The Classroom

12:01 AM

Of course, any sort of hardware icon is instantly dated. People don't know even what the small 'floppies' look like. I had to explain the disk pack icon on one site (ux I think). Then it wasn't upvoted because people didn't know it was correct. Icons must all die a horrible screaming death! (Phrase from a friend in HS)

Buffy

@ItamarG3 I didn't reject the tag but was tempted. Give it a sentence explaining diversity gap. It is not obvious what the intent is.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

@ItamarG3 nice

BTW how did you do it?

Buffy

@HenryWHHackv2.0 He asks good questions that get up voted often.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

nice

So if I ask a lot of good questions the look of the site will change.

interesting

Michael0x2a

12:21 AM

I tried asking a question -- does it seem too rambly or broad?

(maybe I should ask in the guidance office?)

Buffy

@HenryWHHackv2.0 Well, no. I thought you meant how come he maxes out on rep frequently.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

@Buffy Oh k

Buffy

@Michael0x2a Always a good idea.

Gypsy Spellweaver

1:41 AM

Ben I.

3:39 AM

Interesting day here on the site. Lots of HNQS action and such... I wish I had been around more today :P

Nevertheless, good night, everyone!

Gypsy Spellweaver

Night

ItamarG3

4:25 AM

Morning

As usual, the day night cycle strikes back

ItamarG3

4:55 AM

Well, answering @Michael0x2a's question was fun

ItamarG3

5:13 AM

and, as usual, I'm all aloooooneee... :(

Gypsy Spellweaver

@ItamarG3 Oh so alone. Poor fella.

ItamarG3

XD

I think you'll really like my answer to Michael's question. It's clearly written by a self-learner with some teaching experience XD

Gypsy Spellweaver

What is ADT in his question?

@ItamarG3 I think I grok the question, dimly.

Forgetting about the data structure part and the hashmap part. I think multiple layers of abstraction is referring to a sub class of a sub class ... of a class. Correct?

ItamarG3

5:37 AM

Yes and no...

Gypsy Spellweaver

5:56 AM

Well.. lacking the java background to work from, I'm thinking the plan might be to have 2 or 3 options for implementing on of the layers of the abstraction, and show how the layer above works the same, no matter which version is used.

ItamarG3

6:15 AM

clever.

Gypsy Spellweaver

Just my 2¢. Keep the change.

ItamarG3

You know that when people refer to other people's thoughts, they use the phrase "A penny for your thoughts", meaning that they value their own opinions twice as much?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Advice is only worth what you pay for it.

ItamarG3

XD

so wait, isn't it 2 am in the US?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Eastern Daylight time (New York) yes. California is 11PM

ItamarG3

6:23 AM

oh my. They are still on the 24th

It's a big world after all

Gypsy Spellweaver

It is still 6:23 PM, Mon. AoE

ItamarG3

AoE?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Anywhere on Earth, UTC -12:00

worldtimeserver.com/time-zones/aoe

ItamarG3

7:00 AM

node js. where has it been all my life??

Gypsy Spellweaver

7:39 AM

@ItamarG3 now I also see some purists that need refactoring.

Before I go flying off the handle @ItamarG3, riddle me this: What is being taught in CS this century that makes mutable variable so incomprehensible to the students, and seemingly to their instructors at times?

ItamarG3

C++ is a dying language in the educational system in Israel

Gypsy Spellweaver

Without pulling up my transcripts, I don't know how many intro-level courses I've been in, yet I've never encountered one student becoming lost with x=x+1;

Ben I.

11:45 AM

@GypsySpellweaver No one appears to get lost there, but you know those students who are quite smart and work really hard, but just don't seem to have a brain for programming?

In my experience, an absolutely tragic percentage of those students just never got that one idea entirely straight.

If you miss mutability, kids don't appear to get lost until much later in the course.

Also, it's not a particularly difficult topic to cover. It only takes 2-3 minutes to cover it pretty thoroughly. Just don't skip it entirely (like I did for my first several years teaching the topic)

You end up dodging a 100% avoidable slow motion trainwreck.

