The Whiteboard

user55340

1:36 AM

One of those "if we get this question we can point them there" things to have in the back of your mind:

user55340

8

Q: Am I destroying my career as a software engineer

I have worked as a software engineer (.NET) for 2 years. Our job is easy and it doesn't require a lot of technical or conceptual knowledge. In fact, we always use console apps with XSLT and basic C# programming. The work conditions are good: good colleagues, acceptable salary, flexible job time,...

MetaFight

I just spent the last 10 minutes looking for a bad answer to downvote so that my rep would match my birthyear.

I need other hobbies.

user55340

@MetaFight programmers.stackexchange.com/…

MetaFight

my birthday is coming up soon. I'll keep that in mind so I can do it again.

user41796

2:48 AM

@MetaFight Happy early birthday. I'd offer to down vote something you answered to help out with that but that just seems .... wrong.

user55340

@GlenH7 The real trick is to up vote him so he has to find 10 more answers...

user41796

user41796

'twould be a good birthday gift, no?

user41796

@MichaelT - you should have recruited Shog into purging out some of the crap that rolled in today while you had him available in chat.

user41796

"Hey, since we're still waiting on those extra close votes, would you mind cleaning out this, this, this, and this piece of crud please?

user55340

2:52 AM

@GlenH7 I was actually doing some rather 'get this feature out today' stuff today.

user41796

I hear that. Last week this time was the same for me. Presentation was on Tue and it went really well. Always good when the client asks if they can license the product instead of just getting a one time study.

user55340

Its not 'due' today, I gave an estimate of 'maybe late today, maybe early next week'... but when I started digging into it, I wanted it done today because part of it wasn't the 'need to dig into ajax to do this right' so I could get it all done... and have it all in my head while I was working on it.

user55340

To swap it out of mind until monday would have added another bit of 'what was I doing?" to get it back.

user41796

yes. I jumped back into a project that had been on the back burner for a few weeks. The context switching costs were quite high

user55340

That said, its good that I got it mostly done because I just got the email from the sales guy who describes what the client wants... and while they really want my piece, there are some additional points that I need to do for early next week now.

user41796

2:55 AM

bueno. I always prefer to exceed the expectations of the ones writing the checks.

user55340

So, with eyes on this to make it work... there's a bit of pressure on that code.

user41796

And at some point in time, you ought to catch the Walt Disney World Food & Garden festival at Epcot. The floral arrangements they bring in are spectacular. You'd have a field day taking photos.

user55340

The more I get done, the better.

user55340

At some point, I've gotta get back down here - county.milwaukee.gov/MitchellParkConserva10116.htm

user41796

I don't remember those. Must have been after my time there

user55340

2:58 AM

I remember them from grade school...

user41796

Hmmmm, maybe I was sheltered then being stuck in downtown without transportation. :-)

user55340

Rural Madison school district did a field trip there once...

user55340

I wanted to head down there with my niece and nephew during the snowy part of the year for the "wow" factor of going into a jungle and desert - in the winter.

user41796

In retrospect, I wish I had gotten out more when I was there. But I didn't have ready transportation, so that complicated things. I do have quite a few fond memories of when I was there though.

user41796

@MichaelT I try to take my lil'uns out in my 4x4 truck when we get a decent snow. They love when I break the back wheels loose and start sliding through corners. I keep it well under control, but it's enough to break their expectations of "normal" and let them have an enjoyable time. Kinda similar to dropping someone into a not-what-you-normally-expect climate during the winter. :-)

user55340

3:05 AM

Oh, they've discovered an old bit of back yard jungle gym that me and my brother had as kids...

user41796

all the better

user55340

My niece has dubbed it 'rocket park' and seems to have designated it as her brother's place.

user41796

"what the heck am I doing wrong?" "asking on the wrong site."

user55340

She (4) asked him (2.5) permission to get some 'rocket parts' for the swing.

user41796

sweet. Usually doesn't work that way

user55340

3:07 AM

For being... 25(?) isn years old, its holding up quite well.

user55340

And yea... they're very much in 'play well together'.

