Another guy I worked with (back in Cali) had this commute (daily) preview.tinyurl.com/lnbkgf2

user55340

He carpooled with 3 others in the area. Each drove 1 day/week and then Friday you were on your own.

user41796

@enderland Friend of mine did 9 miles each way for his commute. And he was well into his 50s

enderland

there's a couple small towns between where I work and live - I've thought about moving there and biking

user41796

Air Force though, so fitness was a way of life for him

enderland

7:55 PM

but it's hardly worth it for a short period of time when I'd be moving like 10 miles from 90% of my social network

hey cool. Workplace goes live and I hit the rep cap on its first day of real life

user55340

This was my commute - preview.tinyurl.com/oecv2wp

enderland

@GlenH7 that's one of my career goals, not even joking

user41796

@MichaelT blech

user55340

(also note on my commute, switch to the 'transit' option - I did that for a year to see how it was)

user41796

@enderland career or personal or am I just quibbling?

enderland

7:59 PM

@GlenH7 nah it's for both. that's a big deal to me honestly, being able to exercise as my commute will be good for so many regards

plus as @AshleyNunn noticed my car is damn expensive for me

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