ItamarG3

that's not so nice...

Buffy

And, don't try to teach anything just once. Reinforcement is the key.

TuringTux

12:05 PM

Hello World

Gypsy Spellweaver

@BenI. I was wondering. So many posts (Qs, As, and comments) have made reference to the difficulty of groking x=x+1 for so many students, that I thought maybe it was something in the water.

(Or maybe the cheese :D)

TuringTux

I've recently (yesterday) gained the ability to review close votes. Now I'm looking at this item of the review queue. For me, it seems definitely too broad in its current state. However, this might change if OP edits in details into his question. What is the recommended action in this case? (Leave open, close, skip, just wait and click nothing?)

Thanks in advance for helping :)

Gypsy Spellweaver

@TuringTux In my experience, without reading the Q, only your post here, close is often best for too broad.

If it remains open it might get answers

TuringTux

Okay. Thank you.

Gypsy Spellweaver

The answers might force the OP to edit the Q so that the answer is not invalidated.

That limits what the OP can do to "fix" the Q.

TuringTux

12:14 PM

I'll browse MSE and MSO a little, looking at what they have to say. After that, I think I'll cast my first vote.

ItamarG3

It's better to close it, invite op to the guidance office and then take things from there.

Not necessarily in that order

TuringTux

I also found a MSE post here:

45

Q: How soon should I "vote to close"?

Since it's currently impossible to delete a "vote to close",* when I see a poorly asked question, should I immediately vote to close, or should I comment, and give the OP a chance to improve his question? Waiting increases the chance that I'll forget, and never vote to close, potentially leading...

My vote is now cast.

Ben I.

:)

Welcome to the club!!!

TuringTux

Thank you :)

-- What I find most interesting about the Stack Exchange network is that there is always some new site I didn't know before: stackmod.blog

Just found this by browsing through Mod FAQs on MSE.

no comprende

@BenI. mutability, it's not just for breakfast anymore. Yeah, it took a while for my co-instructor and I to see that some students miss this tiny point, and then later topple headlong like Elmer Fudd's Giant in the Buggs Bunny version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Then all the King's horses and all the King's men... Um, nevermind.

Ben I.

12:25 PM

It took me a long time to figure it out, too.

Gypsy Spellweaver

@BenI. To figure out mutability, or that some students were missing it?

Ben I.

That kids were missing it.

It's not exactly obvious that it needs to get covered

no comprende

So, cars. Complex, right? But with a little experience squirming around underneath, you can build up a good model of the systems and how they fit together. So when your fiancee says, "listen to this noise", you can confidently say: it is the heatshield on the exhaust system, which is loose because the aluminum corroded with contact to the steel parts, like a little battery when it gets wet over and over...

Gypsy Spellweaver

Perhaps the abstraction away from the machine is what's causing the disconnect.

:nod at @nocomprende:

no comprende

Yes. Did I say "yes"? Yes.

"For this reason, you should, from the very first,seeking the guidance of an eminent Guru, set about to know the real truths, which have no birth or death." - Milarepa

TuringTux

12:30 PM

5

Q: Topic Challenge #01: the Review Spew

“The time has come,” the Meta said, “To speak of many things; Of Challenges, of brand new tags Of S.E. shirts as bling. And why some lesson didn’t work And making worksheets zing.” - With Apologies to Lewis Carroll Indeed, the time has come! Our first question challenge...

discussion topic-challenges

Sadly, there wasn't much activitiy here, was there?

-- At least, there weren't many questions.

no comprende

I thought about it, t had other things on my mind. My questions tend to not be well received when I ask them. Probably the fault is in my way of asking.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I don't recall how I learnt it (autodidact here). In the dozen intro-level classes I've sat through, near as I can recall, the concept was introduced with _ variable_ = something _ is an assignment _statement that stores something in some memory location (at the computer's discretion) that we're going to call ~variable`.

no comprende

Nothing else in nature has variables.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I have yet to see any student get tripped by the concept (that covers junior high, high school, and college level)

@nocomprende Says who?