user55340

Part of its because they are so close in age... they can play at about the same level.

user41796

hopefully that sticks. Mine usually do well. But when they get tired, it gets ugly real fast.

user55340

user55340

(not theirs - image from web - but thats the thing)

user41796

3:09 AM

That's cool. Looks like a tree stand for hunting

user41796

perfect to watch things wandering through too

user55340

So... thats the thing that got dubbed 'rocket park'

user55340

(an idea of scale)

user41796

oh not quite as tall as I had thought. Perhaps more cool that way.

user55340

3:11 AM

(SNORT ebay.com/itm/… )

user41796

I think they blew a decimal place or two

user55340

However, the images on the ebay are good to get an idea of what it is.

user41796

epically cool. :-) I'm stoked that Disney has the Star Wars franchise now. Granted, it will become even more commercialized, but it pretty much guarantees the saga will live for quite some time.

user55340

I'm disappointed clone wars was canceled... but I think I can live with that.

user41796

it was? recently?!

user55340

3:15 AM

The clone wars season was canceled when Disney bought it.

user41796

That seems crazy since it's an easy, obvious extension to the franchise. ergo money-maker.

user41796

huh. weird.

user55340

They likely wanted to make their own way.

user41796

OTOH, my son is watching the clone wars episodes on netflix now, which I think is courtesy of the Disney agreement with them.

user41796

Could very well be that the canceled the current version in order to reboot the series. Disney will do that. If they don't like how something is being presented, they'll kill it off so they can re-work it.

user41796

3:16 AM

Walt was fanatical in making sure the presentation was perfect

user55340

> On March 11, 2013, Lucasfilm announced that Star Wars: The Clone Wars would be "winding down". While new "story arcs" are still in development, the series has been effectively canceled. Lucasfilm has referred to the remaining produced episodes as "bonus content", stating that further information would be forthcoming on how these episodes will be made available to the public.[

user41796

Hmmmm. I wouldn't get too discouraged. With episode 7 (?) coming out in 2015, they are sure to add in "feeder" story lines to keep public interest up.

user55340

(hunting some bits about Ahsoka Tano - there's some neat geek tie ins)

user55340

So... the voice actor for Ashoka Tano - this is what she's doing now: heruniverse.com

user41796

I'm ambiguous about Tano. Which probably means I ought to be reading more of the books with my son so I know how she fits in the story line. :-)

user55340

3:23 AM

You watched all the seasons of Clone Wars... right?

user41796

Me? No. :-( Him? He's working on it.

user41796

<---- has very little time for any sort of TV

user55340

She becomes a very important character in there.

user55340

I got all of the episodes on iTunes and then would toss one on in the evening as I'm in bed on the iPad.

user41796

I'm too busy rolling through the crap-tastic questions we received that got dumped in the close review queue.

user41796

3:25 AM

makes sense. He's asked about getting the series. And as much as he's been watching via netflix, I think it makes sense

user41796

But I'm going to cut out for the evening. Tomorrow is a new day of adventure. :-)

user55340

Have fun.

user55340

(if that need be said)

user41796

I'll be raving even more about more things for you to capture with your lytus

user55340

3:44 PM

FWIW, I ran out of close votes a few min ago and haven't even been able to address most of the questions that are asked recently...

Robert Harvey

I'll spend a few minutes and go through the close queue.

Yesterday I failed an audit on my first review and lost my motivation.

user55340

They do that.

Robert Harvey

ACK! Now the same question is in the queue again as an actual review.

And I was able to cast a close vote against it.

user55340

@RobertHarvey After a failed review, some times people will check on it, and say 'yea, that does deserve to get closed'

user55340

Frankly, audits don't bug me (other than it means thats one more review I can't do that day)...

user55340

3:56 PM

Its the 'reviews from people who consistently don't match the majority view'

user55340

ie: when you've got 90% leave open on questions that get closed or 90% 'looks good' or 'edit' on answers that get deleted from the low quality queue...

Robert Harvey

Not sure why that happens. Many editors who seem to exercise good judgment over their own edits stumble when evaluating the edits of others.

