The Whiteboard

user55340

12:00 AM

Thats exactly why you want to use final and private... because you don't want to have to think about the inheritance of the class. It takes a lot of thought to think out class inheritance right.

Robert Harvey

Yep.

user55340

I've got half of a blog post for @JimmyHoffa on skip lists and how they work... working on some performance tests now to see about how the skip list preforms compared to the TreeSet for various types of insertion of data.

user55340

Insert 1M entries in order (2, 3, 5, ...)
Insert 1M entries in reverse order (15485863, 15485857, 15485849, ...)
Insert 1M entries in shuffled order
Testing the presence of 1000 items that are in the list and 1000 items that are not in the list.
Summing all 1M entires in the set.

user55340

12:57 AM

@AshleyNunn amazon.com/Bach-Work-Classical-Piano-Music/dp/B005H990SC

Duga

2:57 AM

This question on programmers.SE, Does syntax really matter in a programming language?, should be prerequisite reading for this question. — naught101 33 secs ago

Duga

7:57 AM

Try asking on programmers.stackexchange.com — Bohemian ♦ 51 secs ago

@Bohemian Programmers Exchange, really? this is not a "conceptual" question - it is concrete in the context of maven dependencies for java projects. Can't see that it's not a good fit for this site. — vikingsteve 51 secs ago

Duga

11:20 AM

I hesitate to (vote to) close this, due to your 52k rep, but I'm not sure this is a SO question... isn't it a bit broad? Wouldn't it be better on programmers.stackexchange.com ? — freefaller 32 secs ago

Duga

11:56 AM

Shouldn't a question on history "Why was X was designed without Y" be asked to programmers.se instead of SO ? — dystroy 55 secs ago

Yannis

1

Q: Can I bill the client for my time learning his system?

I'm working on some bug fixes on web project for a client/friend. He has everything set up and working, but called me to fix a handful of bugs. I've never used his system, I barely know how it runs, how it's organized etc and how everything works together. I'm going to need some time to understa...

Workplace? /cc @enderland

durron597

1:02 PM

0

Q: Don't allow honeypots for questions that I've voted on

When reviewing, it has happened that I get a review-audit for a question I've already voted on (this is not the first time, it is only the most recent). If I know I've upvoted a question, and I know that the question has very positive score, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a honeypot? If the ...

feature-request review voting review-audits

durron597

1:18 PM

Wow. See my edit to ^^^

STCI status: learning 125 open questions / education 0 open questions

Thomas Owens

@durron597 I think you need to double check education.

durron597

1:34 PM

@ThomasOwens Haha. my name isn't blue, can you update the pin please?

I could just make a new one I suppose

user55340

Clearly we need a stci cleanup bot that periodically posts and stars / clears its posts.

durron597

@MichaelT Do you need me to paste the xkcd graphic again?

user55340

It's about learning how to do it... And being Lazy.

durron597

STCI status: learning 122 open questions

user55340

> Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it.

user55340

1:39 PM

Great effort.

durron597

@MichaelT As long as I'm the one updating the pin 90% of the time, the only person who would use it is me.

ratchet freak

@durron597 until the next burnination mission

Thomas Owens

Sweet. True Colors is on Google Play Music already.

user55340

But we could have DurronBot #598 do it instead. Just like we've got the prototype gnat bot on the main site (notice, no number)

user55340

Oh, neat bit on rpg.se on dice. 1d8 can simulate 3d2.

durron597

1:45 PM

Apr 27 at 21:14, by GlenH7

@Ixrec It's probably worth pointing out that @gnat has a positive user ID number, so he's not an official SE bot. Feel free to speculate on whether or not they've attempted to adopt the AI.

@MichaelT 1 -> 3; 2,3,4 -> 4; 5,6,7 -> 5; 8 -> 6, right?

user55340

Read the 8 as binary (d8-1). Count the bits.

durron597

@MichaelT My way would be faster for me.