What time is sunset? Where in the sky is a given object?

no comprende

Example please? I need to go soon though

SunsetTime = new Time... Nnnt!

Gypsy Spellweaver

12:37 PM

What in nature (not math about nature) is a constant

no comprende

mutable variables, is tyat redundant?

Gypsy Spellweaver

It is redundant, and intentionally by those that think mutation is evil.

no comprende

"Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

Gypsy Spellweaver

Just like so many people think goto is devil spawn.

What Turing-style computer doesn't do goto?

All of our 3rd gen, 4th gen languages are syntactic sugar for machine code anyway ;P

no comprende

You know that, and I know that, but some bigheads apparently do not! And they are teaching.

Gone, gone, gone to work, gone completely to work, bodhi, svahà

(Being understood as: TTFN)

Gypsy Spellweaver

12:42 PM

I guess step one is to verify, impress, repeat, and reiterate that ` math ≠ computer ` each can model the other, but not interchangeable.

tata

no comprende

Good start.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I'm soon to return to the hospital. Some resident spoke out of turn and now the partner is worried about loosing her toes on the right foot.

My turn to be a counselor.

TuringTux

1:15 PM

Do I have to have written something in a chat room here to be @-pingable? Or is it enough if I joined once?

thesecretmaster

1:27 PM

You're pingable

But only for ~7 days iirc

TuringTux

Okay, thanks.

Ben I.

2:10 PM

@TuringTux You do have to write something to become pingable

ItamarG3

generic Javascript is so difficult.

Ben I.

3:16 PM

I thought @heather might get a kick out of this :)

"You know lightning, right? When electric charge builds up in a cloud and then discharges in a giant spark? Ask me why that happens." "Why does tha--" "No clue. We think it's related to the hair thing."

heather

heheh

you ever heard the classic physics joke about Pauli?

So when Pauli dies, he goes to be with God, and God says, 'since you were such an amazing theoretical physicist, I'll explain anything you want to know to you.' So Pauli says, 'you know, Lord, I've spent my whole life working on quantum theory, and there's a few things I don't quite get. Could you explain those to me?' So God rolls out a blackboard and explains. And then Pauli says, 'Lord, there's just one more thing I'd like to know. How does turbulence work?'

And God said, 'Well...I'm still working that one out myself.'

Ben I.

:)

ItamarG3

Then you also have the debate about the correctness of Newton's third law... Yikes.

guess I won't be mortaring today :P

Ben I.

@ItamarG3 There are still 8.5 hours left to go, so never say never. (Though I admit it seems unlikely for me as well)

ItamarG3

:D

I don't look at the "recent rep changes" so the counter is at 463.

XD

(over 3 days... so...)

Ben I.

3:28 PM

All I want is the Legendary badge. That's all. Is it too much to ask?

At this rate, it will take me quite a while.

ItamarG3

Not if you were john skeet.

He has a rep cap streak

Ben I.

Well, if we had about 1000x more users, we could get folks on big streaks as well :)

ItamarG3

4:50 PM

@BenI. we'll get there, don't worry

thesecretmaster

5:18 PM

I'm just curious, why am I the only DV on this answer when there's an upvoted comment talking about the low quality of the answer.

Ellen Spertus

In general, I'm unlikely to downvote because

1. It costs reputation.

2. I don't want to discourage new users.

ItamarG3

Because my comment is obsolete, but I left it there so that OP might do more editing.

Ellen Spertus

I'm not saying that these are good or defensible reasons.

ItamarG3

@EllenSpertus 1 rep. You easily get more than 10x in a single day

thesecretmaster

And downvotes are the only way to keep quality up.

Ellen Spertus

5:20 PM

@ItamarG3 You're absolutely right.

ItamarG3

@EllenSpertus That's something else... Do we just allow anything on the site? Should we discourage new users who post LQ?

Ellen Spertus

@thesecretmaster Right now, I'm more focused on # of users than quality.