Or maybe the review queues just expose them as bad editors overall, who do little damage as ordinary editors because they seldom edit.

Who knows.

user55340

With a lower volume of 'signal' on P.SE, it is possible for something that is simply a poor but popular question (up votes between +4 and +8, no down votes or something like that) to get selected as a audit review. If people aren't downvting (or close voting fast enough) these opinion bike sheds, they get selected as audits.

user55340

And with the lower signal volume here, these questions are more likely to be selected as audits.

user55340

On SO, where there are likely hundreds of good known good questions and a stronger culture against bike sheds ("belongs on Programmers.SE") its less likely for the bad known good audits to get selected.

Robert Harvey

4:08 PM

It has been awhile since someone complained about a bad audit on SO.

MetaFight

@MichaelT Ooh ooh, do tell us who that is!

user55340

@RobertHarvey btw, an 'easy' way to avoid the audits - hit the 10k tools 'close votes in the last' and pick and chose.

Johan Larsson

what is the difference between programmers and SO really?

what q is right where?

user55340

@MetaFight They show up from time to time with someone who is a bit on the 'everything open side of things' - they'll hit the review queue for 5 or 6 times and do leave open on everything. programmers.stackexchange.com/review/close/56399 programmers.stackexchange.com/review/close/56397 being two examples from a bit ago. Hard to find them because they get lost in all the Glen/MichaelT reviews (thats from page 33).

user55340

80

Q: Which computer science / programming Stack Exchange do I post in?

There seems to be more than a few computer science/programming Stack Exchange networks (is that the correct term?). Stack Overflow, being the first, has by far the most users, questions, and answers. What is the reasoning for creating the others, and are there clear guidelines for which kinds o...

discussion stackexchange site-recommendation faq-proposed

user55340

4:17 PM

Or an example with a bit tighter of a focus that shows the difference:

user55340

14

Q: Where does my git question go?

You've got a question about git. Its not uncommon, lots of people have questions about git. But where should the question be asked?

discussion site-rec git

Johan Larsson

ty ty

MetaFight

@JohanLarsson programmers.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic

Stack Exchange

Ars Technica » Stack Exchange: Why should passwords be encrypted if they’re stored in a secure database?

posted on April 12, 2014 by Stack Exchange

It's not just about your programming problem this time.

user55340

I'm curious about how that 'new user auto protect' will work...

user55340

4:27 PM

so if its not already protected, lets not...

user55340

Well, protected some time ago...

user55340

In context of the last week, this one could get hot.

Shog9

@MichaelT hey, don't let that stand in the way of a good experiment

Johan Larsson

5:07 PM

3

A: Where do put INotifyPropertyChanged Interface in Model or ViewModel

First off, take a look at the basics of MVVM to get a better understanding of how the pattern is supposed to work. This WPF specific version may be of interest as well. Generally speaking, the pattern looks like this: View <= (bound) => ViewModel <= (function calls + async callbacks) => Model ...

this answer is pretty wrong imo, dunno why the q is closed either.

user20683

@JohanLarsson Attempted migration to SO, asker is question banned there so it bounced back to us.

Johan Larsson

had dupe on SO with two answers so np

user20683

then it'd be a dupe

Johan Larsson

@WorldEngineer np, just thought the q is a better fit for programmers than SO

user20683

@JohanLarsson bring it up on Meta if you feel so inclined.

Johan Larsson

5:11 PM

very unlikely :)

user20683

@JohanLarsson It's, for better or worse, one of those "right on the line" questions

Johan Larsson

6:04 PM

reading some on main, pretty high % of highest votecount questions are closed

> closed as primarily opinion-based

Why is that so important? The voting on SE is the perfect tool for it imo.