And, it's count the bits and add three, but you knew that.

user55340

I don't think you would need to add three there.

user55340

8 -> 7 = 111 = 3. 7 -> 6 = 110 = 2.

user55340

3d2 means flip three coins, count the heads.

durron597

1:56 PM

@MichaelT a d6 -> 1-6. d4 -> 1-4. So d2 -> 1-2, right?

ratchet freak

or you do bitcount(d8%8)

aka 8->0 and keep the rest the same

user55340

Yep. There is also fun things like d9 can be done as 2d3 (where d3 = d6 (1,1,2,2,3,3))

user55340

d9 = d6 (1,1,2,2,3,3) + d6 (0,0,3,3,6,6)

ratchet freak

probabilities at work

user55340

Or d15 = d10 (1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5) + d6 (0,0,5,5,10,10)

user55340

2:09 PM

@ratchetfreak button men is a fun game.

ratchet freak

if all prime factors of the final dN are present in your dice you can construct it from your dice

user55340

Button Men

Button Men is a dice game for two players, invented by James Ernest of Cheapass Games and first released in 1999. Games are short, typically taking less than ten minutes to play. Each player is represented by a pin-back button of their choice. Buttons are metal or plastic discs, about 2–2.5 inches (about 5–6.5 centimeters) in diameter, with a pin on the back that can be used to fasten them to clothing. They bear the name and illustration of the combatant (the "Button Man", or "fighter") whose role the player is assuming. They also indicate the number, size, and abilities (if any) of dice to be...

user55340

cheapass.com/bpu/bmstrat.html - and dig into the strategy pages.

user55340

In particular swing dice theory : cheapass.com/bpu/strategy4.html

Robert Harvey

2:37 PM

There should be a dedicated sin for people who make web pages that are green text on black background.

user55340

Entire web pages? Ug.

ratchet freak

@RobertHarvey at least without the option to change to a standard black on white

user55340

Amber > green. That said, the a/b test of community adverts show the green doing better.

user55340

meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/ads/display/7070

Robert Harvey

Hmm... Not statistically significant, I think.

user55340

2:47 PM

Still interesting.

user114359

3:13 PM

43

Q: how do I make my shell prompt look like a cheeseburger?

I want my shell prompt to look like a cheeseburger! 🍔 🍔 🍔 It would be nice if it also displayed: username, hostname, and current directory.

command-line bash prompt dash-shell

durron597

Is this saveable?

7

Q: High resolution graphical representation of the Earth's surface

I've got a library, which I inherited, which presents a zoomable representation of the Earth. It's a Mercator projection and is constructed from triangles, the properties of which are stored in binary files. The surface is built up, for any given view port, by drawing these triangles in an ov...

design learning

user41796

It's an XY problem.

user114359

Too broad.

user41796

You could drop the learning and it would be okay

user41796

But I'll acknowledge my bias on that particular question

user41796

3:22 PM

Then again, not my best work either.

Thomas Owens

Also, for what it's worth, if anyone is flagging a question for historical lock consideration, you don't need to flag answers and comments. I'm not sure about the other mods, but I historical lock then do a cleanup of tags, answers, and comments.

user41796

@ThomasOwens Other mods (in the past) have asked for cleanup flags to be applied prior to requesting the historical lock

durron597

@ThomasOwens Well, recently there's been this and this

user41796

The theory being it reflect the community better that way

durron597

Since I don't have 20k (or even 10k) I can't delete vote crap answers to these historical lock questions.

@GlenH7 He's definitely talking to me as I made around a dozen flags in that vein a little while ago.

user41796

3:25 PM

@durron597 Once locked, you have to flag unless you're a mod

durron597

@GlenH7 You can't flag locked questions, as they're locked.

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 That's true. But I'd hope that anyone doing a historical lock will (pretty quickly, if not then and there), come back to clean it up.

durron597

@GlenH7 See? No flag button

Thomas Owens

It may not happen immediately for me (I sometimes leave it open in a tab or bookmark it), if the flag queue is big and I want to plow through it.

user41796

Just relating what my memory served regarding other mods and their preferences on locking

Thomas Owens

3:26 PM

I'm not sure about other mods. I find it annoying to have like a dozen flags in the queue for a single question that can be handled as one flag.

durron597

@ThomasOwens I was thinking it would make your life easier if I would make descriptive flags about certain answers rather than you having to evaluate every answer on your own. But perhaps I was mistaken.

