Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

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Vanadium: Jan 8, 2005

WoW does not even obey the triangle thing because you cannot travel in straight lines most of the time. :colbert:

# ? Jul 31, 2009 14:39

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 08:56

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

Vanadium posted:

WoW does not even obey the triangle thing because you cannot travel in straight lines most of the time.

Flying mounts :colbert:

# ? Jul 31, 2009 15:19

Plorkyeran: Mar 22, 2007; To Escape The Shackles Of The Old Forums, We Must Reject The Tribal Negativity He Endorsed

quadreb posted:

Flying mounts

Until 3.2 very little of the time you spend leveling involves a flying mount.

# ? Jul 31, 2009 15:20

chips: Dec 25, 2004; Mein Führer! I can walk!

Sorry guys but I'm out, you're cramping my style.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327195.600-breaking-down-social-networks-could-foster-innovation.html

# ? Jul 31, 2009 15:36

dancavallaro: Sep 10, 2006; My title sucks

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware / Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > WoW Megathread?

# ? Jul 31, 2009 15:43

Factor Mystic: Mar 20, 2006; Baby's First Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

dancavallaro posted:

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware / Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > WOW6432 Megathread?

# ? Jul 31, 2009 16:54

dancavallaro: Sep 10, 2006; My title sucks

Factor Mystic posted:

I don't get it?

# ? Jul 31, 2009 18:24

Quebec Bagnet: Apr 28, 2009; mess with the honk
you get the bonk; Lipstick Apathy

Factor Mystic posted:

The WOW64 hacks are actually on-topic

# ? Jul 31, 2009 18:48

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

dancavallaro posted:

I don't get it?

It's Windows .. on Windows, man! It's the new wave!

# ? Jul 31, 2009 20:00

Bhaal: Jul 13, 2001; I ain't going down alone; Dr. Infant, MD

chips posted:

Sorry guys but I'm out, you're cramping my style.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327195.600-breaking-down-social-networks-could-foster-innovation.html

That article might need to stay away from all these internet social networks as well. Here's one reason why they get it wrong:

"Bold ideas are typically incompletely formed when first conceived and easily shot down by criticism."

That's true, minus the "bold" part. An idea can be new, good, bad, etc, but the boldness behind a "bold idea" is not actually the idea itself. It's the person who pursues it despite popular criticisms. You can't be bold about something if you're not receiving negative input from somewhere.

Meanwhile, if someone does put an idea out to the big bullies on social networks, get lambasted, discouraged, and drops the idea, it's at least out there for others to possibly take interest and try out themselves. Boldly.

# ? Jul 31, 2009 21:33

1337JiveTurkey: Feb 17, 2005

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/xml/transform/TransformerFactory.html

Apparently just having an XSLT transformer isn't enough. It needs to be instantiated using a factory for extra flexibility. At first I thought it was for the ability to read input and write output as streams, SAX events, STAX events, and DOM trees with the same API. Now I've learned that it's also great for use cases such as the developer having one XSLT implementation which accepts blank namespaces and the server having another XSLT implementation which suffers a fatal error whenever it encounters a blank namespace. :suicide:

# ? Jul 31, 2009 22:16

dancavallaro: Sep 10, 2006; My title sucks

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3178624

Key points to take away from the above thread:

* Java is the same as Javascript
* C and C++ are essentially the same and should be referred to as C/C++
* Python's dynamic typing makes it "too simple to be useful down the road"
* Regular expressions are one of the biggest hurdles for beginning programmers

dancavallaro fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Aug 1, 2009

# ? Aug 1, 2009 04:59

Avenging Dentist: Oct 1, 2005; oh my god is that a circular saw that does not go in my mouth aaaaagh

dancavallaro posted:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3178624

Key points to take away from the above thread:

* Java is the same as Javascript
* C and C++ are essentially the same and should be referred to as C/C++
* Python's dynamic typing makes it "too simple to be useful down the road"
* Regular expressions are one of the biggest hurdles for beginning programmers

God I love Ask/Tell threads about programming. They are the nectar of the gods.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 05:30

Janitor Prime: Jan 22, 2004; PC LOAD LETTER

What da fuck does that mean; Fun Shoe

dancavallaro posted:

* Regular expressions are one of the biggest hurdles for beginning programmers

REs are hard for a complete beginner. How many times have you read a thread asking how to parse html tags with a regular expression?