ItamarG3

both

both should be focused upon

And q/d is the last metric we have to fix. Because :

Ellen Spertus

@ItamarG3 I didn't say we should "allow anything on the site", just that I don't often downvote.

thesecretmaster

The best way to have more users is to have better content, so that people who find us via google join the site.

ItamarG3

5:22 PM

1. It'll rise naturally with the rise in # of users

2. it'll "trigger" consideration for graduation. We are nowhere near to being ready for that.

but reason #1 is much more important...

thesecretmaster

qpd will rise with users and users will rise with content quality.

ItamarG3

@EllenSpertus I know :). It was a hypothetical question

thesecretmaster

Nobody wants to join a site which doesn't have good quality standards.

The answer literally includes (happily) "Speculation of course!"

That's not what I want to see on this site

ItamarG3

Fair point.

but my vote is locked.

unless someone dummy edits the question.

thesecretmaster

The way I vote is: Is this the kind of thing I want to see more of on our site?

@ItamarG3 You could edit in a link to the wikipedia article. Unfortunatly, it gives us no idea which article it's refrencing.

ItamarG3

5:29 PM

@thesecretmaster I know which article

thesecretmaster

5:41 PM

I feel like the people in this room should be the people most concerned with building a high quality repository of knowledge. Once we have the high quality material, the experts will come. But if we upvote anything that isn't utter garbage, someone who visits our site will see that we aren't dedicated to building a high quality repository of knowledge, and that we're more concerned with random numbers like user count and reputation

I honestly don't care about losing a user like this "ron" who's only other answer is currently -3 if it helps us keep our quality up.

ItamarG3

But then we turn into SO

thesecretmaster

How so?

ItamarG3

vicious rep vampires who downvote into oblivion anything just a bit out of line.

the first part follows the second.

how many downvoted answers do you usually see on SO?

Ellen Spertus

@thesecretmaster People are different, depending on their personal philosophies, experience, etc. At other times in my life, I was much more focused on penalizing defectors (using Prisoner's Dilemma language). Now, I'm more focused on being welcoming to newcomers. Communities need all types.

ItamarG3

and how many Downvoted questions

@EllenSpertus I'm uncomfortable with your new question...

thesecretmaster

5:48 PM

I'm not suggesting downvoting anything that's slightly out of line. I'm suggesting that we don't upvote mediocrity.

Ellen Spertus

I don't particularly expect you to agree with me, just letting you know how it looks from my point of view.

ItamarG3

It seems just like the other one, but instead of "women", "people"... Some of the answers addressed that.

Ellen Spertus

@ItamarG3 Thanks for letting me know. I value your opinion.

ItamarG3

@thesecretmaster Where would you draw the line of mediocrity?

Ellen Spertus

@ItamarG3 I think they are two distinct questions, even if they overlap.

thesecretmaster

5:49 PM

Would you say that answer is good?

ItamarG3

~37% overlap, in fact.

(the percentage of women getting CS degrees in 1983)

Ellen Spertus

My first question focused on gender issues, with most answers discussing gender differences in marketing and interests.

thesecretmaster

Also, keep in mind that "turning into SO" means becoming the resource for our community.

The real question I'm asking is "Do you want to build a high quality repository of knowledge?"

ItamarG3

@thesecretmaster I would hate it if we became like SO. We are such a nice community, and not just between high rep users. Also, if we ever pass the 100 CVRs, then I'll freak out.

Ellen Spertus

It's a little late to change my first question to ask people to take into account absolute numbers.

ItamarG3

5:52 PM

Yes. But SO is, mostly, low quality. what you see in Google is what SO is meant to show. but the % of good questions on SO (in a single tag) is less than .1

(I sede'd that. good question is based on answers, answer scores, views and question score, as well as age)

Ben I.

SO has staggeringly low quality a lot of the time. In my view, our average quality is far higher. But that's also the nature of the topics of the sites that we're on.

thesecretmaster

@ItamarG3 Are you suggesting that the way to avoid becoming as low quality as SO is to upvote mediocrity?

