The Whiteboard

12:00 AM

Good California joke.

Now we need one about the drought.

user114359

There are 50 people in a room, one from each state. What single question do you ask (other than "what state are you from" or something like that) to determine which one is from California?

user114359

Nothing. Just stay quiet, the Californian will tell everyone who they are and how much they love their state (this is also true of Texas).

Nick Alexeev

@Snowman This must be a 1990s joke.

user55340

Heh... there's a date bug in this image...

user55340

user55340

12:07 AM

When embedded in the page, it has the proper date: teamcoco.com/jokes/tag/8433-droughts

user55340

user114359

that text is selectable on top of the image

Robert Harvey

Gotta be some in-joke there somewhere.

user55340

Robert Harvey

From: Robert Harvey <robertwharvey@yahoo.com>
To: "techadmin@virtualpoint.com" <techadmin@virtualpoint.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2015 5:09 PM
Subject: Your no-longer parked domain

You're welcome.

 - Robert

user55340

12:10 AM

Robert Harvey

Guffaw.

user55340

Ok... how about this one:

user55340

Robert Harvey

I assume that's ironic.

Nick Alexeev

The most recent UML distilled by Martin Fowler came out in 2003. Between then and now, we went from UML 1.x to UML 2.0 .

Is there a 2.0 equivalent of UML distilled?

Robert Harvey

12:51 AM

techadmin@virtualpoint.com  Today at 5:38 PM
To
Robert Harvey
Sorry about that, Robert.
You were right.

But even if it was parked, that still doesn't necessarily mean it's for sale.

It's not for sale, so you assumed incorrectly.

Kind Regards,
Virtual Point

Robert Harvey

1:09 AM

I stand corrected.

durron597

1:19 AM

@RobertHarvey What a jerk.

5

Q: Apply backspace within a string

I have a string which includes backspace. Displaying it to the commandline will 'apply' the backspaces such that each backspace and the non-backspace character which immediately precedes it cannot be seen: >> tempStr = ['aaab', char(8)] tempStr = aaa Yet the deletion operation operation only ...

durron597

2:00 AM

@MichaelT coding-standards

user55340

2:37 AM

1

A: Connect PC application to a group of similar hardware devices, using TCP

I recommend designing it like this: The PC acts as a server, listening to incoming connections. Each incoming connection spawns a thread dedicated to listening to the incoming port (maybe use a thread pool similar to how web servers do this). Each device is given a server IP (which should be re...

user55340

@Snowman consider zeromq for that one.

user114359

@MichaelT Interesting, I wasn't aware of zeromq. A quick look indicates that might work. Maybe you should write that into your own answer.

user55340

The other thing is why even bother with server ip? If they are all the same subnet the easiest thing to do is broadcast.

user55340

Don't bother with sockets or threads... just listen for a broadcast, pick up the data, repeat.

user114359

2:54 AM

Depends on the network layout. The question did not specify, the approach I gave is safer.

user55340

> Each platform and the PC shall be connected by network cable to a network switch acting as a hub.

user55340

Direct connection. Would be odd to have it be different networks.

user114359

I probably should have gone back and reread the question before typing that last sentence.

user114359

But yeah, in that light my solution is a bit overkill even if it will work.

user114359

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/292041/…

user114359

2:58 AM

There. I left a signpost. Honestly, at this hour of the evening I don't feel like typing up another answer.

user114359

If you put what you said into your own answer I'll throw you an upvote though.

user55340

3:11 AM

0

A: Connect PC application to a group of similar hardware devices, using TCP

Broadcast: The simplest approach Given: Each platform and the PC shall be connected by network cable to a network switch acting as a hub. It should be safe to assume that the devices are all on the same network. Have each of device toss its data into the broadcast for the network and don't...

gnat

6:09 AM

can we somehow... help this music lover please? "If this means aggressively downvoting or closing unworthy and uninteresting questions, so be it...."

Duga

9:28 AM

It is obviously opinion against opinion but my experience is that some new programmers (which I know uses this site a lot) have a hard time grasping the concept of pointers and it is not that rare that you stumble across multi-level pointers when you are learning programming. — MaltePedersen 43 secs ago

Duga

9:51 AM

This is perhaps a better question on programmers, or maybe Computer Science — icabod 12 secs ago

Duga

10:11 AM

This is better suited to one of the sister sites. Maybe programmers.stackexchange.com or academia.stackexchange.com ? — YXD 6 secs ago

Duga

11:34 AM

This question is better suited for http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ than for stackoverflow. — Martin 9 secs ago

Thomas Owens

11:57 AM

I was about to close like 5 questions on the homepage. And then @Oded beat me to them. Apparently, there's not enough dev work. Someone should get more feature-request from Meta.SE. :P

YES! I GOT ONE!

user114359

@ThomasOwens I am going to stop wasting my CVs then until @MichaelT convinces Shog to refund close votes for questions deleted on the same day.