I can find an argument in that it can lead to holy wars and endless discussions perhaps

user20683

@JohanLarsson The scope of Programmers has changed considerably since we started

Johan Larsson

yeah but I mean SE-wide, I just don't understand the 'closed as primarily opinion-based'

I'm not mad btw :)

user20683

@JohanLarsson It basically boils down to not having a heavily diverging set of answers.

user20683

think of it like a power series in math

user20683

we can questions that rapidly converge if possible

user20683

6:12 PM

this makes them easily googleable

Johan Larsson

why is it so important?

user20683

money

Johan Larsson

how?

user20683

more google = more eyeballs

user20683

or so I'm told

Johan Larsson

6:13 PM

ok, that is a valid point

user20683

Stack is fairly opaque about revenue

Johan Larsson

np that they make money

and if that is the reason it is perfectly fine

ty for the explanation

SE does a good job not feeling like a product imo

I usually say Keep It Simple & Small, have any of you heard of it?

Keep it Simple Stupid is common

In fact I think small is one of the most important quality measures in code

not small as clever unreadable hack though

MetaFight

6:40 PM

gah. I'm trying to get 2k rep... but the last answer I wrote that was giving me rep has been migrated to SO... and so has the rep it gave me :(

ratchet freak

just keep answering questions you'll get there

MetaFight

yeah, I know. It's easier to be a whiny shit, though ;)

ratchet freak

it's also easy to flag a whiny shit as a spammer

user20683

It's easiest for me just to issue bans for rudeness and pedantry and be done with it ;)

MetaFight

7:16 PM

woah, this did not go in the direction I expected.

gnat

7:42 PM

25

A: Bring a "human factor" into review audit composition/selection

While there is no "officially implemented" solution for this, one can use whatever means are at their disposal now in order to bring the "human factor" to audits selection. When you spot a slippery audit, go straight to the "item" it uses and do the action opposite to audit direction. If you f...

Robert Harvey

8:01 PM

@VishwasGagrani: Not everything has an officially-recognized, FDA-approved, Obama-endorsed name. — Robert Harvey 30 secs ago

God, these "name that thing" questions... What a waste of time.

"Primarily opinion-based seems to be working, although I get the feeling that the only people that care about this sort of thing anymore are the folks that frequent this chat room.

People get the right name for it, and they think they know something.

Shog9

@WorldEngineer that's a little bit backwards, actually. Yeah, there's ad revenue (on a handful of sites) for stuff that gets views, but that's not the reason to prefer objective questions - by and large, objective stuff gets as many if not more eyeballs.

It's more a matter of wanting to be putting information on the 'Net that is useful rather than just... click-bait.

user20683

@Shog9 My mistake

user55340

To an extent, the business model of SE is "this is where the good stuff is, come here" and that in turn drives eyeballs.

gnat

53

A: How can I encourage Stack Overflow to rein in the 'subjective' vigilantes?

tl;dr We already tried supporting those questions, we even gave them their own site. Sadly, it didn't work out. C'est la vie. 3 years ago, a Stack Exchange site called Not Programming Related came out of Area51, the Stack Exchange staging zone. NPR was supposed to be a site where questions t...

^^^ Yannis proved that

user55340

... as shown by Yannis.

user20683

8:12 PM

@MichaelT

user20683

►

user55340

Consider the "whee, you hit the site and can read about what someone's favorite Dilbert cartoon is" vs "there are people answering hard problems there and problems that occur in real life - not just some blogger's imagination"

gnat

4

Q: Slight extension for SQL prepared statements syntax. Need advice

In my database abstraction library I am extending SQL prepared statements syntax to hint a parser with expected literal type. I take it as a very essential improvement, my reasoning you can read here. If you want to question the idea itself, please let me know in the comments - I'd like to start ...

php sql parsing

^^^ ...hard problems like that :)

Shog9

@MichaelT right. And long-term, the goal is something a bit more mutually-beneficial than the standard content-farm model: less, "you give us good content, we make folks pay to see/advertise on it" more "we help you build a portfolio that shows off your skills, you use that to promote yourself"

user55340

hence careers 2.0

Shog9

8:15 PM

exactly.

tsk, @gnat

user55340

@gnat wondering if/how well the auto-protect works.

Shog9

No new answers as of yet, @Michael

user55340

@Shog9 Its early.