ItamarG3

No

Ben I.

We don't get the give me the codez questions

thesecretmaster

@ItamarG3 Then what are you suggesting by saying that SO has low quality posts?

Ben I.

6:01 PM

They downvote like crazy people because the amount of crud that washes over that place is overwhelming. We are smaller, and with a smaller stream of content, we can work with people more readily to help them.

thesecretmaster

And also we get less utter garbage. We've had about 10 spam posts in our existance. Sit in Charcoal HQ, SO gets about that many in an hour.

Ben I.

You say that you're not concerned with losing Ron. I absolutely am concerned about losing him.

thesecretmaster

Why? How is ron beneficial to the site?

ItamarG3

He might have the potential.

And you don't know if he is good or not judging by 2 answers.

Ben I.

I don't give up on people who don't know the ropes. I guess if I were inclined to do that, I wouldn't have become a teacher :P

ItamarG3

6:07 PM

My first answers on SO where horrid, because I didn't understand the system

thesecretmaster

Then invite him to Guidance! Don't upvote garbage because the garbage has "potential".

Ben I.

Why are we talking about upvoting? We were talking about downvoting

ItamarG3

Because one of Ron's answers got 2 upvotes.

and a DV

thesecretmaster

DV is mine

And that nets 8 rep. Even if one of the upvotes turned into a downvote, ron would still have net +1 rep from the answer.

Which is a reward for low quality/mediocre content

ItamarG3

A reward for giving more information which no other answer has.

javascript on SO is generating questions like mad

thesecretmaster

6:13 PM

@ItamarG3 So if I answered "It's possibly because of the factorization of the year", you'd upvote that? It certainly gives info that no other answer has.

ItamarG3

Useful information.

@thesecretmaster was that sarcastic?

thesecretmaster

Could be useful. This answer says "Could be because of Grace Hopper". Should I write a similar answer for every female computer scientist who is about GH's age?

@ItamarG3 Yes

ItamarG3

I know. That was rhetoric, meant to point out that sarcasm isn't nice.

thesecretmaster

I was trying to point out that "useful information" is a slippery slope. Where does useful end and useless begin?

I'm sorry if it came off as rude. That wasn't my intent.

Thank you for reminding me to be nice. I sometimes get kinda worked up about the site, but that's just because I really do care about the site a lot, just like everyone else.

ItamarG3

Take care to remember that. You more than others (mod and such... ;)). I'll use this opportunity to add that I think you're doing a great job as mod :)

thesecretmaster

6:24 PM

Thank you for that, and for the reminder.

ItamarG3

Yes! first javascript answer, upvoted by 1 and accepted. sweet

thesecretmaster

@ItamarG3 I still do think that this is an important conversation to be having, and I'd like to continue it, if that's OK with you.

thesecretmaster

6:48 PM

In my opinion (speaking as a user, not as a mod), "Adds something useful" is a reason not to delete. "Adds something useful" is not a reason to upvote unless that something answers the question well.

If we want to let users with low quality posts achieve their full potential, we should help them in guidance, not reward them for mediocre contributions. We should not be happy with mediocrity and upvote it, we should push them to create better content.

Aurora0001

@EllenSpertus Am I missing something obvious, or did you mean mid-90s here?

Aurora0001

7:18 PM

Or are you just thinking particularly about the time where it decreased rather than the actual trough

That might make more sense actually

ItamarG3

7:29 PM

@thesecretmaster of course.

thesecretmaster

@ItamarG3 Any thoughts on what I said?

ItamarG3

Sorry, I had to go clean the kitchen after the mess I made.

Urrm.... I'll think about it tonight (well, here it is night)

Ellen Spertus

8:06 PM

@Aurora0001 You figured out what I meant. I'll change it to "why did it plummet starting in the mid-80s?"