Thomas Owens

I only deleted two and only because they were suspicious for other reasons. It's not something I typically do. I try to let roomba handle them.

user114359

@ThomasOwens Meh. Obvious crap is obvious.

user114359

In other news, this hot question came up and it concerns me. Has anyone else seen this issue?

user114359

6

Q: Windows 10, 'System' process taking massive amounts of RAM

Since I upgraded to Windows 10, my system has been consuming RAM excessively I've been reading a bit and determined it's likely a driver leaking memory. So I got myself the Windows Driver Kit and tracked memory usage with poolmon: However, I don't really know how to proceed from here. Is th...

windows memory drivers windows-10 memory-leaks

Thomas Owens

12:05 PM

I have Win10. Haven't noticed anything obvious, but I haven't been looking.

user114359

I installed Windows 10 Pro on my personal laptop, but have not put it on my or my wife's desktop yet. I have not noticed this issue, but it sounds like it could be a problem.

Thomas Owens

I can look when I get home, if I remember.

user114359

Granted I have not done more than two minutes of looking into it yet, I am just curious at this point. Good thing I held off on upgrading the desktops. Sort of like service packs. Wait a week, let everyone else be the guinea pigs.

Thomas Owens

It looks like it's by design?

Duga

Questions that ask "where do I start" are typically too broad and are not a good fit for this site. People have their own method for approaching the problem and because of this there cannot be a correct answer. Give a good read over Where to Start, then address your post. — Kyll 14 secs ago

user114359

12:08 PM

That is what it looks like, but that can always change.

user114359

Hah, a SO-only user linking to our meta. I like it.

Learner

two users login to a IIS site on windows server,

one user access it from Australia, another one from France,

Would i expect IIS to run both codes in there own threads and never mix the resutlts up ?

Link TheProgrammer

@durron597 @Snowman I think I'll ask that question now on SO

user114359

@Learner I do not know much about IIS. However, the typical processing model for a server is to have a thread pool. When a request comes in, grab an idle thread and assign the request to it so it can service the request. Threads should normally avoid using shared memory because that can cause subtle bugs. In other words, I think the answer to your question is "yes" but I cannot say for sure.

Learner

what if one of class in the code is static, would each user going to get own copy of static class or they going to share same instance

let say dataAccess class is static

both user try to access data at same time

Telastyn

12:21 PM

It depends. It is extremely rare for websites to be hosted on a single machine these days.

Learner

@Telastyn good point, but I am trying to understand how static classes work

Thomas Owens

1

Q: Static classes in web applications

Is it a bad choice to use static classes in web applications? Lets say one is using a static class for role validation, if user is in role x. Im thinking that it might queue up to use the class when there is a lot of users. Any suggestions?

c# asp.net-mvc static

Is that what you were looking for?

Also, this one:

85

Q: Are static class instances unique to a request or a server in ASP.NET?

On an ASP.NET website, are static classes unique to each web request, or are they instantiated whenever needed and GCed whenever the GC decides to disposed of them? The reason I ask is because I've written some static classes before in C# and the behavior is different than I would have expected....

c# asp.net static

Telastyn

yes, in general, static will make stuff available for all users of the app.

Learner

@ThomasOwens that's what I was looking for

my idea of having static dataAccess class seems terribly wrong

	public static class MyStronglyTypedDataAccessClass
	{
		public static UsersRow GetUser(string userSID)
		{
			var ta = new UsersTableAdapter();
			using (ta.Connection = new SqlConnection(DB.GetConnectionString()))
			{
				return ta.GetBySID(userSID)[0];
			}
		}
	}

this class can be accessed by 100 or more users at a single time

Thomas Owens

Executing the query doesn't seem like something you want to do in a static class.

Learner

12:30 PM

same goes for methods as well

i think

Thomas Owens

Yeah. If you want it to be unique for a particular instance of a user, it should be an instance method

user114359

Please keep in mind that a static class that deals with immutable state or that is re-entrant should be thread-safe.

user114359

This is part of the reason why when I design code I try to minimize object state. I strive for a function to have as few side effects as possible, so it can be reused concurrently. By leaving as much state as possible on the stack frame that helps make it thread-safe, since each thread has its own stack.

Link TheProgrammer

Is there any reason why SO chat is so empty compared to The Whiteboard?