Thomas Owens

It doesn't take me that much time to scroll through answers and delete or convert to comment.

user55340

Note also 3x 20k in chat for poor answers.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Duly noted. Again, I thought my way would be easier for you, but now I see why it is not.

Thomas Owens

@durron597 No worries. I probably wouldn't decline any of them, since I saw what you were going for.

Unless you're a mod, I don't think you'd know that it wasn't actually easier.

durron597

3:30 PM

@ThomasOwens VLQ flag goes into mod queue or review queue?

Thomas Owens

@durron597 I'm seeing them in the mod queue.

durron597

@ThomasOwens Well some of them I wrote custom messages but others of them I flagged as VLQ, because it was obvious what the problem was.

user55340

Both iirc.

Thomas Owens

Going to grab lunch now.

durron597

And I thought that doing VLQ would allow more community involvement

user114359

3:31 PM

@durron597 programmers.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts

durron597

@Snowman I wouldn't see my own VLQ flags ;)

user55340

It's a question of who gets there first

user114359

@durron597 You can see others' though

durron597

@Snowman There aren't any others ;)

user114359

proving VLQ flags end up in the regular queue

user55340

3:32 PM

Down voting can also punt to vlq.

user55340

If you down vote a short answer to 0 or -1, it will very likely show up in lqp review.

Robert Harvey

The kid from Brand Sins is a discount Rick Astley.

OK, back to work.

@MichaelT Is anyone looking at these queues on Programmers?

Cover letters... Critical job search tool or antiquated affectation?

durron597

@RobertHarvey programmers.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/stats

Robert Harvey

Heh. I've apparently done 5 reviews all-time.

user41796

@RobertHarvey Useful when your resume doesn't immediately fit typical pigeon holes.

user41796

3:41 PM

But not necessarily required either

user41796

So if you have a few elements that tie together and present a stronger view of you, but that combination may not be immediately obvious, then the cover letter is helpful

user41796

Speaking of interviews... @durron597 - how did things go?

durron597

@GlenH7 Very well, but not perfect

user41796

I don't think any interview goes perfect

durron597

I crushed all the easy questions but there were some snafus

For example, in the System Design segment, he was like "so how would you store <the data we've been talking about> in memory?" and I was like "uhh what do you mean"... but if he had said "what data structure would you use" I would have said "A hash table. Definitely." Just sort of a communication breakdown

Though eventually I figured it out... most of the issues I had was stuff like that

Robert Harvey

3:45 PM

Hmm, this is what the email from Dice to the employers looks like:

> Another candidate brought to you by Dice. No cover letter submitted

user41796

@RobertHarvey lovely

Robert Harvey

I think I'll put something in there from now on, even if it's short.

user41796

@durron597 I wouldn't sweat that too badly then

Robert Harvey

But I skipped the cover letters, and managed to get 30 applications out last night. Which is probably more than I got out the six weeks prior.

user41796

@RobertHarvey Is Dice allowing you to select who you are applying to? Or is this a generic thing they want to see for when they auto-match you to a prospective employer?

durron597

3:46 PM

@GlenH7 My worst of the 6 interviews, I got the easy question right (in O(n)), and then in the hard question followup, all my ideas were best case O(n), but he kept digging on me for a worst case O(n) algorithm

user41796

@RobertHarvey If crafting the letter is holding you back from submitting, then don't worry about it so much

Robert Harvey

I did a search, and after applying to a couple, it started giving me "similar to" and "people who applied for this also applied for" matches.

durron597

It was one of those algorithms questions where worst case O(n) is still possible but you have to be really clever. The problem is we only had 45 minutes

user41796

I'd skip them in this particular case. When rolling Dice, you want take targeted shots. I don't know that a cover letter would significantly bump your odds.

user55340

@RobertHarvey 848 lqp reviews. Glen has 1327.

durron597

3:47 PM

It was a legitimately hard question. I don't know what the expectation level is.

user41796

@durron597 I like having a range of questions to ask. If the candidate answered everything perfectly then I didn't have a broad enough range of questions.