# ? Aug 1, 2009 05:46

dancavallaro: Sep 10, 2006; My title sucks

MEAT TREAT posted:

REs are hard for a complete beginner. How many times have you read a thread asking how to parse html tags with a regular expression?

Not disagreeing that regexps are difficult for a beginner, but when someone is asking about how to get started with programming why the gently caress should regular expressions be within a ten-foot-pole of the vicinity of the conversation?

# ? Aug 1, 2009 05:48

Zombywuf: Mar 29, 2008

From the Ask/Tell thread:

code:

Template<class T> void printspecial (T &foo) {
  const char *foostring = foo; // Automatically invokes foo.operator const char* or whatever C++ calls it
  // do whatever with foostringstring
}

# ? Aug 1, 2009 12:18

Filburt Shellbach: Nov 6, 2007; Apni tackat say tujay aaj mitta juu gaa!

dancavallaro posted:

when someone is asking about how to get started with programming why the gently caress should regular expressions be within a ten-foot-pole of the vicinity of the conversation?

Why? Regular expressions are useful outside of the context of programming. Good text editors provide regex support. Learning regex can ease you into the exactness of programming while still providing very practical benefits.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 15:33

The Noble Nobbler: Jul 14, 2003

Regular expression can be amazing things, but more likely than not, you'll forget the syntax after you've moved on, so maintaining them is a real pain in the rear end.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 15:48

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

The Noble Nobbler posted:

Regular expression can be amazing things, but more likely than not, you'll forget the syntax after you've moved on, so maintaining them is a real pain in the rear end.

"Moved on"? Regular expressions are an integral part of modern business programming.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 16:03

TSDK: Nov 24, 2003; I got a wooden uploading this one

Programmers should be allowed near regular expressions if and only if they know the difference between a regular language and a context free language, and are able to sketch out a rough proof of the pumping lemma for regular languages.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 16:51

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

No that's dumb

# ? Aug 1, 2009 16:55

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

so dumb the stupidity is infecting me :mad:

Blotto Skorzany fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Aug 1, 2009

# ? Aug 1, 2009 16:55

TSDK: Nov 24, 2003; I got a wooden uploading this one

Sounds like someone didn't like their discrete maths module much.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 17:27

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

Discrete math is fine, your dumb ideas about regexes are not

# ? Aug 1, 2009 17:32

Dijkstracula: Mar 18, 2003; You can't spell 'vector field' without me, Professor!

quote:

I've been lucky to be ahead of the curve since I got into this whole social media thing early. Yay me!

I already hate this thread. There's no way it can go downhi--oh jesus :suicide:

quadreb posted:

"Moved on"? Regular expressions are an integral part of modern business programming.

s/business//

Also, regular expressions in Java are so terribly loving broken, I don't know if there's any correlation between them and "business programming".

edit: Also also, regexes aren't hard to understand, and if you think they are then you are dumb

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:03

BigRedDot: Mar 6, 2008

Dijkstracula posted:

s/business//

I work on sonar systems for submarines, I can say confidently that regular expressions are not at all an integral part of the programming we do.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:16

TSDK: Nov 24, 2003; I got a wooden uploading this one

Otto Skorzeny posted:

Discrete math is fine, your dumb ideas about regexes are not

I also happen to think that programmers should know and understand boolean logic, two's complement arithmetic, have a decent notion of algorithmic complexity and be able to pick out an NP complete problem in a line-up. Likewise any programmers touching multi-threaded code should have a passing familiarity with the dining philosophers problem and the producer-consumer problem.