0

Q: Apply setlocation or setsize on JScrollPane

I am trying to do the simplest task possible and yet I am getting no where. I'm trying to set the size and location of a JScrollPane in a JFrame, and it's JViewport is a JTextArea. The following is the code I am using. private static JFrame frame = new JFrame(); public static void main(String....

java swing resize jscrollpane

Duga

12:57 PM

@Snowman: Whoa, I read the post you linked. Sorry, really wasn't aware that I was about to annoy Programmers.SE AND the OP. Yes, indeed the question sails in the ocean of "Do-My-Homework-For-Me". — Martin 42 secs ago

user55340

1:21 PM

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10021268

user55340

Monkey the Cat Hunts for Dinner

►

durron597

@LinkTheProgrammer Before I help you, look at my edit

Do you see why I made the edits I made?

@Snowman I showed him the Where To Start post in SO Close Vote Reviewers ;)

@Snowman Also don't forget that downvoting questions doesn't cost rep.

Link TheProgrammer

1:42 PM

yup

user114359

@durron597 I always forget that. On Programmers I don't care because I have plenty of rep, but on SO I am still trying (in theory) to gain rep faster than I spend it.

user114359

Maybe I should try answering some questions on SO...

durron597

@LinkTheProgrammer Tell me why

Link TheProgrammer

noise

durron597

@LinkTheProgrammer That's not the only change I made

user114359

1:53 PM

Is this question off-topic, given the discussion in the comments?

user114359

0

Q: Bundle library files for use in branches

I work at a company which has it's source code managed using subversion. Our code base is huge (800MB) but we want to work with branching. For what I noticed is that when branching, SVN just duplicates every file which makes it almost impossible to branch because of the space. I would like to se...

version-control svn branching

user114359

Maybe it is just lack of caffeine, but I am not sure if anything needs to be done with that question.

Jimmy Hoffa

Last nights Netflix session results: Honeymoon had good production quality, set and camera work were all clean and atmospheric. The story however asked you to suspend belief on way too many fronts (yeah, maybe you wouldn't go to the hospital? Maybe you would...pretend everything's going to be fine? Maybe you wouldn't try to figure out what's going on?), and the script itself came out terrible because they couldn't address any of those story points without the entire movie unravelling. At one point the couple are yelling at eachother in sentence fragments and changing topics every other stat…

Happy coffee day.

durron597

@Snowman programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/292106/revisions

user114359

@durron597 I am not sure that edit really improves the question, though. I guess in general I am still a little unclear about source control questions to begin with. They feel like questions about software tools, but at the same time they often do not ask about the actual use of the tool (e.g. what command to type in).

durron597

1:57 PM

@Snowman if anything it's too broad, but it's not off topic.

user114359

In the end, a valid answer for most of those questions would feel more like an SO answer: less conceptual and more real-world.

Thomas Owens

@Snowman What? We are real-world.

durron597

cv-pls migrate to SO programmers.stackexchange.com/review/close/112992

Thomas Owens

The question isn't too broad or off-topic...I'm not sure how to answer it, but I haven't thought of it.

@durron597 Why>

user114359

@ThomasOwens well yeah, conceptual questions do have a real-world goal. But I mean a good question on this site should not involve much code or what commands to type into a software tool

durron597

1:59 PM

@ThomasOwens The question boils down to "how do I urlencode +?"

Thomas Owens

@Snowman I don't think it's asking for commands. It's asking for how to structure a project and repositories and branches and tags and things like that. Generally what features/functions in a tool can help.

user114359

This is why I am still unclear on the topic of source control questions here. I know they are generally on-topic, I am just not sure what metric to use for up/down/close votes.

user114359

@ThomasOwens I am talking in the general case

user114359

Yes some of them are clearly on or off topic, it just seems to me there is a big gray area. But that is probably just my own lack of understanding.

Unihedron

Heyo Programmers.SE!

Telastyn

2:03 PM

ugh, North Korea making new timezone

Unihedron

... Bye!

durron597

I think this is a great question now that the english has been fixed

1

Q: How can I manage trash users?

I created a system which hopefully will have many users. We are afraid our database will fill of trash users which take high-demand usernames, or maybe they just register and never come back. I know this is common, I do this myself, as I have 3 google accounts, but I only use 1. How can a large ...

scalability users

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn fixing other timezones you mean.

Telastyn

no, they're shifting theirs to be 30 mins offset from South Korea/Japan

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn it's not their fault if the other countries won't listen to the wisdom of their supreme leader

durron597

2:09 PM

@Snowman Are you one of the CVs on that trash users question? What about you, @MichaelT? Or @gnat?

Jimmy Hoffa

it's not like you need to support their timezone, do they have anything newer than DOS? What OS could their machines even run? None support their timezone so..