Shog9

ya

and a weekend still

user55340

Do you collect metrics on the 'how many hits through ars we get by time of day'?

Shog9

8:25 PM

@MichaelT Sam probably does, or at least can get them. He tracks the hell out of those links at least

A quick 'n' dirty scan of the logs shows 400-some views so far today

user55340

It would be curious to see what the shape of the time from when posted through the following week looks like.

Shog9

If I remember Monday morning, I can graph that

user55340

Especially if one could overlay multiple articles for the same time frame.

Shog9

IIRC, we don't usually get a huge amount of traffic from Ars

user55340

So this weeks looks like /___ and last weeks looks like /____ and the week before looks like /\---- (or something)

user55340

8:27 PM

The amount is interesting, but the shape of the activity (to me) is more interesting because it says when we need to look at things a bit more closely.

user55340

"here's the weekend afternoon browsers" and the "monday morning at work spike..."

Shog9

ya

user55340

Is the weekend more likely to need any moderation or monday morning? How long is the tail (over the course of a week) on an ars post?

user55340

Only one reference to heart bleed on the ars comments so far - and that, not even by name.

user55340

> "Secure" database. "Secure" network, operating system, SSL encryption library.

Shog9

8:31 PM

would be mildly interesting to try to figure out which referrers send the most experts vs. trouble-makers. e.g., % of deleted posts from users grouped according to the most recent off-site referer

user55340

That would be quite interesting to dig into.

user55340

... (gah still out of close votes... 3 hours until refresh)

user55340

@Shog9 some data I've been curious about... and yea, the request is buried in another question...

user55340

3

A: Provide 10k users more close votes

Request for stats to take a glance at (yea, this might be another question, but its directly pertaining to this one and maybe getting a glimpse into the "running some data first"). Questions closed per hour on the site Three or more community close votes Two or fewer community close votes (mod...

user20683

What needs a killing?

user55340

8:37 PM

That extracting visual might get a close... and I see 6 things in the queue that I can't do anything about.

Tom W

sup

Johan Larsson

:)

Shog9

@MichaelT you should be able to get some - if not most - of that from SEDE.

FWIW, we just bumped the close-vote limit on AU, since they've been running a pretty serious backlog there for a good while now. Y'all don't seem to have that problem yet.

user55340

Its not the backlog - its the "this should get closed at 2pm rather than 7pm" because in those next few hours its going to pick up an answer or two... and eventually get deleted.

user55340

Fortunately, our mods are picking up the quick closes in the afternoon.

user55340

8:52 PM

But it would be 'nice' if the community was able to show that 'yea, this isn't just an evil mod closing everything'

Tom W

So, thinking of a sensible question to ask in Programmers is surprisingly hard

I guess that ties in with my manager's encouragement to not just whinge and try to find solutions to real problems instead. That's meta.

user55340

Its a harder one to ask for - often you'll find that you're further down the path and SO is a better spot for such a question.

user55340

And the contrived ones tend to be poor.

ratchet freak

or it's not programming central and better for workplace if at all

Tom W

Distilling what dissatisfactions I have into good objective questions is really hard

- something strangers can recognise
- something strangers can help solve
- an answer that can result in me doing something

Johan Larsson

10:24 PM

I should make a search for what % of the top questions that are closed, feels like 50% after reading a few pages.

user55340

10:40 PM

@JohanLarsson programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits

user55340

One of the lesser known pages.

Johan Larsson

it filters out closed questions?

user55340

Looks like it does.

Johan Larsson

I read qeustions sorted by votes tonight

also I don't know why I whine about closed questions :)

user55340

Its necessary to look at them and see "is this a correct closing?"

user55340

10:42 PM

240

Q: What does SVN do better than Git?

No question that the majority of debates over programmer tools distill to either personal choice (by the user) or design emphasis, that is, optimizing design according to particular uses cases (by the tool builder). Text editors are probably the most prominent example--a coder who works on Window...

tools git version-control

user55340

Note also that things that are more easily found by others cause people to look at them more often... and those may get closed more quickly than some other one that has 20 views.

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