Actually, I changed it to: Why did interest in CS majors plummet in the United States after the mid-80s?

heather

with the discussion about downvotes/low quality stuff (cc @thesecretmaster) I'd suggest everyone read

35

A: We seem to be over-eager to downvote

Alright, everyone, I'm the bad guy: With 2314 downvotes I am the user on this SE with the most downvotes, not counting the Community bot. In only 10 months of activity I've cast more downvotes than any single one of you. I've also cast 1126 upvotes, for whatever it's worth. So I'll tell you why a...

Aurora0001

@EllenSpertus Ah, I think that's much clearer. I hope that question gets some good answers; it seems like a very interesting phenomenon.

heather

That answer is exactly spot-on on what we as a community should be concerned about.

willing to help users, and guide them towards writing better content, but also willing to downvote and upvote to show that content is good or bad.

the best way to make this site fail is to encourage low-quality content.

professionals will be discouraged and annoyed by it, and they are the ones who make up the backbone of this site.

we will not turn into an SO because of some downvotes.

thesecretmaster is, in my opinion, spot-on.

ItamarG3

I have a fair few places I think a DV is ok. Should I release the volley?

DVs sent...

Henry WH Hack v2.0

9:06 PM

I can't believe I missed @Aurora0001

thesecretmaster

9:32 PM

16

Q: We need to downvote answers more (even mediocre ones)

I propose that: This site's core users MUST much more frequently downvote answers even if they are "only" mediocre or we are going to face a consistent decrease in quality because (each of these is expanded on at length below): All (or at least most) our questions are subjective Anyone can ...

discussion voting

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Greetings! :)

I haven't said anything for 5 hours.

Maybe that other guy

ItamarG3

So when's the next topic challenge

Henry WH Hack v2.0

9:55 PM

What's a topic challenge?

Ellen Spertus

10:30 PM

5

Q: Topic Challenge #01: the Review Spew

“The time has come,” the Meta said, “To speak of many things; Of Challenges, of brand new tags Of S.E. shirts as bling. And why some lesson didn’t work And making worksheets zing.” - With Apologies to Lewis Carroll Indeed, the time has come! Our first question challenge...

discussion topic-challenges

Welcome to chat, @HenryWHHackv2.0. I haven't seen you here before.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Wait seriously?

I have been here since day one.

BTW Thanks for the welcome.

Ben I.

Henry is often in the room, but never posts on the site.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Yeah but never say never. ;)

Ben I.

One day, maybe he'll post a question for all of us as a little present :)

Ellen Spertus

Oops.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

10:34 PM

Oops what?

Ellen Spertus

For not recognizing you as a regular.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

It happens. :)

Ellen Spertus

I figure I'm an exceptionally polite person, because I often introduce myself to the same person several times. :-)

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Jun 20 at 19:59, by Henry WH Hack v2.0

Just reply to the message and say +X.

We meet before. +1

ItamarG3

So when's the next topic challenge?

Ellen Spertus

10:38 PM

@HenryWHHackv2.0 +1

Did I miss the announcement of the winner of the first challenge?

thesecretmaster

10:56 PM

Well, you can figure it out based on the entrants

Ben I.

We have to do an announcement, and then probably a parade and a presidential Medal of Honor. Fireworks display, etc, etc.

Then we will post a meta asking for suggestions for the next topic.

I would guess roughly a week or two?

(that really is a guess. There have been no discussions about it until, erm, right now)

ItamarG3

11:12 PM

I think that it shouldn't be spaced equally, but rather something like "always on a Thursday". Not every Thursday. Sort of like new site launches and public betas. Tuesdays.

@thesecretmaster only for questions. For answers, that's a bit more complicated

@BenI. answered the topic challenge post on meta with this, so we keep track of things

heather

11:48 PM

maybe take a look at how worldbuilding/other sites topic challenges are centered.

thesecretmaster

We had a look at that already, but we can revisit it.

no comprende

I tend to upvote anything that I thought was worth reading, because from my experience on Buddhism SE, hardly any questions or answers got many upvotes. It is years old and amazing content is like +3. Also, someone once told me to appreciate other people's contributions and responses to my posts, and the only hammer I have is the upvote nail.

giv me teh lessnz

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