Telastyn

But what if the President wants to bomb them at noon local time?

durron597

@Telastyn Also, unless you maintain a Time library it doesn't matter, just use a library that's smart and well maintained enough

Learner

Would static classes evil --- even if I add ActiveDirector queries to them ?

user114359

@durron597 no

Jimmy Hoffa

2:17 PM

@Telastyn is it tradition that bombings are particularly punctual? I think we can give a pass for ones that are a bit late.

Learner

I hate static classes

Telastyn

static state is evil, not static classes so much.

gnat

@durron597 retracted mine after your edit

durron597

@gnat Thanks

gnat

@durron597 it still feels somewhat... slippery mind you. But not enough to trigger my vote anymore. And which is maybe even more important, your edit completely invalidated my reasoning when I cast it. I typically don't care when my prior CVs go slightly off after question edits, but some cases are just way too clear cut to keep them

durron597

2:24 PM

@gnat It might still be too broad, I agree, but mostly the problem with it is the guy's terrible English

I think it's one of those cases where it's like "is this too broad? <reads answers> no, it isn't, they've pretty much nailed it in a couple of paragraphs"

gnat

@durron597 I would say, somewhat broad, possibly not really too broad. I'm on the fence on it. Anyway, it's not my headache anymore, after retract system simply won't let me vote again

Learner

@Telastyn same thing really

based on advises you should never use static class or method, when you are querying anything

Telastyn

Not the same thing

user114359

@Learner Never use the word "never"

Learner

@Snowman I am changing all of my static classes to instance ones

Telastyn

2:34 PM

the reason you shouldn't use static methods for querying is that it makes it hard to replace them with something else.

Learner

in my static classes I was making DataBase and ActiveDirectory queries

Telastyn

that is not the worst violation in the world, and sometimes, YAGNI.

Learner

@Telastyn I am not sure what does that means

Jimmy Hoffa

@Learner for you, that's probably actually a very good thing. If you don't really understand static well, don't use it until you do. It can be dangerous, and even in the hands of those who are comfortable with it, it's still used very sparingly and avoided as much as possible.

user114359

In general, yes I would prefer instance methods to static methods. I reserve static methods for when I really need it to be static, normally because it is a factory method or other mechanism for object creation (maybe it caches objects, for example).

user114359

2:37 PM

Anymore in modern languages and their implementations, object creation is fairly cheap. Memory is huge, stacks are tall. Being slightly less efficient is not a big deal.

Learner

@Snowman in other words, keeps it in heap

Telastyn

no, not in other words.

user114359

well the method is not on the heap either way, but allocating an object will put it on the heap or stack (depending on the language). My point is an extra allocation of a lean object is not a big deal no matter where you put it.

Learner

don't know when and how I will get static classes concept

I read hundreds of lines of explanation on them

I maybe only need to know when I must use them

user114359

which programming language?

Learner

2:42 PM

C#

Jimmy Hoffa

Lots of times newer folks use statics frequently because they simply don't know how to deal with the instantiation and juggling instances properly and how to propagate the same instance throughout their application by design - and so they just fall back on using static. It's probably good practice for newer C# folk to make a no-statics rule just to force them to get used to how you share an instance around your application by design rather than by static

durron597

@gnat Trash users just appeared on my HNQ

Learner

everyone says static classes are not thread-safe, is there any proof

gnat

@durron597 yeah I noticed. Being 7 hours old, it's unlikely to become troublesome, as at this moment, aging factor kicks in. Still, worth keeping an eye for lemming "answers"

Learner

@JimmyHoffa i like that suggestion

user114359

2:57 PM

@Learner that is a bit broad. Any class or method can be thread-safe or not thread-safe. Static methods on classes are perhaps easier to misuse that way, but there is nothing inherent in them one way or the other.

user114359

Static methods that manipulate static state are at risk for being thread-unsafe, which is why some form of synchronization is useful.

user55340

3:09 PM

@Learner Statics are accessible from all threads. Modifying state from multiple places isn't safe. Statics that don't modify state are of no concern.

Learner

3:19 PM

hmmm

i learned more here in 2 days then 4 years in C# room

user114359

I have an M.S. in C.S. and I have learned more in the real world than years in the classroom.

user114359

There is a difference between submitting a lab for a grade and overseeing a $14 million project with 20 developers who have to deliver something that works.

user114359

Customers don't care if I used the data structure the professor wants me to use. They just want code that works and is not as full of bugs as a block of swiss cheese is of holes.

Learner

@Snowman that's so true

Telastyn

there's a C# room?

user114359

3:29 PM

C#

General discussions about the c# language, Squirrels | gist.gi...