But then I'm a bit old-school, so maybe being ignorant of the basics is fine and dandy these days.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:17

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

TSDK posted:

I also happen to think that programmers should know and understand boolean logic, two's complement arithmetic, have a decent notion of algorithmic complexity and be able to pick out an NP complete problem in a line-up. Likewise any programmers touching multi-threaded code should have a passing familiarity with the dining philosophers problem and the producer-consumer problem.

You're right on all these things, but you're deluded about regexes (Aho, Sethi and Ullman agree with me btw)

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:22

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

TSDK posted:

boolean logic,
two's complement arithmetic,
have a decent notion of algorithmic complexity and be able to pick out an NP complete problem in a line-up
Likewise any programmers touching multi-threaded code should have a passing familiarity with the dining philosophers problem and the producer-consumer problem.

Yes to all of these, with an "meh" on two's complement arithmetic for most. These are all things you will need to know for implementation.

quote:

Programmers should be allowed near regular expressions if and only if they know the difference between a regular language and a context free language, and are able to sketch out a rough proof of the pumping lemma for regular languages.

Uh...

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:23

Dijkstracula: Mar 18, 2003; You can't spell 'vector field' without me, Professor!

BigRedDot posted:

I work on sonar systems for submarines, I can say confidently that regular expressions are not at all an integral part of the programming we do.

The military as a business? :911:

edit: But seriously, folks. It might not be used in every single program that you write, but people can't deny that its only use is to tabulate reports or whatever. String matching is important and common.

edit 2: TSDK, would you also say that people should only be allowed near a context-free language if they can distinguish it from a context-sensitive language, and prove it using the equivilent context-free pumping lemma?

Dijkstracula fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Aug 1, 2009

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:27

Lonely Wolf: Jan 20, 2003; Will hawk false idols for heaps and heaps of dough.

TSDK posted:

Programmers should be allowed near regular expressions if and only if they know the difference between a regular language and a context free language, and are able to sketch out a rough proof of the pumping lemma for regular languages.

I would be happy with just the first part. :argh:

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:28

Flobbster: Feb 17, 2005; "Cadet Kirk, after the way you cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test I oughta punch you in tha face!"

Can we quit calling regular expressions "regular"? Because most of the implementations in common use now are not.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:32

TSDK: Nov 24, 2003; I got a wooden uploading this one

Otto Skorzeny posted:

You're right on all these things, but you're deluded about regexes (Aho, Sethi and Ullman agree with me btw)

Okay, so the regex was a bit of a light troll on my part (especially the pumping lemma proof), but DFAs aren't exactly difficult. I would expect any decent programmer to be able to grasp the fundamentals without too much trouble.

I would seriously expect anyone who considers him or herself an expert on the topic of regexes to know the difference though.

(And I don't care who agrees or disagrees with me

)

EDIT:

Dijkstracula posted:

edit 2: TSDK, would you also say that people should only be allowed near a context-free language if they can distinguish it from a context-sensitive language, and prove it using the equivilent context-free pumping lemma?

Yes, but only for Java, Ruby and MUMPS.

TSDK fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Aug 1, 2009

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:37

Dijkstracula: Mar 18, 2003; You can't spell 'vector field' without me, Professor!

TSDK posted:

Okay, so the regex was a bit of a light troll on my part (especially the pumping lemma proof), but DFAs aren't exactly difficult. I would expect any decent programmer to be able to grasp the fundamentals without too much trouble.

The thing is, though, that I agree with you that people ought to know about language theory since a) it's important, and b) it's interesting, but for 99% of working programmers (maybe this is what people mean by "business programmers"), understanding the rough idea ("This returns true/false if the input matches against this expression") and the syntax is enough.