Robert Harvey

They're looking for your ability to code. But, I must confess, some of these coding interviews are difficult for me to pass also. Basically, you need fairly deep computer science knowledge and the ability to code very fast. Look on GeeksForGeeks for the type of problems they want you to solve in interviews, and HackerRank for practice problems, but don't expect to be an expert at these white board interviews overnight. — Robert Harvey 15 hours ago

durron597

Well, all the coding interviews were easy question -> hard question

user41796

Not playing a gotcha game. Rather, I'm trying to identify your skill level

user55340

I know before 20k, I'd down vote to punt to lqp so that I could recommend deleting. And sometimes we'd get 6x votes in before a mod deleted.

durron597

3:49 PM

Well, actually only 3 out of 4 were. I don't know if the fourth interview had a follow up question because we never got to it.

user114359

@RobertHarvey has an imposter twin: programmers.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/104504

durron597

But the "easy" question was very... figgly. Easy to make a small math mistake, off by one, that sort of thing, which is why it took so long.

user55340

Now it's often the case of seeing two delete reviews and a recommendation.

Robert Harvey

@Snowman More like "evil twin," I think.

user41796

@Snowman I like Robert's better. Isn't all pixelated

durron597

3:50 PM

Of the other three coding interviews, I crushed one "hard" question, did very well (and had time to implement) the second hard question, and had the bad one I described above.

user41796

@durron597 Attention to detail is important

user114359

@durron597 What about the non-code things? Fitting into the culture, for example.

enderland

@durron597 asking clarification is pretty good

Robert Harvey

@durron597 Sounds like you killed it to me. If I were interviewing people, I'd always put at least one question that's impossible to answer in the time allotted, just to see what people can do with it. Being on the other side of that fence is not pleasant, of course.

enderland

plenty of people just... don't ask them

durron597

3:52 PM

The figgly question was similar but not the same as this project euler q: projecteuler.net/problem=15

Robert Harvey

@durron597 And if they're making the interviews that hard, they damn well better be paying a lot of money.

durron597

(I can't tell you exactly what it was because of NDA). But just to give you the idea of what I was dealing with.

@enderland Oh I did that loads

enderland

google pays quite well... though depending on CoL might not be an effective raise

user114359

So, some type of lattice problem

user114359

Despite there being a formula it can be a little tricky.

durron597

3:54 PM

@Snowman I had a strong rapport with at least two of the interviewers. Several of them stayed late (they tried to keep to a really strict schedule) just to chat with me about random stuff

user114359

@durron597 that is normally a good sign.

Robert Harvey

Anyone here know Angular? (for a hypothetical question)

André

@RobertHarvey, I played with it a bit, just toyed around really, might be able to answer

durron597

@Snowman Think like, path traversal in a large graph according to very exacting requirements. So it's easy to take the wrong path if not careful. Again, that's not enough to give you the question but enough to follow what I'm saying.

André

@durron597, that's your google interview?

durron597

3:55 PM

@André yea

André

@durron597, hope you did great then :-)

Robert Harvey

How long should one reasonably expect a seasoned programmer to take learning Angular? Corollary: does anyone really need two years or four years experience to be productive in it?

André

@RobertHarvey, I'd say 2-4 months, and no, a 6-8 months at best to be productive (to be able to express any concept/idea)

durron597

@RobertHarvey My girlfriend thinks I killed it too. Because it wasn't perfect, and because I don't know the threshold for success, I don't actually know. Like, I think I got a 9/10 but they may want a 10/10, you know?

@André Thanks

Robert Harvey

@durron597 Nobody gets a 10/10. If people can do that, they can build the next Google platform in 10 days.

@André Thanks.

Already got two bites so far this morning from those 30 applications I sent out last night.

durron597

3:59 PM

@RobertHarvey :)

@RobertHarvey Nice!

André

@RobertHarvey, knowing the MVC, how to consume REST, dealing with JSON and having prior experience in building rich internet applications is enough, Angular is just a framework to deal with all these concepts

enderland

@durron597 you sound a lot more bummed about it than you should imo

André

I think I'm going to send a application to Arctouch

durron597

@enderland Well, I'm just naturally nervous. Plus I thought I did well three years ago and didn't get it.

André

They said if I just know Java well and can code clean that will be enough, they don't need a expert in Android, it would be a asset. I suppose is the same with Angular requirement

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