8

Jimmy Hoffa

@Telastyn yeah, great if you want to find folks to talk about the latest version of the razer engine or how cool AOP with this library and IoC with that library and MVC can be bundled with MVVM with TypeScript in WinRT and every other .NET library or MS tech buzzword you can come up with

Telastyn

oh, SO chat. bleh.

Jimmy Hoffa

Not really my cuppa. C#'s a solid language, .NET's a great runtime with a spectacular standard library. Technical details don't really mean much anymore to me, is the great thing about P.SE, it's higher level conceptual stuff that's relevant regardless of the technical implementations at play.

gnat

@durron597 meta.stackexchange.com/questions/262134/…

> funny how an answer supposed to justify decline of feature request made a solid point in favor of implementing it. "To see why it is so, take a closer look at what SE team folks recommend in another answer..."

Telastyn

yeah, gluing together libraries isn't my thing.

but sadly this new job.

there's nothing creative or challenging about that except maintaining your patience in the face of libraries doing stupid crap and things failing inexplicably.

user114359

3:38 PM

Adapter pattern

In software engineering, the adapter pattern is a software design pattern that allows the interface of an existing class to be used from another interface. It is often used to make existing classes work with others without modifying their source code. == Definition == An adapter helps two incompatible interfaces to work together. This is the real world definition for an adapter. Interfaces may be incompatible but the inner functionality should suit the need. The Adapter design pattern allows otherwise incompatible classes to work together by converting the interface of one class into an interface...

user114359

Yawn.

Thomas Owens

@Telastyn I think 90% of software development is either glueing together libraries or making minor changes / fixes inside of libraries.

Telastyn

yup.

one of my old coworkers likened it to plumbing.

Learner

Brb

Thomas Owens

Relevant:

Software factory

Software factory refers to a structured collection of related software assets that aids in producing computer software applications or software components according to specific, externally defined end-user requirements through an assembly process. A software factory applies manufacturing techniques and principles to software development to mimic the benefits of traditional manufacturing. Software factories are generally involved with outsourced software creation. == Description == In software engineering and enterprise software architecture, a software factory is a software product line ...

I'm not saying that's a good idea. But it's an interesting idea.

Every once in a while, you need to build a new piece. But if you build the pieces right (small, modular, testable), you can integrate them in new and interesting ways from a user's perspective.

But it's more boring for a developer.

Telastyn

3:48 PM

unfortunately, requirements are often too... particular to allow that.

and rightfully so - if you can build what the business needs quickly and easily with off the shelf parts, there's little value that your company is providing over what another company could build just as quickly.

Thomas Owens

You allocate requirements to small components. If a new requirement comes along, you either reuse or fork.

@Telastyn I think it's more suitable to a company that's building more than just software, where software is part of a larger system.

Telastyn

I can see that

user114359

This is the same line of thought that gave us stuff like SharePoint and other point-and-click development solutions.

user114359

In theory you can link together a bunch of modules and have a program, but that program will suck.

durron597

@gnat He's saying that there are usually so few comments that it's an edge case for the moderator to have to find "exactly the right comment"

So needing my FR is an edge case of an edge case

Thomas Owens

3:54 PM

@Snowman It depends. I think it could be done right for some things.

Any organization trying to implement such a thing really needs to think long and hard before doing it, though.

It's not something that you can do ad-hoc.

gnat

@durron597 whatever. He couldn't hide the point that comments are now endorsed as integral part of the flagging process. From there, it took just minor leap to find example of how it is done right (free-form close reasons). After that, matters of edge case became moot

durron597

@gnat Free form close reasons automatically generate a comment

I think what you're saying is that custom flags, plus my feature request should also automatically generate a comment?

@gnat If that's what you're saying your post doesn't make that clear.

user114359

Comments are both ephemeral and an integral part of the flagging process. At least that is what I am reading.

gnat

@durron597 that's implementation detail. On a higher level, it's a moderation action, connected with comment, which is presented in respective dialog. Free-form reasons match. Commented flags match. The latter only slightly differs from your proposal in that flag comment additionally is exposed as regular one

durron597

@gnat It's not an implementation detail. Flag messages being moderators eyes only (and currently anonymous, iirc!) is very different from a public, non-anonymous comment.

@ThomasOwens Are custom flag reasons anonymous?

gnat

4:06 PM

@durron597 yeah I noticed that part. My answer essentially split your proposal to two, one where comments are okay to be publicly exposed and another when these are not. To justify first part turned out dead easy, thanks to Shog. I am still thinking about how to chew that "other" part. It's much harder...