Also, as Flobbster said, regular expressions in practice aren't DFAs anyway. Perl's maximal matching via backtracking behaves more like an NFA, and the moment you start dealing with ERA stuff like backreferences, you've thrown yourself out of the regular world altogether. Given that, does it really make sense for every person to read the first fifty pages of Sipser or Aho/Hopcroft anyway?

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:41

TSDK: Nov 24, 2003; I got a wooden uploading this one

Dijkstracula posted:

Given that, does it really make sense for every person to read the first fifty pages of Sipser or Aho/Hopcroft anyway?

If they didn't fancy it, I suppose they could always go with John Martin's Introduction to Languages and the Theory of Computation instead.

But of course, I'm being less than serious by now :q:

# ? Aug 1, 2009 18:51

dancavallaro: Sep 10, 2006; My title sucks

I really hope the thread in A/T doesn't die, it's been really entertaining so far.

Oh and super informative too.

:suicide:

# ? Aug 1, 2009 20:09

enki42: Jun 11, 2001; #ATMLIVESMATTER

Put this Nazi-lover on ignore immediately!

Jesus, you guys with your requirements for programmers should spend a couple weeks working for an internal IT department. I'm fricking thrilled if one of my devs knows what a pointer is.

Stuff like language theory is probably important for an architect, but if a dev is told they are going to be using a regular expression, it's nowhere near a necessity. Twos complement as it relates to business programming today is pretty much the least leaky abstraction ever - it's interesting as a sign of intellectual curiosity if someone knows it, but not knowing it would have exactly zero effect on the quality of code they output.

enki42 fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Aug 1, 2009

# ? Aug 1, 2009 20:30

Seth Turtle: May 6, 2007; by Tiny Fistpump

enki42 posted:

Jesus, you guys with your requirements for programmers should spend a couple weeks working for an internal IT department. I'm fricking thrilled if one of my devs knows what a pointer is.

Stuff like language theory is probably important for an architect, but if a dev is told they are going to be using a regular expression, it's nowhere near a necessity. Twos complement as it relates to business programming today is pretty much the least leaky abstraction ever - it's interesting as a sign of intellectual curiosity if someone knows it, but not knowing it would have exactly zero effect on the quality of code they output.

My coworkers are responsible for developing Flash-based tutorial software for use in the military. It's generally accepted at the company that a Flash script file of 2000 lines is preferable to writing class files, because class files mean "more work".

Our company is well-liked and has lots of business.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 21:46

Bozart: Oct 28, 2006; Give me the finger.

enki42 posted:

Stuff like language theory is probably important for an architect, but if a dev is told they are going to be using a regular expression, it's nowhere near a necessity. Twos complement as it relates to business programming today is pretty much the least leaky abstraction ever - it's interesting as a sign of intellectual curiosity if someone knows it, but not knowing it would have exactly zero effect on the quality of code they output.

I gotta agree 100% on this - if something is important you should be able to learn it, and should have the curiosity to read up on it, but first on the list is usually an in depth knowledge of the problem area that they are dealing with (for me, usually financial or power) and theory a distant second. Or third, from being able to explain what the hell they are doing.

# ? Aug 1, 2009 21:50

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 08:56

Dijkstracula: Mar 18, 2003; You can't spell 'vector field' without me, Professor!

enki42 posted:

Stuff like language theory is probably important for an architect, but if a dev is told they are going to be using a regular expression, it's nowhere near a necessity.

I agree, but I would temper this statement a bit to say that it's important that the person have some sense of what a regular expression can "do" (that is, to have an understanding of the limits of the tool that they use). I'm not saying that they need to know how to knock off proofs using the Pumping Lemma by heart at all, but someone should have an intuition that tells them that you can't determine whether a string is a palendrome using a regular expression.

(I say this only because I know a guy who spent hours trying to write a regex to match something along the lines of "aⁿbⁿ", which is pretty much the canonical non-regular language.)

# ? Aug 1, 2009 22:43

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

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