...because, you see, every time I think about comment intended only for moderator eyes, I need to also figure how to address counter-argument "Use custom flag"

Thomas Owens

@durron597 I have no idea. I usually don't look for that information.

gnat

@durron597 IIRC only comments flags are anonymous, I've seen moderators complaining about that at MSE

durron597

4:31 PM

@gnat Complaining that they wish comment flags weren't, or that NAA flags were?

gnat

4:48 PM

@durron597 they wish non-anonymous comments flags

19

Q: Why can't moderators see who flagged a comment?

Why can't moderators see who flagged a comment? I read this old post on the topic, but I don't really understand Shog's response on the linked post - maybe it would've made sense to me if I was on SO in 2010, but from where I stand now, I don't really see what all this talk about discouraging pe...

discussion moderator-tools comment-flags

Duga

5:21 PM

Your question isn't a good fit for Stack Overflow. As your question is more conceptual it may be a better fit for programmers.stackexchange.com — MattH 28 secs ago

user114359

5:46 PM

I just did a major edit on this question (it came up in the CV-review queue) to help make it more clear (I suspect the asker is a non-native English speaker). It currently has 3 CVs for being unclear: is this a good enough edit to reverse those votes? Does it need more work? What does everyone else think?

user114359

0

Q: Logical Structure of PyQt or PySide application that conforms to reusability

I am making a PyQt application that has a QDialog UI as main widget that contains QTabWidget. This QTabWidget has two tabs, each tabs sits in a source folder under _widget. My goal is to build a reusable QDialog which can be reused in other software projects at the "source file" level. Rather th...

design python software pyqt4

Ixrec

6:18 PM

I think it is no longer unclear, but I would guess it's too broad or opinion-based

unless PyQt imposes a lot of constraints on file structure (I know nothing about it)

user114359

Normally I would consider "how do I structure a project" to be on the border of POB. However, Qt Designer and other related tools do impose structure on projects. I have used them before and can vouch for that: however, it was over a year ago and the brain cells responsible for remembering the details have since been relegated to remember random facts about other stuff, e.g. The Walking Dead.

user114359

In other words, I am pretty sure this question is objectively answerable even though I cannot provide an answer myself offhand.

Ixrec

good enough for me

/upvotes

user41796

Likewise, I'm concerned it's still too broad but I retracted my close vote against it.

user114359

I think at its core it is at least an okay question, which is what gave me pause in the review queue. I admit I had to read it two or three times to grok it though, which is why I edited it.

user41796

6:26 PM

@durron597 No, custom flags are not anonymous. They show who raised the flag. @gnat's recollection is correct - standard flags on comments are anonymous.

user41796

@Snowman I wasn't able to understand it, hence the "unclear..." vote

whatsisname

is it possible to merge another chatroom into this one

user15026

Not as far as I am aware?

whatsisname

I want to comment on something from another chatroom but I don't feel like just rambling to the single guy

user114359

invite him into this room?

Thomas Owens

6:32 PM

Yeah.

If you invite, you can ignore rep limits.

Ixrec

@ThomasOwens does everyone have this power?

Thomas Owens

@Ixrec Anyone who can invite someone into the room, I think.

Which is anyone with an account that can chat.

whatsisname

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/26691/… the last post is the one that made me wonder

user41796

6:50 PM

@whatsisname It's possible to move comments from one room to another. Generally, it's done to remove garbage comments from a main room. Not sure I've seen someone merge a smaller room into a larger one.

Duga

@Jay With that example, I don't belive you can know, based on knowledge of the String itself. Try asking programmers.stackexchange.com — Trobbins 58 secs ago

user41796

I could possibly see move the few comments between you and vaxquis here, but I wouldn't want to move that whole room's chat history here.

whatsisname

right

it doesn't really matter though

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens which is always the problem, low rep users never have chat accounts and there's no way to communicate to them to make one..

user114359

Anyone else in this private beta? Oddly enough it is turning out not to be a train wreck:

user114359

7:03 PM

user41796

@Snowman With heavy community moderation to keep out the obvious trolls, I could see that site doing very well. There's quite a few sub-fields of research in that arena.

user114359

Having googled a few questions in that subject area, I can attest to the fact that "all roads lead to Yahoo! Answers" which is a huge disappointment. When I saw this one in Area 51 I jumped on it because the SE model works so well.

user41796

Agreed. Would be nice to see a solid Q&A site backed with evidence

user114359

That is the consensus on its Meta site: anecdotes are fine, but evidence is preferred. Not as extreme as Skeptics.SE or CrossValidated.SE, but definitely throw in a link or a quote. Also, use medical terminology, not slang. It really does help.

Jimmy Hoffa

7:18 PM

@Snowman ...pretty sure google would disagree with you on where searches for anything in that site would lead you. Also, they may need to come up with a way to exclude it from the hot questions list and or side bar suggestions to keep the rest of the network from being NSFW.

@GlenH7 Klaatu Barada Nikto

I mean, there's a difference between outright explicit content and NSFW, they will surely ensure there's nothing explicit but what's safe to be transmitted on any corporate network is a much more conservative bar than just "explicit"

Imagine the phrases you could find visible on your screen in the side bar of P.SE with that site in the network, now imagine you're working in an open office environment..

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Yeah, some of those could get .... awkward

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa Step 1: Stop the open office environment. It's bad.

user114359

@JimmyHoffa try searching for anything sex-related on Google, personally I find Yahoo pops up more often than not and the quality is VERY low there.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens work on that, let me know when you're succesful... We'll all appreciate it.

user114359

@JimmyHoffa like I said, there are already meta discussions about this and the community so far has done a good job keeping it professional (doctor's office professional, not programmer's office professional).

Ashley Davies

7:26 PM

Hey everyone, hope you don't mind me picking your brains for a moment - which SE Q&A site would I put a question where I have working code which I think is implemented badly - I think it's possibly beyond the scope of CodeReview: that is, probably has fundamental misunderstandings of threading & networking.

user41796

@AshleyDavies Does it work?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman yeah, but if the site is going to have it's content splashed across the network, it kinda needs to be programmers office professional or excluded from sidebars is my point

Ashley Davies

It does, yeah, but I think it's likely to break down in a real environment. I'm 99% sure it goes in CodeReview but just wanted to check

Jimmy Hoffa

@AshleyDavies It goes in Code Review

user41796

@AshleyDavies I'd start with CR and double check against their check-list (see their help/on-topic page) and go from there. Likewise, you can drop a post in their meta and ask if it's on-topic or not.

Thomas Owens

7:28 PM

@AshleyDavies I'd recommend either asking on the Code Review Meta site to see if they want it or putting a really well-written question on Code Review and then flagging it for migration if it gets down votes or close votes.

Ashley Davies

Okay, I think I'll go with CodeReview then -- Thanks! And sorry for derailing your topic of discussion!

Jimmy Hoffa

@AshleyDavies Have a nice day

Ashley Davies

@JimmyHoffa You too :')

user41796

@JimmyHoffa Cranky on a Friday?

Thomas Owens

Does it make sense to have a tree that is build by accept()-ing data and flowing it down branches of the tree so that it's appropriately handled?

Each node would accept() data elements. It would either hand it off to an existing child or make a new child.

user41796

7:30 PM

@ThomasOwens So you're inserting a sub-tree within a larger tree?

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens Yes. Better though is to return new trees each time referencing the old tree

Duga

Questions that ask "where do I start" are typically too broad and are not a good fit for this site. People have their own method for approaching the problem and because of this there cannot be a correct answer. Give a good read over Where to Start, then address your post. — gunr2171 26 secs ago

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 It's one tree. From the root, I have one level of nodes. That level has another level of nodes. It's root+1+2+3+4 levels. deep.

Each level is of the same type of node, though.

Jimmy Hoffa

treeNode.AddChild(tree) should return a new tree rather than modifying treeNode because if it modifies it, now it's modifying treeNodes parent as well, etc

Thomas Owens

There are 5 types of nodes (including the root).

user41796

7:32 PM

@ThomasOwens Okay, so you'll pass a soon-to-be-node into the tree and the tree figures out where to stash the soon-to-be-node?

Thomas Owens

I'm not really adding a child, though. I'm passing a chunk of data from the highest level to the lowest level, creating a child if needed.

user114359

It is now Whiskey O'clock and work is done for the week.

user41796

@Snowman That was 5 hours ago, amirite?

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens I get that, but my point is your "accept" should generate a new tree not modify the one in place.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa That seems clumsy.

What advantage would that have?

user114359

7:33 PM

@GlenH7 I may be WFH today but I need to be halfway sober while working.

user41796

Ignoring concerns of immutability, I think that's a reasonable enough approach for what you described

user41796

> I'm sorry.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens it becomes very clear what happens to the rest of the tree that you just meddled with - nothing.

when you're doing this type of step-by-step processing, mutating in place ends up making things difficult down the road when you want to add a step inbetween

Thomas Owens

My biggest problem is that I don't want to have an accept() method in the classes...once it's built, I don't want someone to call accept().

That right there seems...wrong.

user114359

@ThomasOwens Use a builder?

user41796

7:35 PM

I could see using the approach you describe when you've got a potentially very large object tree that starts with a much smaller local representation and is updated as elements need to be retrieved.

Thomas Owens

@Snowman I would essentially need 5 builders.

Jimmy Hoffa

It's one scenario I full stand behind immutability even for OO style code - so that you get incrementally different versions of the same structure which you incrementally change until you have a final version to commit

@ThomasOwens I really don't like the accept name because I have no idea what it's doing...

I may be misinterpreting what you're doing

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa It takes DataChunk, extracts what that level needs, and determines if the next node down exists or needs to be created and then hands it off to that node.

user114359

@ThomasOwens Would it be possible to post some code on the main site for a design review? I think there is more going on here than is easily communicated in chat.

Thomas Owens

@Snowman I can on Monday.

I think I'm going to go home and clear my head.

Maybe I'll figure it out on my own. Otherwise, question on MOnday.

user114359

7:37 PM

Speaking of which, I have my own design review to post here. I just need to type it up but it is too much work for me because I am lazy right now.

Thomas Owens

I'm going home now.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens you're combining two things, merging raw data with processed data has two separate bodies of logic for their separate concerns: Processing the raw data, and merging data. Either way I think perhaps a better term for what you're doing is Merge instead of accept

I think you should make those two separate pieces in separate methods or so, then how to compose the two steps will become more clear

durron597

7:58 PM

In honor of a particular new private beta #StackExchange launch... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ona-RhLfRfc

Tweeted by aalear on July 28, 2015 at 6:38 PM

Jimmy Hoffa

8:34 PM

> and cannot call non-const functions on any object." you probably mean of any member variable. It actually can call nonconst method of nonconst parameters/local/global vars — RiaD 30 mins ago

^-- is that right or are you right @Snowman?

(genuinely just curious)

Robert Harvey

We don't accept implementation questions here, sorry. Please wait while we migrate your question to Stack Overflow. — Robert Harvey 36 secs ago

user114359

8:50 PM

@JimmyHoffa The const in the function declaration/definition applies to the this pointer, meaning a const member function cannot call non-const functions on this, modify object state, or call non-const functions on const member variables.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman so it can call non-const functions on parameters?

Ixrec

@JimmyHoffa on non-const parameters, yes

user114359

@JimmyHoffa only if the parameter is non-const. Parameters are basically local variables

Jimmy Hoffa

Does it actually serve any purpose? If it's not allowed to modify non-const members, but it can take in an object, call a method on that object handing this to that object's method, and that method could then modify non-const crap on this...

so it can still delegate non-const modification, no?

user114359

@JimmyHoffa if the function is const, it has a const this pointer. That doesn't "fit" into a non-const pointer/reference parameter of another function.

user114359

8:54 PM

you can promote non-const to const, but not the other way.

user114359

which gives it other problems in threaded situations where an object is shared between threads, that is one of the main gripes about const-correctness.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman ah ok, so it has no instance level non-const access, and it's this is basically pointing at one portion of a bisected instance

user114359

pretty much.

user114359

that question looks like it will be migrated to SO, where there are already tons of old questions like this.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman migrate it to yahoo answers and it might get a house! answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120413003149AAfjki9

^-- the bottom of this page is precisely why Yahoo answers deserves to win. Bless you Gu_miho.

user114359

8:59 PM

Yahoo Answers and Expert Sexchange can both vanish off the internet as far as I am concerned.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman but look at that lovely house :( You're just being mean.

user114359

I can't disagree with that

whatsisname

HOW IS BABBY FORMED

HOW GIRL GET PREGNANT

user114359

Magic

whatsisname

that glory of that redeems the terribleness of yahoo answers

Jimmy Hoffa

9:03 PM

@whatsisname I asked my son this recently, he said when a mom and a dad love eachother they get married and the baby grows in the moms belly.

whatsisname

did he turn into a caveman in the process?

gnat

9:43 PM

the guy who mis-guided you from Stack Overflow would better given a read to What goes on Programmers.SE? A guide for Stack Overflow — gnat 1 min ago

^^^ just figured how this poll has fallen at us. Why am I not surprised

user55340

11:45 PM

Hmm. 4x4tb. Raid 5. No spare: 12 tb of space. With spare, 8 tb of space.

user55340

Going with a spare. 8tb is enough space (until I want more and go through this all again)... and I'd rather not lose my photographs.

user20683

@MichaelT that reminds me, I should get an enclosure for my mac's drive

user20683

since I'll be ideally decommissioning it soon

user55340

amazon.com/WD-Cloud-EX4-Pre-configured-featuring/dp/B00G4JZ30S

user20683

@MichaelT still cheaper than basically any mac

user55340

11:58 PM

That's what I've got - though I bought it piecemeal. Buying it as a 16 tb, it was a "save $75". Buying it diskless was "save $104" and then buying the four drives separate were each another "save $100"

user55340

If I get to the point of needing that much storage again, I'll probably do the same thing again.

C#

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